Search Results for: Environmental health

BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC has welcomed the latest European Commission guidelines that encourage public utilities, as well as local and national public authorities, to use EU public procurement procedures to promote worthy – in this case social – policy goals.

The publication of advice follows a similar move by Brussels in the summer regarding the purchase by so-called public entities of environmentally friendly goods and services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENVIRONMENTAL mainstreaming was the Brussels buzzword of the year 2000, it entailed the routine integration of green concerns into other EU policy areas. European ministers backed the concept and also accepted detailed papers explaining how this was to be brought about.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to raise fuel prices, so as to improve their environmental performance and promote investment in energy efficient industries.

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 reform.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission is to propose an extension of EUenvironmental legislation in the mining sector following completion of aconsultation exercise with interested parties. Brussels said it had decidedto proceed with three priority actions “to improve the safety of mines,relating to industrial risk management, management of mining waste andintegrated pollution prevention and control.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AIR traffic management in Europe is related to a number of accepted truths, of which two stand out as self-evident. First: economic growth means rising demand for air travel, especially at a time when the European Union is both increasing its size and developing its internal market, and, conversely, constraints on air travel mean constraints on economic growth.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE DEVELOPMENT of safe, trouble-free and cheap air travel in Europe rests on a nexus of co-operation between countries made possible by the existence of the European Civil Aviation Conference. As the only Europe-wide organisation with the membership and expertise capable of responding to the increasingly complex needs of the European air transport industry, ECAC can, in a real sense, claim to be the representative voice of pan-European civil aviation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOOD practice regarding the prevention of mercury pollution, during the production of the metal, and its emission as an unwanted by-product, has been collected in a Position Paper on Mercury, released by the European Commission.

It tries to measure the effect of the metal on the EU environment and human health and makes recommendations on how to limit its impact.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
HANDLING the needs and issues surrounding the 550 million passengers and billions of tonnes of cargo moving through the airports and terminals of the 38 European Civil Aviation Conference countries is a task of immense scope.

No wonder then that ECAC’s Working Group on Facilitation, (FAL), is comprised of a multi-disciplined team of delegates and observers from areas including customs, immigration, security, public health, drug control as well as of course, air transport users and civil aviation representatives.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IT is common knowledge that the European Union is becoming increasingly involved in public water policy, legislating to control the environmental quality of water supplies and watercourses. Brussels ambitions to improve water services do not, however, end at the external borders of the EU.…