Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SERIES of detailed and striking data-based images has been released by the European Environment Agency (EEA) starkly portraying western Europe’s density of development, and hence its exposure to environmental health problems. These make up the ‘Corine Land Cover 2000’ database, which offers information on land cover and land cover changes over the past decade in 32 European countries, using photo-interpretation of satellite images.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LORRIES already on the road in the European Union (EU) will be forced to retrofit blind-spot mirrors or other devices under new legislation proposed by the European Commission. It wants heavy goods vehicles of 3.5 tonnes or more, registered after 2004, retrofitted one year after entry into force of this proposed directive; HGVs registered after 2001, two years afterwards; and lorries registered after 1998, three years afterwards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE COST to Britain’s exchequer of refusing to participate in the European Union’s legal agreement with Philip Morris over illicit cigarette trades has become clearer with the European Commission dividing up the spoils. PMI has promised to pay US$1 billion over 12 years to the European Commission and 10 European Union (EU) member states who have participated in the deal, with the cigarette giant already handing over US$325 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has announced spending and spending plans worth Euro 230 million to three major water utility projects. The bank has signed a deal to lend Euro 100 million to Cyprus’ Sewerage Board of Limassol-Amathus (SBLA), and is supplying a first tranche of Euro 70 million immediately, to enable its southern coast area to comply with the EU urban wastewater directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BELGIUM and an alliance of six other European Union (EU) member states are pushing for the EU’s food control committees to develop monitoring systems to prevent unauthorised GM food imports into Europe. Its move at the EU Council of Ministers follows the illicit import of unapproved GM American rice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the cattle and sheep disease Bluetongue spreading north in Europe from its usual southern European base, the European Commission and other specialist agencies are investigating why the pathogen has marched northwards. The European Union’s (EU) reference laboratory, at Pirbright, Surrey, has confirmed this strain of Bluetongue hitting livestock in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, was previously unknown in Europe.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The European Investment Bank is to make loans of Euro 200 million each to two Belgian water companies: Aquafin, which manages wastewater treatment in Dutch-speaking Flanders, and SPGE (Société Publique de Gestion de l’Eau) which has similar responsibilities in French-speaking Wallonia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked European Union (EU) ministers to authorise until January 2011 the right of the Isle of Man and 13 foreign EU member states to levy low rates of VAT on certain building repair services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved a list of priority projects under its 2007-13 trans European network (TENs) energy programme. Three of the 10 gas pipeline projects link Europe to Algeria, a key alternative source to Russia, and there are also priority gas pipelines to Libya and Turkey listed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE VAST financial impact on the European Union (EU) budget of financial frauds involving the cigarette industry has been made starkly clear by the most recent report from EU anti-fraud agency OLAF. It says the cost of cases being probed by its investigators during 2005 was Euro 1.3 billion.…