Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States and the European Union are poised for another battle of wits at the World Trade Organisation, over the rights of governments to protect their own audio-visual sectors, especially through the use of subsidies.

WTO members are about to examine in detail proposals made by the USA on the liberalisation of the international audio-visual sector, which it wants to promote through the ongoing WTO round on service industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is a pre-requisite of successful policy making that public authorities need to have an accurate picture of the status quo, and also an effective way of measuring the results of reforms. Maybe nowhere is this truer than with the complex subject of sustainable agriculture and rural development.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Central Bank has concluded that the liberalisation of the EU telecommunications markets has contributed to a sharp cut in prices and that planned additional reforms are likely to make European charges cheaper still; it also concludes that reforms are likely to harmonise future electricity prices.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE CREATION of an effective pan-European rail freight network has taken a step forward, with the proposal of common operating systems for railway signalling and telecommunications by the European Commission. These technical standards include the specifications for the European Rail Traffic Management System, which will improve safety, for instance by controlling the spacing between trains and also emergency braking.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission and Morocco have failed to strike an agreement which would allow Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats to take catches in Moroccan waters, bringing to an unsuccessful end six months of detailed discussions. The result is that the previous agreement, which expired in 1999, and which allowed 500 European boats to exploit catches including tuna and shrimp, is not expected to be renewed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH Maritime Law Association has called on European Union legislators to be careful when framing any possible directive on environmental liability, to make sure that its regulations do not clash with existing international conventions on sea pollution.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has appealed for information technology research teams to become involved in a project to identify common content characteristics of the most internationally popular European Union-designed websites.

Its directorate general for Information Society said that it wanted to “benchmark availability and usage of European digital content,” focusing on sites receiving the most hits in the EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and the United States.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE SUPPLY and quality of water services and their environmental management have been near the top of the research agendas of institutions of the European Union this year, with the European Commission’s directorate generals (DG) for research and the environment being particularly active.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MEMBER States of the European Union reduced their emissions of the six key greenhouse gases by four per cent between 1990 and 1999, according to a report from the European Environment Agency. This takes the EU half way towards achieving its Kyoto target of reducing emissions of these gases to 8 per cent below their 1990 level by the years 2008-2012.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that Belgium be allowed to reduce its excise duty on low-sulphur diesel, (less than 50 ppm), and unleaded petrol, in a bid to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.…