Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANZ Fischler has been making a lot of speeches recently. It is not because he has time on his hands, he is in charge of the European Commission’s largest two budgets, agriculture and fisheries after all. Rather it is because he is cross with the Americans, whom he accuses of playing Janus at the WTO.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A RANGE of compounds, chemicals, micro-organisms and toxins, together with test and production equipment and associated software has been published by the European Commission under its revised dual-use regulation for controlling the export of items that could be put to illegal use, including terrorism and warfare by rogue states.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN is being threatened with fresh legal action over its failure to comply with a European Court of Justice ruling concerning ground waters and surface freshwaters affected by nitrate pollution. These proceedings could result in London being given massive recurring fines of up to Euro 100,000 a day, until it obeys the ECJ.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE has been added to a European Commission blacklist of Member States who have concluded so-called ‘Open Skies’ agreements with the United States, which grants relevant national airlines additional landing writes in America. Brussels opposes the deals, because they discriminate against carriers from EU countries which have not made similar agreements and also because they help US airlines compete with those based in Europe: the deals allow planes to fly onto a third country, a mixed blessing for EU carriers flying to the US, given its size.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HIGHWAY authorities across the EU would be able to strike contracts with public road transport suppliers for eight years, three years longer than earlier proposals from the European Commission, because of amendments passed by the European Parliament to proposed legislation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called for swift political agreement on a range of draft proposals promoting the safety of both road tunnels and hauliers themselves, as a response to the latest trans-Alpine disaster at St Gothard, Switzerland.

EU transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has called for “concerted action” between the EU and the Swiss government, implementing initiatives “with vigour and as rapidly as possible.”…

From Alan Osborn
The European Commission in Brussels today (Thursday) announced

plans to replace 20 per cent of present EU consumption of diesel and

petroleum fuels in the transport sector by alternative fuels by the year

2020. It said there were three possibilities: biofuels, which were already

available, natural gas in the medium term and hydrogen and fuel cells in

the long term.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an investigation into state aid paid by the Italian government to its shellfish producers; it fears they were overcompensated for problems caused by the spread of mucilage in the Adriatic last year.

Rome paid fish farmers Euro 775,000 to cover up to 30 per cent of their losses caused by this natural jelly hindering their operations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union-wide strategy to guarantee the production, supply and availability of medicines warding off the effects of a biological terrorist attack have been debated at a meeting between the European Commission and the EU pharmaceutical industry. They discussed possible threats, and how to ensure medicines are made available in emergencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RIGHTS of cosmetic and perfume retailers to sell re-exported products cheaply on the grey parallel market – against the wish of a manufacturer – have been weakened by a surprise European Court of Justice ruling.

It has acted unusually by ignoring a preliminary legal opinion by an ECJ Advocate General, who said that the right of a trademark holder to “control the initial distribution of goods within the European Economic Area,” (the EU, plus Norway and Iceland), was limited when they had been released to a third country.…