Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PRESIDENT of the Brewers of Europe organisation Alberto da Ponte has warned of a "sharp decline in the beer market" across Europe. He told a Brussels symposium: "The recession…taken with other events, such as widespread and recently-introduced smoking bans in pubs and restaurants, is having a very negative impact."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is claiming its reform of the European Union (EU) sugar and isoglucose sector has been a success, lowering prices for confectionery manufacturers. Brussels also claims that a planned contraction of EU sugar production over the past three years has left a sustainable industry based on efficient producers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

IN the early 1990s the nuclear power industry faced a bleak outlook. High profile accidents such as in Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in, Pennsylvania, the USA, had raised public concern about the safety of the industry to all time high.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have voted to allow all 27 EU member states to charge low rate VAT on leather goods repair services in future. Although this formal right should be introduced from January 2011, the vote makes it unlikely that the European Commission would prevent earlier VAT rate reductions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

DESPITE widespread initial scepticism about its viability, the ITER project to build the world’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor is now under way. It is employing specialists (nearly 300 staff and rising at the end of 2008); releasing Euro millions in research and procurement funding; and in November of last year moved into its headquarters, in Cadarache, southern France, which is where the first nuclear fusion reactor will be built on a 180 hectare site.…

BY TONY MALLETT

GIVEN that they work in a country renowned for its knee-deep bureaucracy and fervent industrial action, Belgian truckers seem a surprisingly contented bunch. At least when taken individually.

Despite recent protests about the price of fuel – which resulted in their blockade of the Brussels inner ring road and demonstrations outside the headquarters of both the European Commission and the European Parliament – the pros riding way up high in the cabs of HGVs on Belgian roads seem generally happy with their lot.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN END could be drawing near to the long debate over the extent to which major European gas and electricity companies should unbundle their production and distribution. A delegation of European Parliament members and the Czech presidency of the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers have struck a detailed compromise deal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE STRENGTH of Britain’s recycling sector is becoming a force to reckon with across Europe, according to the latest available comparative figures from European Union (EU) statistical agency Eurostat. The proportion of municipal waste recycled in the UK equalled the EU average in 2007, it says – 22%.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has concluded in a detailed report that a fully functioning European Union (EU)-wide single market in natural gas and electricity is far from complete. It spoke of a "mixed picture of the progress of completing the internal energy market".…

BY MONICA DOBIE

IT is one of nursing’s unlikelier medical developments, but those often pampered pedigree dogs that make an exhibition of themselves at Crufts may actually be a lynchpin to fighting genetic diseases in humans.

Veterinary clinics from 12 European countries will collect 10,000 DNA samples from a large cohort of dogs either healthy or suffering from a range of 18 defined diseases of relevance to human health such as cancer, heart disease and epilepsy.…