Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
SWEEPING changes to EU motor insurance laws have been proposed by a committee of the European Parliament, with the aim of improving the legal protection of accident victims. A report drawn up by the EP’s legal affairs committee has called on the EU national governments to compel insurers to provide either an offer or a refusal of compensation within three months of receiving a claim and sets an EU-wide minimum of Euro 2 million, (about Pounds 1.2 million), as the sum insured.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESEARCH study is being staged by the European Commission this year into developing a noise modelling tool for the road transport sector, looking at the effectiveness of technical adaptations to tyres, engines and road surfaces and examining the scope for making further noise improvements in these fields.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to develop a new kind of European Union patent, which would allow R&D units to gain protection for their inventions across the EU by making one comparatively simple application, are being discussed. A so-called Community Patent would be easier to operate than the existing European Patents, which have to be translated into the official language of each Member State in which it is to apply.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SPECIAL care should be taken to make sure that GM cotton fibres do not pose a health risk when used in medical products, the European Union’s Scientific Steering Committee, which advises the European Commission on legislation, has said.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A CALL by the European Commission to step up and harmonise Internet security throughout the 15 member countries has generally been welcomed by British business as a useful input to the growing debate on the subject.

“It’s a wake-up call that tells us that the EU is going to be taking information security very seriously and that businesses will face challenges over the next two to three years on how to deal with it,” said Nigel Hickson, head of e-business at the Confederation of British Industry.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SWEDEN has been told by the European Commission to end its favourable tax treatment of beer compared to wine or face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

Under the Swedish alcohol tax regime, wine in the 8.5 per cent to 15 per cent abv band bears tax at about four times the rate for beer in the three per cent to five per cent range, even though it has only three times as much alcohol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWEDEN has been told by the European Commission to end its favourable tax treatment of beer compared to wine or face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

Under the Swedish alcohol tax regime, wine in the 8.5 per cent to 15 per cent abv band bears tax at about four times the rate for beer in the three per cent to five per cent range, even though it has only three times as much alcohol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROTECTION of the public from accidental contamination created by nuclear radiation does not just involve nuclear energy or defence installations, a European Commission report on radiation protection has pointed out. Other industries also use what are known as “elevated contents of naturally occurring radionuclides, (NORMs),” and these sites often require special radioactive clean-ups.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LACK of coordination amongst EU Member States’ research teams regarding the study of BSE has been revealed by a new European inventory of previous work and that in progress, collated by the European Commission.

It has highlighted areas where better links between national research programmes is required.…

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.”…