Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has called on the European Commission to frame an action plan on simplifying red tape for the fishing industry, “reducing their bureaucratic workload and the restrictions that bear down on fishermen”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HEAVYWEIGHT European international consortium will spend Euro 20 million on trying to develop commercially-viable flat plastic light sources, that could be moulded to fit spaces in homes and offices. The OLLA project (‘high brightness Organic Light-emitting diodes for information technology and Lighting Applications’) aims to build on basic research into these materials.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ACCORDING to global consumption figures, Israel is the world capital of teenage soft drink demand, with hot weather combined with a competitive market to create something of a utopia for drinks companies. An international survey of soft drinks consumption published by the Economist by 15 year olds of both sexes suggests that Israel has the world’s biggest teenage consumers of carbonated and still drinks, colas, sodas, juices and the like on a per capita basis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission rapid reaction consumer alert service RASFF has warned of the detection of unauthorised colouring annatto/bixin/norbixin E 160b in red palm oil imported to France via Belgium.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WHILE the consumption of paint, ink and colourings in Belgium is, like that in most other European countries, best described as “stable”, the country’s production industry is eying opportunities to relocate in cheaper regions, such as eastern Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LONGEST collectively agreed working hours in the European Union’s (EU) retail sectors are found in richer western European countries, as well as poorer new member states from eastern and southern Europe, a new study has shown. And Britain, usually attacked for having the longest working hours in western Europe, actually has below-average collectively bargained time at work in the retail sector, noted the European Industrial Relations Observatory, looking at 2004 figures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INSURANCE companies cannot always rely on a key European legal convention to ensure a case is heard in its home jurisdiction, when fighting the claim of a foreign beneficiary about damages incurred abroad, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers have compromised on the final shape of a directive reducing sulphur content in marine fuels. The result is legislation that permits higher sulphur usage than the parliament wanted, cutting its marine fuels content to 1.5% by 2007, for all vessels in the Baltic, the North Sea, and the English Channel, and passenger ships in all EU seas and oceans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CORNER shops and off licences harmed by ‘booze cruise’ alcohol imports from the continent have been offered hope by an order to the European Commission to draft an increase of the European Union’s (EU) minimum excise duty rates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) governments could be given the power to demand waste metal and scrap buyers hand over VAT rather than their suppliers, under proposed reforms tabled by the European Commission. It wants changes to the EU sixth VAT directive making this system available on demand to member states for the industry, even though it conflicts with the standard EU rule that suppliers pay VAT.…