Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AGREEMENT has been negotiated between the European Commission and the United States that should create common pre-shipment clearance shipments for goods shipped between the European Union (EU) and the US. If EU ministers agree, it would tell European and American exporters to provide sufficient information about goods to allow “sophisticated targeting” of security checks, prior to shipping.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RULING on car registration legislation at the European Court of Justice could remove red tape demands on European fleet managers whose companies’ employ workers living in more than one European Union country. Judges have stated national governments cannot insist a worker’s company car be registered in their home country, rather than where a company and its fleet management is based.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CURRENT European Commission leadership, under Italy’s Romano Prodi, was supposed to be the clean-hands team, ridding the institution of the corruption and mismanagement that thrived under his predecessor Jacques Santer. The ongoing Eurostat scandal is undermining that reputation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LEGAL final warning letters have been sent by the European Commission to Britain, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain and Sweden, calling on them to swiftly implement a directive guaranteeing consumer protection when insurance companies are wound up.…

BY MARK ROWE
UZBEKISTAN has been at the forefront of international AML efforts in the central Asia region, a spokesman for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told the Money Laundering Bulletin. Uzbekistan has the most advanced AML legislation and apparatus of all the former Soviet Central Asia and has signed more than 20 bilateral and multilateral agreements on cooperation in fighting illicit drug trafficking with its Central Asian neighbours, as well as with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, according to the International Money Laundering Information Network (IMOLIN), (whose contributing members include the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering, the United Nations and the World Customs Organisation).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched infringement proceedings against Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal for failing to implement the package of measures approved last year to liberalise the European Union (EU) telecommunications sector.

Brussels noted that only Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Sweden had implemented the EU’s framework, authorisations, access and universal service directives into their national legislation by this month (NOTE: OCTOBER).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission proposals to boost nuclear energy safety in Europe have come under fire from the British and German governments as well as the European Parliament, making it highly unlikely that they will be approved unscathed. In an unusual joint letter to the Commission, UK prime minister Tony Blair and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder criticised Brussels’ proposed directive, claiming that it would not deal tangible benefits in nuclear security.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Paris
FRENCH tobacconists held a one-day national strike on Monday (20-10) in protest of the recent tax hikes on tobacco products. Some 88 per cent of the country’s 34,000 state-run tobacco shops closed their doors or refused to sell cigarettes because of a recent 20 per cent price increase, the second hike this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PLANNED reform of the European Union’s (EU) Euro 12.5 million-per-year hop subsidy regime could push hop producers towards promoting speciality varieties, of interest to brewers seeking an edge in flavour and bitterness, a National Hop Association of England spokesman has said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has blocked the participation of Belgium’s Wallonia regional government in a joint venture with Swiss steel specialist Duferco and France’s Usinor to produce carbon steel and alloy slabs. The new company – called Carsid SA – was to work from the Usinor Sacilor controlled Cockerill Sambre mill in Charleroi, following a 2001 closure announcement by Usinor of the plant’s hot-rolling line.…