Search Results for: European Parliament

THE NORWEGIAN government has announced plans to ban ships from using or carrying heavy fuel oil (HFO) around the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, over concerns a spill could devastate the region’s fragile environment. Norway’s minister for the climate and environment Sveinung Rotevatn added that a disaster could damage the remote island group’s growing tourism industry.…

Two studies unveiled before members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on November 19 in a joint meeting of the constitutional affairs and legal affairs committees have concluded that the European Union (EU) needs an independent ethics body. In his EP commissioned study ‘Strengthening transparency and integrity in the EU institutions by setting up an independent EU ethics body’, (1) Austrian management professor Dr Markus Frischuut suggested the body should have around seven ruling members and 50 staff. …

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) financial watchdog has stressed how the EU needs to simplify its spending systems, which would make fraud is tougher to commit and easier to detect. The EU Court of Auditors has formally issued an ‘adverse opinion’ on the audited expenditure during 2019 of the 27-country union.…

WHILE projections for sales of electric vehicles (EV) vary, all predictions agree that this market will explode in size in the next few years. An International Energy Agency (IEA) model for instance has suggested 245 million EVs will be driven worldwide by 2030. …

The European Chief Prosecutor (ECP) of the embryonic European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has challenged the 22 European Union (EU) states (1) that have signed up to an enhanced cooperation pact underpinning its existence to properly fund the new institution. Without enough money, the EPPO will not be effective, ECP Laura Codruţa Kövesi told Fraud Intelligence.…

Dairy industry leaders have criticised European Parliament proposals to publish the names of those using the European Union’s (EU) storage aid scheme for powdered milk and butter as the EU reforms its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The European Commission protects producers when dairy prices crash through CAP fixed price purchases of limited quantities of butter and skimmed milk powder (SMP), which can be stored longer than milk.…

DESPITE Australia’s uninterrupted economic growth since 1991 ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, lax rules on bribery and money laundering have dented its government’s reputation. Reforms to the country’s foreign bribery and commercial crime laws are on the horizon and there is talk about lawyers, accountants and real estate agents having to report on suspicious transactions, but progress has been painstakingly slow.…

PERSONAL care product industry representatives have criticised European Commission plans to table new toxic chemicals regulations, which they warn could outlaw use of some cosmetics ingredients even at safe levels. 

The Commission’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS), published October 14, said the European Union (EU) executive plans to eliminate from cosmetics and other products carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic (CMR) and endocrine-disrupting substances.…

EUROPE’S confectionery and sweet bakery association CAOBISCO has been pressuring the European Union (EU) to resolve a long-running trade dispute with the USA over aircraft manufacturing subsidies causing Washington to impose tariffs on European food exports. These include 25% duties on exports from the EU (including the UK) of raspberry, strawberry, apricot, peach and other jams; cherries and peaches; sweet biscuits from Germany; waffles and wafers from Britain and Germany; and an additional 25% on these jams when exported from Germany and France.…

EUROPEAN Commission plans for new European Union (EU) chemicals regulations could lead to tighter rules on the formulation of can coatings used or made in the EU, which are used to prevent corrosion and extend shelf life.

The Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS), published October 14, says the Commission intends to eliminate from food contact materials (FCMs) -which would include cans and their coatings – carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic and endocrine-disrupting substances, as well as those that persist and accumulate in the environment or the body.(1)…