Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
MOST governments are keenly concerned about the quality of food their people eat, and quite rightly so. They pass laws to ensure food purity and safety and that’s all very commendable – but it can be overdone.

Regulations can, sometimes deliberately, be drawn up so tightly that they effectively bar the sale of food produced in other countries, thus constituting an impediment to free trade.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SIX European producers of plastic film are being investigated for possible price-fixing, the European Commission announced today Friday. “Dawn raids” on companies in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and the UK, were carried out by competition officials from Brussels, and the national governments on August 22nd announced a spokesman for Mario Monti, EU competition commissioner.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ASSESSMENT of the cost of European Commission plans to introduce legislation to control the emission of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons has been released by Brussels. The study examines the benefits to human health of reducing concentrations of PAH’s in the air to meet different possible limit values, and theh economic costs involved in meeting them.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IN what could almost be said to be a Brussels tradition, the beginning of the long summer break at the European Commission – when officials disappear to the south of France to lap up the Mediterranean sun – is usually heralded by the announcement of a series of legal cases against Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A ROLLING programme of technical reforms to automobile manufacturing standards have been agreed by the European Commission with EU and Japanese carmakers, to design-out features that can harm pedestrians and cyclists and design-in elements that promote their safety.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Central Bank has ordered that non-currency reproductions of Euro banknotes should in future be one-sided only, countermanding earlier rules that allowed double-sides copies to be made. The permitted size of specimen copes will remain at 125 per cent or larger or 75 per cent or smaller of the relevant notes and any material can be used for their reproduction.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
LABELS on drinks sold as health supplements – which contain “healthy” vitamins or minerals – will have to carry specific information as to content and usage under an EU directive approved by EU ministers in a “political agreement” today Thursday.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
TUESDAY’S terror attacks in the US will accelerate moves to create a new European Aviation Safety Agency, EU officials said the following day. The European Parliament approved the proposal last week but also wants to set up a new separate authority, on the lines of the US National Transportation Safety Board, to investigate aircraft accidents and make recommendations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN AND KEITH NUTHALL
HOW will Britain’s museums be affected now that the UK is about to fall into line with other European countries and introduce a so-called droit de suite (NOTE: in italics), giving artists the right to a percentage of the price when their works are re-sold?…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITISH beef producers may be able to claim damages from France if an opinion released today Thursday by an Advocate General of the European Court of Justice over the French ban on imports of UK beef is upheld by the full court.…