Search Results for: Bulgarian

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHILE the voters of many European Union (EU) countries express misgivings about greater continental integration, Bulgaria has been making great efforts to join the Brussels club by 2007. But its reputation for commercial crime and the lack of strong governmental structures able to tackle the problem are hampering efforts to clean up the country’s reputation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DUTIES on a range of Romanian confectionary exported to European Union (EU) will be phased out by 2007, easing the country’s oncoming EU membership. Affected lines range from chewing gum, liquorice extract, white chocolate, boiled sweets and toffees.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ROSE oil production in Bulgaria has grown in 2004 to a record for recent years of one ton, up on last year’s 700 kg, said a note from the European Commission. Bulgarian rose oil prices have also hit a high of Euro 4,100 per kilogramme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has come under fire for failing to effectively reform its shoddy mental hospitals, which have been described by a human rights group as “dumping grounds where people are robbed of the right to any activity and wait only to die”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BULGARIAN government has negotiated the right for its tobacco-growing sector to claim direct farm payments from the European Union (EU) representing 47,137 tonnes of production per annum. European Commission officials have told World Tobacco that the notional quota was part of an agriculture agreement within Bulgaria’s talks on joining the EU, which it is expected to do by January 2007.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIAN police – supported by European Union (EU) police agency Europol – have seized and dismantled three major Euro counterfeit currency print shops. More than 400 officers raided dozens of houses across Bulgaria, netting fake banknotes with a face value of Euro 100,000, fake documents, credit cards and counterfeit tourist visas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has announced it will build a second nuclear power plant to replace the outdated Kozloduy power station, which the European Union (EU) insists should be closed by 2006. Construction will take place at Belene, in northern Bulgaria where work started on building a 1,000-megawatt plant in 1987, but ceased in 1991 following environmental campaigns.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHEN the European Union (EU) signed up to an Agreement on Textiles and Clothing at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) last Uruguay Round that foresaw the scrapping of import quotas at the start of 2005, it is hard to imagine it viewing the deal as a way to boost production in knitted products.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has drawn up plans to lend Euro 50 million via Bulgarian banks to finance energy efficiency and small renewable energy projects in the country’s private sector. This money would be combined with an extra Euro 10 million from the Kozloduy International Decomissioning and Support Fund (KIDSF), which was set up to help Bulgaria cope with the loss of power supplies caused by the decommissioning of the Kozloduy nuclear power station.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) law enforcement agencies are intensifying their fight against the counterfeiting of the Euro currency, as European Central Bank (ECB) figures show an increase in seizures of forged banknotes. In the second half of 2003, 311,925 counterfeit notes were discovered in Euro and non-Euro countries, a 30 per cent increase over the first six months of 2003, when counterfeit seizures had been 59 per cent more numerous than in the previous half-year.…