Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has announced that it is lending US$80 million to Philips Semiconductors Philippines Inc., (PSPI), a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics giant Philips, which will guarantee the loan. The money will help the Asian operation construct a second integrated circuits assembly and test facility in Calamba, Philippines.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EU Council of Ministers has formally approved a three-year extension of the current flat-rate aid of Euro 480/hectare paid to European hops producers, up to and including the 2003 harvest. A Council statement has said that this would “allow decisions on providing aid to producers to be taken at the same time as decisions on special aid measures relating to temporary set-aside or permanent grubbing-up.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMAN chemicals giant BASF has been frustrated in its bid to secure a new supplementary protection certificate for its longstanding pesticide ingredient chloridazon, which would have erected fresh legal barriers for rivals wanting to use the chemical.

The company had applied for the certificate at the Dutch Industrial Property Office, on the basis of a comparatively new market approval, secured for a chloridazon product in 1987, (the first had been issued in 1967).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BELGIAN government has signalled that the development of e-government services is to be its priority in IT policy during the next six months when it holds the presidency of the European Union. It will be staging a major conference in Brussels on the subject in November, including key players from the IT sector and national and regional governments.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE BEEF market in the European Union has worsened since the spring when “promising” signs of recovery had been detected, the European agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler has said, in a reversal of recent previously optimistic comments. The positive trend at that time “seems to have stopped and prices have somewhat worsened,” Mr Fischler told ministers at the agriculture council this week (24th July).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened consultations on how the EU’s detergents legislation can be tightened. In particular it seeks better ways to control the biodegradability of surfactants, (materials reducing surface tension), which can create foam in water supplies, and wants mandatory information for consumers on the content of detergent and cleaning products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A THAI flint lighter manufacturer is likely to escape having to pay the stiff 51.9 per cent EU anti-dumping duties payable on most exports of the product from Thailand, having proved that its low prices are due to lower costs, rather than unfair trading practices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its alleged failure to extend the EU product liability directive to primary agricultural foodstuffs, such as meat and game. Ireland had until last December to changes its law, to allow Irish food manufacturers, processors and caterers to pass on liability for defective products to farmers, where the blame is clear.…

BY ALAN OSBORN AND KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE review of contract law in the 15 Member States of the European Union has been launched by the European Commission, which is concerned that the existing contrasts between national legal systems could be obstruct the functioning of the European Union’s single internal market.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WILL there come a day when a genuine European market in health care takes its place among the other landmark achievements of the European Union?

In terms of economic efficiency and the functioning of the internal market, does it make much sense for a million patients in Britain, say, to have to wait sometimes for a year or more for important operations while people in France or Luxembourg can book them for the next day and some German hospitals have barely half their beds filled?…