Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTELLIGENT packaging is a buzz-concept in the food sector, using chemically sensitive materials which could change colour when a food goes off. But a European Union (EU) research project is taking a step further, developing organic light emitting device materials (OLEDs) that could actually flash and beam out messages: “Don’t drink this milk, you could throw up!”…maybe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Italian ports had the most seizures of counterfeit cigarettes, said OLAF, which said customs teams found 27.7 million sticks in four containers. There were three containers found in Spain with 26.6 million sticks in total; 25.6 million sticks in five containers in Britain; 21.2 million in three containers in Greece; 15.4 million in two containers in Romania; 10 million in one Germany container; and 9.5 million in a Belgium container.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MALTA’S highest profile bird conservation group has called for European bird watchers to visit the Mediterranean archipelago, to embarrass its hunters during the country’s controversial spring hunt. More than 100,000 birds are officially declared shot or trapped annually in Malta and under the European Union’s (EU) 1979 wild birds directive, spring hunts are usually illegal because they interfere with breeding, allowed only where unusual migration patterns restrict hunting opportunities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCENTRATIONS of manure and fertiliser nitrogen run-off into watercourses across Europe have been made starkly clear in a new European Union’s Joint Research Centre atlas on nutrient pollution. This shows the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark as being Europe’s hotspots for such contamination, although Wales and Northern Ireland perform poorly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCENTRATIONS of manure and fertiliser nitrogen run-off into watercourses in Wales and other livestock-focused areas of Britain and Ireland have been made starkly clear in a new European Union’s Joint Research Centre atlas on nutrient pollution. This shows the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark as being Europe’s hotspots for such contamination, although Wales and Northern Ireland perform poorly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the key May 18 European Union (EU)-Russia summit in Samara, Russia, looming, the European Commission is continuing efforts to find suitable alternative energy partners to Moscow. Russia and the EU want to start tough negotiations on forging a new energy agreement, with both sides firming up their positions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MAJOR American golf clothing chain has failed to secure European Union (EU)-wide trademark rights to its name, because European Court of Justice (ECJ) judges found it insufficiently distinctive. Golf USA Inc franchises more than 100 golf clothing and equipment stores in 32 US states and 11 other countries: Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, South Korea, Mexico, Spain and Sweden.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ABILITY of French tobacco retailers prospering from cross-border shopping to undercut their British competitors could be helped by a European Commission bid to end France’s minimum retail price system. Brussels is taking the French government to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over the issue, claiming that the system illegally “distorts competition”, breaking European Union (EU) freedom of trade laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has laid formal charges against European flat glass suppliers – including Britain’s Pilkington – alleging the existence of a European Union (EU) cartel controlling the sale of this key construction material. Brussels has not named companies receiving formal ‘statements of objections’, however, Pilkington has admitted these cover “alleged violations of competition rules by a number of glass manufacturers in the European building products glass sector, including Pilkington.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has unveiled further data underlining the risk to human health posed by widespread contamination of broiler chicken flocks across Europe with the pathogen salmonella. In its latest figures, which back earlier alarming data about salmonella contamination within egg production systems, EFSA said that in 2005-6, almost a quarter – 23.7% – of EU broiler (meat) flocks were contaminated with salmonella.…