Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a scheme for the development of the natural gas infrastructure in Northern Ireland that will mean supplies from the Republic of Ireland being pumped into the north for the first time. The Commission said that eventually the infrastructure may be extended to north-westerly regions of Ireland, such as Donegal, which are not currently served by natural gas and it therefore “takes a big step towards the development of an all-island natural gas infrastructure.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WORK is a lot more dangerous and unhealthy in the countries that will join the European Union in 2004 and later, than it is in the existing EU. A study by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions finds there is “nearly double the risk to health and safety at work in the candidate countries.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Fund has agreed to invest Euro 25 million in “Merlin Biosciences III,” a pan-European scheme investing on infant companies that develop human healthcare products or allied technologies. Merlin Biosciences III will exclusively focus on biosciences, with particular attention to post-genomics, cell therapy, computational approaches to biosciences, bionics, nano-technology and system biology.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MINISTERS of the 15 European Union countries have reached agreement on the Trans-European Energy Networks directive. The ministers have essentially supported the Commission proposal of last year and Brussels officials predicted that the European Parliament will do likewise later this year.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has been censured by the European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, who has called on EU Member States to reconsider their refusal to release a report on business taxation to a firm of consultants, (which has chosen to remain anonymous).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce is appealing for help to help it track down the perpetrators of a fake share-offering that has left European businesses out of pocket. Its Commercial Crime Bureau wants to hear from victims of a scam, where investors have been offered bargain prices for stick of companies that were supposedly about to go public, but which actually did not exist.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed revised European Union-wide rules for health controls on meat as part of a new package of hygiene measures designed to step up food safety in the EU. These would implement a science-based approach to meat inspection, which Brussels said would protect the consumer from all main hazards linked to the consumption of meat.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed he creation of a new Euro 13 million per annum scheme to monitor the health of Europe’s forests. Assuming it is approved by European Union ministers, the programme would initially run from January 2003 until December 2008.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved a special new budget item of Euro

32 million, (Pounds 20 million), in respect of the policy to reduce the EU’s fishing capacity by scrapping vessels, which should enable fleets to be downsized from next year, rather than in 2004, as previously discussed.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Dutch government recover maritime transport aid it has paid out since 1996 to port and inland waterway towage operations, ruling that these payments broke EU state aid rules. Brussels approved subsidies from the Netherlands to towage operators, but had assumed that this money was for limited to ships working on the open seas.…