Search Results for: european union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Intellectual Property Organisation’s digital copyright treaty is to come into force on March 6, next year, after Gabon became the 30th country to ratify its provisions, the minimum number required to make it international law.

This convention safeguards the rights of authors whose works are published on the Internet and in other digital media, protecting literary and artistic works, including online books, computer programs, music, art, and films.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ITALIAN state aid scheme designed to help the European Union achieve one of its key post-Erika disaster objectives – the phasing out of old single hull oil tankers – could be blocked by the European Commission, on the grounds that it is too generous.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
European Union transport ministers have dealt a heavy, and possibly fatal, blow to the EU’s Galileo global positioning project by refusing to provide finance for the crucial development stage of the programme. The 3.6 billion euro (pounds 2.2 billion) Galileo scheme is designed to establish a satellite-based tracking system that, when operative in 2008, will allow transport operators and others to pinpoint positions on earth and reduce dependence on the American GPS navigation system which is shared with military users and where signals to civilian operators cannot be guaranteed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has acted upon its public warning that it was considering an extension of the Seveso II industrial safety directive, as result of the fireworks explosion in Enschede, the Netherlands, and the cyanide spill at the Baia Mare mine in Romania.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FATHER Christmas would have been appalled; European Commission officials have been censured for enjoying the hospitality of a Russian game exporter, which they subsequently granted permission to send reindeer meat to the European Union.

Jacob Söderman, the European Ombudsman has played Santa, ruling that these Eurocrats compromised themselves during a fact-finding mission to Russia, by allowing Sweden-based company Norrfrys Ab to lay on lunch, hotel and flight reservations, temporary fax facilities, interpretation services and inspection cars.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE RATE of increase in biogas production in the European Union is much lower than that required to meet targets written into the European Commission’s white paper on renewable energy, the EU’s Eurobserv’ER(NOTE TO SUBS:CASE IS CORRECT) monitoring system has claimed.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EU has agreed with a number of sugar-producing ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) countries and separately with India on the supply of cane sugar to European refiners over the next five years. A duty-free quota of 10,000 tonnes has been set for India but may be increased if other supplies fall short.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A POLITICAL lifeline has been thrown to the EU’s Euro 3.6 billion, (Pounds 2.2 billion), Galileo project to set up a satellite-based global positioning system for European countries. After EU transport ministers appeared to have doomed the scheme by refusing some Euro 450 million, (Pounds 275 million), of development financing earlier this month, EU government leaders, meeting at the week-end in Belgium, said Galileo was of “strategic importance” adding that a financing decision should be taken by March next year.…

ALAN OSBORN
The European Commission is bringing actions in the European Court of Justice against Sweden and Portugal for failure to adopt an EU directive on maritime safety. The legislation, which was approved by the EU council in 1999, provides for the regular safety examination of ships arriving at or leaving EU ports and calls on member states to co-operate fully in investigations of marine accidents and incidents.…

KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC, the EU power industry federation, has embarked on a sophisticated political manoeuvre to save public procurement reforms to the EU’s utilities directive from being rejected at the hands of conservative and Christian Democrat MEP’s.

Oddly, the opposition of the parliament’s European Peoples Party bloc to the changes is based on an objection that Eurelectric shares; to amendments from the parliament’s internal market committee that would force power corporations to take account of social and environmental concerns when issuing a tender.…