Search Results for: Austria

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FINAL approval has been given by the European Parliament for the European Union (EU) to spend Euro 15.6 million on helping Swedish and Austria auto industry workers who have lost their jobs through the global recession. The money will come from the EU’s Globalisation Adjustment Fund.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE RECOVERY of criminally-acquired assets is driven by two quite different considerations – first as a deterrent to financial crime and second as a means of compensating the victim through restitution. Clearly where the fight against money laundering in concerned, the first is the more important.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

MEASURED by what’s been happening in the European cigarette market over the past 10 to 15 years, 2008 – and what we’ve seen of 2009 so far – hasn’t been that bad. It may not have been good, exactly, but considering the global recession few people will have been looking for uplift.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR European research project is to spend Euro 44 million on developing tiny components to help electric vehicles improve their performance, so that they can better compete with models powered with liquid fuels. The Fiat and Audi-backed E3CAR (Energy efficient electrical car) project will especially focus on emerging nanotechnologies as its researchers aim to boost electric cars’ often less than stellar driving abilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is seeking to secure an important legal precedent at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) effectively banning all 27 European Union (EU) member states from charging VAT on car registration taxes.

It has launched a case against the Austrian government, which insists Austria-based car dealers include car tax amounts (called the ‘Normverbrauchsabgabe-NoVA’) within the overall price of a vehicle, charging VAT on the combined car price and registration fee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEGOTIATIONS have begun to incorporate Georgia within the European Union’s (EU) aviation system, leading the Caucasus republic to adopt most EU civil aviation rules. The talks will inevitably cause some diplomatic issues with Russia, given its recognition of the two Georgian breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ATTACK by France and Germany on the European Commission’s ‘health check’ reforms to phase out European Union (EU) dairy quotas by 2015 is gathering support, with 16 member states backing increased subsidies. Having failed to persuade the Commission to abandon quota liberalisation, a growing Franco-German-led alliance at the EU Council of Ministers is backing increased subsides while restrictive production quotas expand from 2010 and disappear in 2015.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HACHETTE Ireland was one of 12 publishers honoured this week at the first awards of the new European Union Prize for Literature (Monday Sept 28). The Dublin-based branch of the Hachette publishing empire was praised for producing one of 12 award winning books: ‘Longshore Drift’ (2006), by Karen Gillece.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted competition approval to the takeover of Austria’s generic pharmaceuticals company EBEWE Spezial-Pharma Holding by Novartis, of Switzerland, enabling the Euro 1.3 billion deal to go ahead. Despite Novartis also making generic medicines, the Commission concluded that the deal "would not significantly impede effective competition" in Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DESPITE being granted special emergency subsidies, Europe’s hard-pressed dairy farmers are increasing their protests across Europe. Yesterday (MONDAY 21 SEPT), a group of producers set hay on fire and spilt milk in front of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.…