Search Results for: european union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TALKS were held this week between the USA and the European Union (Feb 13) in Washington DC over the threat of safeguard duties that the Bush administration is threatening to impose on certain steel imports into America. Unusually in a case where the EU is a complainant, the US suggested the formal talks; while accepting the offer in a note to the World Trade Organisation, Brussels said that it also wanted a further round of talks, quoting WTO safeguard rules requiring “adequate opportunity for prior consultation on the measure that the United States is seeking to apply.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA), (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein), should not charge higher VAT on foreign language books than they do on books in native tongues, the court of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) has ruled.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPLIT has emerged in the European Union Council of Ministers over the possible scrapping of subsidies to tobacco producers under a possible review the common market regime, which should happen this year. On one side in a debate at a recent agriculture council were a group including many of the EU’s tobacco growing countries, (Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Greece, Spain and Portugal), who are opposed to cuts, whilst other Member States, (notably Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden), backed a recital to a current proposal to adjust subsidies over the next two years that calls on the EU to review the regime this year “to allow the progressive deletion of subsidies.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A CHALLENGE to the extension of copyright protection after an author’s death in the United States, from 50 to 70 years, is to be heard by the US Supreme Court this year, with a decision being issued from October onwards.…

Keith Nuthall
THE DEVELOPMENT of genetically engineered varieties of vines within the European Union has – in effect – been approved by the EU Council of Ministers, which has agreed detailed changes to the European directive on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been formally asked to approve the shipping agreement negotiated with China last year by the European Commission; the deal covers commercial, safety and security maritime issues and could be formally signed at a planned EU-China summit at the end of this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has sharply increased the amount of new and renovated buildings that would have to comply with new EU rules on energy efficiency, lowering the size threshold for such work from a minimum of 1,000 square metres to 500.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ITALY is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission for insisting that special sports foods be authorised for sale by its national health authorities, even if they are legally sold elsewhere in the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority by European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. A Brussels official in the Commission’s directorate general for fisheries told Fishing News International that a future deal could lead to EU fishing crews being given access to fish US waters and for European factory ships to be allowed to buy stocks from American fishermen at sea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PORK and pig exports from Luxembourg to the rest of the European Union have been banned by the European Commission after classical swine fever was detected on three farms in the Grand Duchy. The transshipment of pigs across the country’s busy motorways linking Germany with France and Belgium has also been blocked, along with the export of porcine semen, ova and embryos.…