Search Results for: european union

Keith Nuthall
INDIA V USA

THE EUROPEAN Union and Bangladesh are to join formal World Trade Organisation talks launched by India, which is challenge changes made by the USA to its rules of origin legislation, that New Delhi claims favour the American and European Union textile industries, unfairly discriminating against Indian producers.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE DEVELOPMENT of alternative energy sources within the European Union is important, not just for improving the environment, but also to help guarantee the security of the EU’s electricity supplies, energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has said.

Speaking at the Sanderstølen Conference 2002, she stressed that with Europe being increasingly reliant on imported fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, the need for the EU to develop its own fuel supplies – such as biofuels – was becoming more important, especially in the current climate of political and economic instability.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EXPOSURE of European Union citizens to man-made radiation increased by about 76 per cent between 1987 and 1996, a new European Commission report has claimed, citing discharges from reprocessing plants in Britain (Sellafield) and Normandy, France, (Cap de la Hague) as the “most important” sources of this pollution increase.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a case at the European Court of Justice in a political battle with the EU Council of Ministers over whether Portuguese pig farmers should receive Euro 16.3 million in state aid. Ministers had allowed Portugal to release the money to refund losses incurred by an earlier order from the Commission that previous subsidies of this value should be repaid, in effect overruling Brussels’ decision.…

Keith Nuthall
A BRUSSELS convention reviewing the EU’s Financial Services Action Plan has concluded that in the wake of the Enron scandal the European Commission should redouble its efforts to make sure that European legislation underpins anti-corruption safeguards such as auditor independence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has thrown a lyrical punch at Japan Tobacco International, which has taken the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over its restrictions on “light” and “low tar” descriptors.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have approved two new directives that toughen EU-wide rules insisting that insurance companies have deep enough financial reserves to meet their policy commitments in the most unexpected of circumstances.

These solvency margin directives, (one for life insurance and the other for non-life), increase the minimum amounts of capital that must be held by these companies, (the so-called minimum guarantee fund).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. EU ministers said Brussels officials should

Meanwhile, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed a regulation aiming at boosting cod stocks in the Irish Sea this year, protecting adult cod during the spawning season, notably enforcing an area closure from February.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (general affairs) has extended the double-checking system on certain steel exports to the EU from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until this December 31. The regime is designed to detect any abuses of the trade preferences enjoyed by these countries under association agreements with the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it intends to apply the same strict state aid rules for the European Union steel industry that have applied in the past under the regulations of the European Coal and Steel Community, which expires on July 23.…