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BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRITICS of European political institutions have sometimes been unkind about the Council of Europe, which has been accused of being a powerless talking shop. And although the Council lacks the power to fine and cajole member governments enjoyed by the European Union (EU) – from which it is completely independent – it has some important roles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched five European Union (EU)-funded food-related research projects, all of which should help raise environmental health standards. They include:

*Europrevall, which aims to reduce the potential within foods to spark allergic reactions, improve food allergy diagnoses and investigate how processing methods can increase allergenicity – http://www.europrevall.org/;…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WELL-FINANCED international programme to remove stocks of obsolete pesticides from Africa has been launched, protecting communities from persistent organic pollutants. The first phase of the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP-P1) has now been approved by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is planning to rewrite the European Union’s (EU) environmental health law book, in a comprehensive effort to simplify existing EU legislation across the board. Aiming to ease the impact of often complex and baffling regulations on European local government and industry, Brussels has embarked on a three-year programme to scrap obsolete legislation, rewrite over-complex laws and combine overlapping directives and regulations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DYE manufacturers, like others in the European chemical industry, have reacted with ill-concealed dismay to the amendments approved by the environment committee of the European Parliament to the European Commission’s proposals for the REACH chemicals control programme. In a vote taken on October 4, the committee approved the original Brussels proposals for controlling the 10-100 tonne volume band, sharply breaking with the views of the industry and internal market committees, which had called for this to be relaxed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Telecom Italy Euro 700 million to roll out advanced broadband services in the comparatively impoverished south of the country. The money would help fund the establishment of new business broadband services and expand existing consumer broadband services’ (xDSL) geographical coverage and performance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST-EVER multilateral treaty covering the Balkans has been signed in Athens, creating a European Energy Community, linking the gas and electricity policies of south-eastern Europe with those of the European Union (EU). Indeed, under the treaty, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and Kosovo must apply EU energy legislation in full, including related environmental and competition laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has sent final legal warnings to Italy, Greece and Spain threatening legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over not properly complying with the EU water framework directive. Brussels says they have failed to devise administrative blocks based on river basin districts, and provide detailed information on relevant management authorities.…

BY MARK ROWE
WEATHER forecasters have always come in for criticism but the reality is that forecasting has evolved somewhat beyond the reliance of medieval truisms such as rain on St Swithun’s Day meant 40 more days of showers. And not only are today’s forecasts are more reliable than ever, with meteorologists providing long-term predictions of wet weather, heat waves and other extreme events, of incalculable value to energy and water utilities with half an eye on demand, but Britain’s Meteorological (Met) Office has taken its services one step further.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE CLEAR message from the first meeting of the Sustainable Energy Forum in Amsterdam last month (October) was that the higher the price of fossil fuels then the greater the need for national governments to support the introduction of renewable energy sources through subsidies, tax breaks, technical assistance and the like.…