Search Results for: Estonian

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 NEW European Commission taking office from November will include for the first time a Commissioner specifically dedicated to fighting European Union (EU) fraud and handling audits. New Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has appointed an Estonian, Silim Kallas, a former prime minister and finance minister.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ESTONIA’S prime minister Juhan Parts has refused to increase his government’s planned 20% hike in strong alcohol duty rates, despite pressure from neighbouring Finland for a steeper rise. Visiting Helsinki, Mr Parts heard arguments that next year’s planned tax change would add only a few cents to a bottle of strong grain liquor which retails for about Euro 3 in Estonia, while selling for Euro 9 a bottle in Finland.…

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 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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ESTONIA should hasten its electricity market liberalisation, helping to promote investment in an oil shale industry fuelling most power generation, the European Commission has proposed. It has asked European Union (EU) ministers to approve a derogation from the EU’s electricity liberalisation directive requiring full market opening – including the right to secure energy materials from any source – by 2012.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NUMBER of key European Union (EU) directives affecting the insurance industry face delays of up to six months because of the failure of EU Council of Ministers secretariat translators to produce legal texts in all 20 official languages of the newly expanded EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has admitted that translation difficulties caused by May 1’s accession of 10 new member countries is already slowing the adoption of important financial legislation, with the EU Council of Ministers accepting a six month delay for two accounting-related directives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW EUROPEAN Union (EU) member country Estonia has been lent Euro 80 million by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to renovate and extend its electricity transmission and distribution systems. The loan to Eesti Energia AS should reduce its operational and maintenance costs, enable it to meet expected residential electricity demand growth and increase cross-border sales.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
E-BUSINESS W@tch (NOTE – CORRECT SPELLING), an EU-funded monitoring organisation, is claiming that businesses in countries joining the European Union (EU) in May are embracing new Internet technologies rapidly – especially broadband – resulting in a smaller digital divide with existing members than expected.…