Search Results for: Belgium

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that the operator of Belgium’s Charleroi airport must pay EUR6 million illegal ‘state aid’ to the Belgian government, generated from being granted an unfairly low concession fee. The decision follows a 12 year competition inquiry by the Commission into Charleroi, including the access deal offered by operator Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) to Ryanair, the main user of the regional airport.…

IRELAND has been especially hard hit by the latest expansion of Russia’s ban on European Union (EU) meat exports, figures released today by the European Commission reveal.
Moscow has expanded its existing import restrictions to cover beef offal and beef fats.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a further four European Union (EU)-funded marketing programmes promoting sales of EU-produced meat, within member states and abroad. These are in addition to the Euro EUR7.7 million programme promoting lamb sales run by British beef and lamb levy body Eblex, Ireland’s Bord Bía, France’s Interbev, announced earlier this week.…

RUSSIA’S federal veterinary and phytosanitary surveillance service Rosselkhoznadzor has accused European Union (EU) regulators of collaborating with smugglers sneaking meat into Russia, breaching its EU import ban. An official spokesperson for the agency was speaking after 575 tonnes of meat and fat back pork in 26 refrigerated containers from the EU were confiscated by the Russian Federal Customs Service at the Kingisepp customs point, east of Estonia, near St Petersburg.…

THE COMPREHENSIVE Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) will make it easier for both jurisdictions to recognise each other’s nursing certifications. Political leaders celebrated the end of negotiations in September in Ottawa, Canada (Sept 26).…

THE INCOMING European Union (EU) energy and climate change Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete and his boss, the future European Commission vice-president for the energy union Maroš Šefčovič have highlighted the need for smart grids and electricity interconnections as way to make Europe more self-reliant for energy.…

The European Commission today cleared the acquisition of the Corialis Group, a European supplier of aluminium extrusion services and aluminium doors and windows, by Advent International Corporation, a US investment firm. A Commission communiqué said the deal “would not raise competition concerns as Advent is not active in any market in which Corialis is active” at present, notably the aluminium sector.…

THE BELGIAN government will have to defend it taxation system for collective investment undertakings (CIUs) at the European Court of Justice, with the European Commission claiming Belgium discriminates illegally against CIUs from other European Union (EU) member states. The Commission claims tax rates charged on Belgian CIUs are lower than foreign EU undertakings – breaching EU rules encouraging the free movement of capital across the union.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) finance ministers agreed at an EU economic and finance ministers (ECOFIN) meeting on the scope of the long-threatened ‘financial transaction tax’, and 11 governments pledged to reach an agreement on its details by the end of the year.…

THE AVERAGE tax burden in the developed countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) have continued to rise, up 0.4% in 2013, to 34.1% of GDP, compared with 33.7% in 2012 and 33.3% in 2011. A new OECD report said the largest 2013 increases were in Portugal, Turkey, Slovakia, Finland, and Denmark, which has the highest tax-to-GDP ratio among OECD countries – 48.6%, followed by France, 45%, and Belgium, 44.6%.…