Search Results for: european union

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled that it is prepared to accept the creation of joint venture companies involving auto-makers and computer suppliers as way of handling IT within the automobile sector, by approving a deal between IBM Italia and Fiat.…

Keith Nuthall
A FRENCH government state aid system for producers of liqueur wines and spirits, funding promotional measures, research, technical support and investment, is under threat, because of a European Court of Justice ruling that it should never have been sanctioned by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGRICULTURE ministers of the 15 EU countries have agreed a seven-point plan to curb beef production. Consumption remains “considerably below normal” and is not expected to recover fully for two years while there is a big backlog of animals to be presented for slaughter later in the year, says the European Commission.…

KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union have been placed under increasing political and legal pressure from both the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to improve the environmental quality of their water supplies.

France, for instance, has lost a long-running case at the ECJ, over its failure to ensure the availability of sufficiently clean drinking water in Brittany.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU Council of Ministers has delayed taking a decision on reforming Europe’s hop subsidy schemes, by agreeing to extend the current flat-rate aid of Euro 480/hectare to hops producers for three more years, up to and including the 2003 harvest.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ADMINISTRATIVE reforms made by the Belgian government in the wake of the dioxin contamination crisis have been judged so effective by the European Commission, that it has decided to drop a European Court of Justice case against alleging that Belgium had broken EU food safety laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union money is to be spent on helping developing countries implement anti-smoking policies, the EU Council of Ministers (health), has concluded. It agreed that the spending should be part of the EU’s commitments under the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which is currently being discussed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union have come under political pressure from Brussels to outlaw the designing and marketing of alcoholic drinks, such as alcopops, to children and adolescents, as part of a move against under-age drinking.

The EU Council of Ministers (health) has adopted a Recommendation, (formal non-binding guidelines), which calls on national governments to “ensure” that the drinks industry does not produce alcoholic beverages specifically “targeted, designed or promoted to appeal” to young people.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has agreed reforms to EU rules on pig welfare. They now ban the confinement of pregnant pigs to individual stalls and tethering of sows and gilts. The amended directive also includes rules on improving the living environment of pigs and piglets, such as a minimum size of sow pens, and requires permanent access to rooting materials and fibre food.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has warned Norwegian gas producers that the joint sale of Norwegian gas carried out through the national Gas Negotiation Committee is in breach of the European Union competition rules, because it fixes, among other things, the price and the quantities sold.…