Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC, the EU power industry federation, has embarked on a sophisticated political manoeuvre to save public procurement reforms to the EU’s utilities directive from being rejected at the hands of conservative and Christian Democrat MEP’s.

Oddly, the opposition of the parliament’s European Peoples Party bloc to the changes is based on an objection that Eurelectric shares; to amendments from the parliament’s internal market committee that would force utilities to take account of social and environmental concerns when issuing a tender.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LIST of environmental subjects that are to be the subject of European Union-wide statistical analysis, to enable Brussels institutions to make better informed decisions about green issues, has been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers.

This data is to be drawn up every year, for discussion by the spring meeting of the two European Union summits held annually.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to undertake root-and-branch reforms to promote energy effieciency and environmental performance within their utilities and industries, including the raising of gas and oil prices.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe recently addressed the issue, with its Committee on Sustainable Energy and the Committee on Environmental Policy agreeing to produce guidelines on price reforms for the region.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ONLINE sales of cigarettes will exceed US$10 billion annually, or a quarter of all sales, in a decade, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.

Smokers are increasingly buying their cigarettes via the Internet to avoid paying punitive taxes; the medium helps retailers sidestep restrictions on advertising and sales to minors.…

KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC, the EU power industry federation, has embarked on a sophisticated political manoeuvre to save public procurement reforms to the EU’s utilities directive from being rejected at the hands of conservative and Christian Democrat MEP’s.

Oddly, the opposition of the parliament’s European Peoples Party bloc to the changes is based on an objection that Eurelectric shares; to amendments from the parliament’s internal market committee that would force power corporations to take account of social and environmental concerns when issuing a tender.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to contribute Euro 47.6 million, (about Pounds 29 million), towards a six-year cross-border support programme for Ireland and Wales, which can be tapped by local authorities for policies covering spatial development, environmental issues and co-ordination of regional economic activities.…

BY KATE REW
OPPONENTS of America’s largest cat litter mining project in northern Nevada will learn this week whether the production company Oil-Dri will be given a ‘special use permit,’ which gives it the right to process the mineral at the mine site.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THREE British projects have won grants from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work for accident prevention schemes designed for small and medium-sized enterprises. The agency announced grants equivalent to pounds 2.7 million in total to 51 projects across the 15 EU countries.…

KEITH NUTHALL
SOPHISTICATED controls on the access of the European road haulage industry to ecologically sensitive areas such as the Alps should be introduced, not simple traffic bans, a new European Environment Agency report has claimed.

‘Road Freight Transport and the Environment in Mountainous Areas’ points out that the inevitable concentration of road traffic through mountain barriers, such as the Alps or the Pyrenees, will have “a large impact on human health and the ecosystem, especially in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ITALIAN state aid scheme designed to help the European Union achieve one of its key post-Erika disaster objectives – the phasing out of old single hull oil tankers – could be blocked by the European Commission, on the grounds that it is too generous.…