Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that European Union (EU) insurance laws allow owed salaries to be paid ahead of outstanding policy claims, when an insurance company goes out of business. Its ruling has come in a Greek case brought by a public road-accident liability fund – Epikouriko Kefalaio – against its government for ordering Intercontinental AE, also of Greece, to release part of its frozen assets to pay salary claims.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
NEW YORK’S mayor has signed up for a twenty-year contract to recycle the city’s residential metal, glass and plastic rubbish two years after his administration abandoned recycling due to budget cutbacks. One component of the plan will be the construction of a US$45 million recycling plant on the Brooklyn waterfront, to be finished by 2007.…

BY MARK ROWE
AT first sight they would appear to be uneasy bedfellows. On the one hand, English Heritage, the British government’s advisory body with responsibility for the care and maintenance of the country’s historic environment; on the other, the Marxist-led government of the Indian state of West Bengal.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ESTONIA’S prime minister Juhan Parts said his government would not boost a planned 20% hike in strong alcohol duty rates, despite pressure from neighbouring Finland. Visiting Helsinki, Mr Parts heard arguments that next year’s planned tax change would do little to halt the boom in personal alcohol imports to Finland since Estonia joined the EU in May.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
STAVROS Dimas, the next EU Commissioner for Environmental Affairs, was criticised as one of the weaker cards in the Barroso Commission pack when he appeared before a European Parliament hearing last week.

There was cross-party sentiment that the former Greek Industry Minister did not have sufficient experience of environmental matters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has formally requested that a second World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel is set up to adjudicate in its long running row with the US over its assessment of benefits enjoyed by privatised steel companies from past public subsidies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEW and first European Commissioner for fraud has indicated that he could be as cool towards Brussels whistle-blowers as outgoing Commission administration vice-president Neil Kinnock. Replying to a European Parliament questionnaire on his appointment, Estonia’s Silim Kallas declared he would not change existing criticised ‘guarantees’ to whistle-blowers, saying it was “the last and least desirable option” for airing allegations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE POLITICIANS appointed to the incoming European Commission taking office on November 1 start intensive hearings at the European Parliament on Monday (27-9), with the competition Commissioner-designate Neelie Kroes expecting tough questioning.

The Dutchwoman has been a board member of many large European companies, such as Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo, mobile phone group MMO, French defence company Thales and shipping group Royal P&O Nedlloyd.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH Greece and Cyprus are taking over the key European Commission jobs for the cosmetics, soap and perfumery sectors, the enthusiasm of Brussels for tougher environmental, consumer protection and animal welfare rules could wane.

Cypriot Markos Kyprianou has been appointed as health and consumer affairs commissioner in the new Commission that takes office in November.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW president of the European Commission, the former Portuguese prime minister Jose Manuel Barroso, has made clear that for the next five years at least there will be a reform-minded team at work in Brussels driven by a powerful desire to eliminate accounting fraud, inefficiency and the protection of special interests.…