Search Results for: Spain

Keith Nuthall
A REARGUARD action is being fought by the European Commission to save its ambitious proposals to impose a deadline of 2005 on the complete liberalisation of the EU electricity market. Following pressure from the French government, EU governments have agreed to rule the idea out, preferring a looser deadline, although this has yet to be formally agreed at the Council of Ministers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called for the closure of EU coalmines that perform poorly economically, where they have been lavished with state aid paid with the view to them being restructured and turned around.

In its latest report on state aid to the mining industry, (for the year 2000), Brussels adopts an aggressively negative tone about aid paid by national governments to the coal industry, which it claims “is in crisis, despite several years of state aid.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has tried to make up for its failure to strike fishing access deal with Morocco by forging an improved agreement with its north African neighbour Mauritania which Brussels claims its “the most important with a third country” that it has made.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LOCAL authorities in the European Union are unprepared for the introduction of single European currency notes and coins next January, even though they have a crucial role in spreading information among small businesses and community groups, the European Commission has claimed.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is distributing 1.2 million leaflets this summer, which aims to educate holiday-makers on how to use the single European currency, the Euro, whose notes and coins will be launched in January.

Called “Don’t forget to Pack the Euro,” the leaflet encourages tourists to get used to the concept of the Euro whilst vacationing abroad this summer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPROMISE deal has been struck in Brussels over a transitional regime for the European Union sugar industry, which will last until July 2006, when a comprehensive review is expected to have taken place.

The European Commission had been pressing to deep cuts in market supports, but these have been resisted by some Member States, who are represented on the EU Council of Ministers, which approved the final agreement.…

Keith Nuthall
ALTHOUGH petrol and diesel consumption rose by 45 per cent in the European Union between 1985 and 1998, technological improvements meant pollution by emissions such as nitrogen oxide actually fell during this time, a study from Eurostat, the EU statistical agency has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENVIRONMENTAL statistics are usually harbingers of bad news, so it is refreshing to hear of some positive numbers in the field via the EU’s statistical agency Eurostat’s recent report ‘gaining better knowledge of the pressures on our environment.’…

KEITH NUTHALL
DISCRIMINATORY landing fees in European Union airports, favouring local carriers over those from other EU Member States, have been abolished across the continent according to the European Commission. This follows six years of competition inquiries staged by its officials into the problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CASE brought by the European Commission against the Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds corporations for their alleged involvement in cigarette smuggling has opened at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The Commission has now been formally joined in the case by Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, who have given mandate Commission lawyers to represent them.…