Search Results for: Austria

KEITH NUTHALL
IN what could almost be said to be a Brussels tradition, the beginning of the long summer break at the European Commission – when officials disappear to the south of France to lap up the Mediterranean sun – is usually heralded by the announcement of a series of legal cases against Member States.…

Alan Osborne
THE EUROPEAN Agency for Safety and Health at Work has published a series of good practice case studies from around the continent, in a bid to advise companies how to improve their record in protecting employees from harm.

Called Quality of Work: New Approaches and Strategies in Occupational Safety and Health, the report is available for free and focuses on initiatives in Britain, Spain, Ireland, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to come out fighting in its row with Member States over the liberalisation of energy markets. Calling on EU Ministers and the European Parliament to “rapidly adopt” its March 2001 proposals to completely liberalise gas and electricity markets by 2005, the Commission threatened to use exceptional powers granted to it under EU treaties to pass directives and decisions on market fairness, bypassing opposition from national governments and MEPs.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has allowed Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to pay special income aid worth a total of some Euro 418 million, (about Pounds 250 million), to beef producers suffering losses between November 2000 and June 2001 because of the BSE crisis.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A CONSORTIUM of key European Union players in the solar energy market has launched an ambitious scheme to install 15 million square meters of solar collectors in Europe by 2004, a project for which it hopes to get support from the European Commission.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a reform of rules on cross-border taxation within the EU, which would give each Member State the responsibility of circulating information about interest paid within their territories to foreign EU nationals. This would have to be provided to tax administrations in the home EU countries of these expatriates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening legal action against the British government, claiming that it has failed to write the updated EU drinking water directive into UK national legislation. If Whitehall does not persuade the Commission within two months that it has satisfactory plans to implement its rules, it could face a case at the European Court of Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SIMPLICITY is not one the virtues that is readily associated with the institutions of the European Union, so it is refreshing to note that the European Parliament has recently taken a straightforward step to boost its accountability to the citizens of the continent that it serves.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has finally given EU Member States the green light to help their electricity producers meet expensive ‘stranded costs’ that were incurred before the power market was liberalised in the late 1990’s, although Eurelectric has attacked Brussels for acting too slowly.…

Keith Nuthall
AUSTRIA and Ireland have been warned by the European Commission that they could face action in the European Court of Justice for failure to introduce legislation covering roadworthiness tests for diesel motor vehicles.

The EU directive concerned is 1999/52/EC, which concerns emissions from diesel engine vehicles and in particular with “vehicle preconditioning with a view to avoiding damage to the engine,” said the Commission.…