Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) internal market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has signalled that the European Commission will delay making any decisions on whether US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) can be formally recognised within the EU. He told a Brussels festive cocktail, of the Association of Corporate Treasurers in Belgium, that the Commission was continuing to consider whether GAAP "might be considered equivalent with IFRS", the international financial reporting standards now compulsory for EU listed companies.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SCIENTISTS from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the USA are using a form of plastic sheeting called Hytibar to develop an environmentally safe way of preventing ozone-depleting gas from the pesticide methyl bromide reaching the atmosphere.

The plastic, manufactured by Klerk’s Plastic in Belgium, is made by putting a barrier polymer (ethylene vinyl alcohol) between two layers of polyethylene; this makes the film less permeable and therefore better able to keep the chemical from escaping into the air.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE WORLD is waking up to biofuels, increasingly produced from food crops and their waste by-products, and now one of the growing energy alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. As prices for traditional energy rise year on year, and energy watchers warn of oil production peaking around 2010, governments are looking towards food producers to grow the raw feedstock for the fuel of the twenty-first century.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHILE discussions continue over how to ensure the security of energy supplies to the European Union (EU), Brussels institutions are sinking money into one sure bet, eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), for instance, is lending US$170 million to SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, to fund two Caspian gas projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has refused to reduce or scrap a Euro 270,000 fine ordered by the European Commission against Belgian brewer Brouwerij Haacht NV, of Boortmeerbeek, for participating in a beer cartel with Alken-Maes, Interbrew and Martens.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

THE EUROPEAN automotive industry is gearing up for tighter pollution emission limits, possibly by mid-2008, under the European Union’s (EU) Euro 5 program, due to be announced by the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium on 21 December. Also expected to be announced in parallel to these restrictions on engine performance and fuel cleanliness is a carrot to encourage use of new technologies and to create a market for clean vehicles through an EU Environmental Technologies Action Plan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The Vienna-based agency says it will “conduct in-depth assessments of the institutional and legal frameworks” in these countries, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INSTITUTIONS of the European Union (EU) always say they are getting a handle on the fraud that riddles their operations, but are they? Keith Nuthall looks at the latest annual report from EU fraud-fighters OLAF.

MEASURING fraud is notoriously difficult, given that the aim of this crime is to be as undetectable as possible.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined Akzo Nobel, BASF and UCB Euro 66.34 million for operating between 1992-8 a cartel for choline chloride (CORRECT SPELLING) cartel (poultry and pig feed additive vitamin B4). These Dutch, German and Belgium chemical companies set European prices and market shares.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LAST people most farmers would like controlling European agricultural policy are glib public relations experts, armed with palm-top digital personal organisers and a sheaf of focus group studies. Such complaints have often been levelled at the Blair government, accused of bending with the wind of public opinion.…