Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY ALAN OSBORN
A GROUP of scientific experts assembled to advise the European Union and its Member States about the fight against chemical and biological terrorism met for the first time in Brussels yesterday. Their first task was to make a joint assessment of the existing knowledge about the subject in the EU and on the capacity of emergency services to deal with attacks of this kind.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has extended its formal investigation into state aid paid by the German regional government of Thuringia to eastern Germany porcelain companies Kahla Porzellan GmbH (Kahla I) and Kahla/Thüringen Porzellan GmbH (Kahla II). Brussels is to examine subsidies of Euro 14.9 million, which it thinks were probably unlawful under EU regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union research project – the Medicago scheme – is trying to discover knowledge about the genes of legumes such as the grain pea to boost their usage in Europe; five per cent of cultivated EU farmland is used for legume production, compared with more than 25 per cent in the USA.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted for the oncoming 2002-6 Euro 16.2 billion EU Sixth Framework Programme on research to fund studies on “all aspects of food safety in the food chain from primary production to food processing.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a one-year extension to the EU’s production aid scheme for certain nuts and locust beans, which was due to be phased out in January. Brussels wants EU ministers to continue funding until June 2002, along with a specific flat-rate aid scheme for hazelnuts production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined eight companies Euro 855.22 million for participating in cartels inflating prices of vitamins they produced between 1989 and 1999. Companies involved included Switzerland’s Hoffman-La Roche, BASF, of (Germany), AG Aventis SA, (France), Solvay Pharmaceuticals BV, (Netherlands), Merck KgaA, (Germany), Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, (Japan), Eisai Co Ltd, (Japan), and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd, (Japan).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has launched an aggressive rebuttal of claims by French trade union’s that the European Commission’s single sky initiative is an effective privatisation of air traffic management that will compromise safety standards.

The conservative Spanish commissioner said: “Let there be no misunderstanding: the purpose of the Single Sky is not to boost competition or privatise air traffic control.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the Spanish government to grant aid up to a maximum of Euro 1.07 billion, (ESP 178 billion), to its coal industry for the past year, (2001). Brussels has accepted the particular problems facing Spain’s coal sector – with some mines that produce coal that is competitive with imports and others that are very costly – by allowing Madrid to finance operational aid as well as structural reforms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that tax breaks granted to German nuclear power operators, to help them build up reserves for the eventual decommissioning of their plants and the safe disposal of nuclear waste, do not actually constitute the payment of unfair and illegal state aid.…