Search Results for: Italy

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a series of legal proceedings against EU Member States, which it claims have broken oil-related directives.

It has decided to take Italy to the European Court of Justice over its special tax on engine lubrication oils, which Brussels claims contravenes EU excise duty laws.…

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?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPROMISE deal has been struck in Brussels over a transitional regime for the European Union sugar industry, which will last until July 2006, when a comprehensive review is expected to have taken place.

The European Commission had been pressing to deep cuts in market supports, but these have been resisted by some Member States, who are represented on the EU Council of Ministers, which approved the final agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRIMINALS are still fleecing the European Union’s budget of hundreds-of-millions of Euro, according to the latest European Commission fraud report. But Brussels is refusing to throw in the towel, unveiling more anti-fraud proposals, Keith Nuthall reports.

THE ANNUAL report on the Protection of the Communities’ (EU’s) Financial Interests and the Fight Against Fraud always seems to have been misnamed, in that it usually focuses on how much money the European Union has been losing to fraudsters, rather than saving.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LOCAL authorities in the European Union are unprepared for the introduction of single European currency notes and coins next January, even though they have a crucial role in spreading information among small businesses and community groups, the European Commission has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has tried to make up for its failure to strike fishing access deal with Morocco by forging an improved agreement with its north African neighbour Mauritania which Brussels claims its “the most important with a third country” that it has made.…

Keith Nuthall
ALTHOUGH petrol and diesel consumption rose by 45 per cent in the European Union between 1985 and 1998, technological improvements meant pollution by emissions such as nitrogen oxide actually fell during this time, a study from Eurostat, the EU statistical agency has claimed.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SWEEPING changes to EU motor insurance laws have been proposed by a committee of the European Parliament, with the aim of improving the legal protection of accident victims. A report drawn up by the EP’s legal affairs committee has called on the EU national governments to compel insurers to provide either an offer or a refusal of compensation within three months of receiving a claim and sets an EU-wide minimum of Euro 2 million, (about Pounds 1.2 million), as the sum insured.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is distributing 1.2 million leaflets this summer, which aims to educate holiday-makers on how to use the single European currency, the Euro, whose notes and coins will be launched in January.

Called “Don’t forget to Pack the Euro,” the leaflet encourages tourists to get used to the concept of the Euro whilst vacationing abroad this summer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL agreement has been forged at the European Union’s Council of Ministers for employment and social policy on a new ‘health and safety: physical agents (noise)’ directive, that should introduce pan-EU workplace exposure limits.

Ministers managed to strike a compromise, ironing out some long standing disagreements on the upper limit value for noise exposure and whether there should be special rules for the maritime and air transport sectors, as requested by Greece, Italy and the UK governments.…