Search Results for: European Parliament

BY MONICA DOBIE
VINEYARDS in Kosovo are bearing fruits for the first time in more than a decade because of a joint regeneration programme developed from the Commission, the United Nations and the European Agency for Reconstruction.

In 1990, nearly 10,000 acres of vineyards produced high-quality wine to traditional recipes, 80 per cent of which was exported creating a thriving wine industry in the region.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IN an attempt to stamp out smuggling and fraud, the European Commission is proposing that excise duties on popular cigarettes sold throughout the 15 EU countries should be brought much closer together. In a proposed new directive, the Commission says there should be a minimum fixed amount of excise duty of Euro 70 (about Pounds 42) per 1,000 cigarettes in the most popular price category, which would be in addition to the existing minimum excise requirement of 57% of the retail price.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE LOCAL Council – what are the worst images conjured up when thinking of those words?

Let me make it easy for you.

Lazy employees that take forever to process requests, generally unhelpful and bored, unfulfilling positions that can transform a new recruit full of fresh ideas and faith in the system, to the jaded staff that many of us have encountered at our local councils.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A ROOT-AND-BRANCH reform of the European Union’s customs administrations is being proposed by the European Commission, to enable officials to deal with the flood of new trade that is being created by the development of e-commerce.

Brussels wants to ensure that customs forces are not overwhelmed by high workloads and are also able to effectively fight fraud.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched its anticipated out-of-court complaints network, which is designed to help businesses and consumers resolve cross-border disputes within the EU fast and efficiently and which has particularly been designed to help deal with e-commerce problems.…

BY SWINEETHA WICKRAMANAYAKE AND ANNIE KEY
PROPOSALS are in the pipeline for airport construction projects, expansions and refurbishments throughout India and Sri Lanka. Over the next five years, there are plans to launch at least five new airports throughout the region, although it in anticipated that significant support from their respective governments will be required for them to be a fully fledged success.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOBAL consensus on the taxation of digitised e-commerce products has come one step closer to reality, with the release of a detailed consultation paper on the subject by the OECD.

The importance of reaching such a deal amongst developed countries was underlined last year by an EU-US row over European plans to force American e-commerce corporations to register for VAT in Europe.…

KEITH NUTHALL
FREIGHT forwarders may be freed of the burden of guaranteeing the payment of duty during EU transit operations, where hauliers transport goods across national borders in Europe, without paying duties or dealing with import procedures, except for the country where the consignment is delivered.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commissioner for enterprise and the information society Erkki Liikanen has told the European Parliament that his officials are drawing up a new proposed directive on alternative medicines and have been working on the legislation since last year.…

KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has agreed to stop its pharmaceutical manufacturers from copying medicines patented in Austria, Finland and Sweden, extending ‘administrative protection’ enjoyed by the rest of the European Union to these countries.

Beijing has been refusing to grant these rights – which are a form of patent protection – because when it agreed to stop its citizens copying European Union patented pharmaceuticals, neither Austria, Sweden nor Finland were EU members.…