Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RUSSIA and Ukraine appear to have headed off an oil transit dispute that could have created a repeat of last year’s major disruption of European natural gas supplies. Moscow and Kiev have signed an agreement increasing by 30% the fees Ukraine charges on transporting Russian oil to the European Union (EU) – this alters a 2004 contract and the change had sparked a diplomatic tussle.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE and KEITH NUTHALL

SYRIA is such a staple of Middle East political turmoil, it is easy to forget that it is a near neighbour of Europe: less than 200 miles of sea separate it from Cyprus and it borders Turkey, which could be a European Union (EU) member by 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CO2 emissions statistics released by the European Commission show that while British motorists are ignoring government calls to buy smaller cars, their vehicles are at least getting greener. Across the European Union (EU) the CO2 emitted by passenger cars is falling fast: looking at 2008, a report said the average specific CO2 emissions from passenger cars were 153.5g CO2/km.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFTER the disappointment of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it is perhaps encouraging to note that the auto industry – so often painted as the bad boy of the climate change issue – really is reducing its vehicles’ carbon dioxide emissions.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE JUST-PUBLISHED review of 2009 and a forecast for the near and medium term future from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) are providing cause for both satisfaction and unease where wind power financing is concerned.

On the first count, there is no doubt that the sector is growing rapidly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AD Rutten, chief operating officer (COO) of the Netherlands’ Schiphol Group running Amsterdam airport had a busy Christmas and New Year. With Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year old Nigerian ‘underpants’ bomber, trying to blow up a A330-300 Airbus en route to Detroit from Schiphol airport on Christmas Day, Rutten has been working hard.…

BY EMMA JACKSON, KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, PAUL COCHRANE and BILL CORCORAN

WEST Africa is becoming a key region in the booming trade of illicit cigarettes, counterfeit copies of premium brands and smuggled properly branded and manufactured sticks. So much money is being made by criminals using this often-chaotic region as a hub to receive illicit sticks and then distribute them throughout Africa that this trade is becoming a matter of serious concern to the United Nations and even NATO.…

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 MAKKI MARSEILLES

TOBACCO manufacturing in Greece is alive and well and the industry is looking forward to a very fine future. A ban on smoking in public places introduced this April 1 has had very little effect so far and a reported 6% drop in sales alleged by some retailers has not been substantiated, stressed the Association of Greek Tobacco Industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE KEY industry Commissioner position within the European Commission for the next five years should be occupied by an Italian right-winger Antonio Tajani – Commission president José Manuel Barroso proposed today. A member of Italy prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s The People of Freedom party, he is currently European Union (EU) transport Commissioner.…