Search Results for: European Court of Justice

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PERFORMANCE of OLAF, the European Union’s new and supposedly independent anti-fraud office, has been criticised by the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee; it has suggested that it has not worked more effectively than its predecessor UCLAF, the European Commission’s in-house fraud busting unit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the European farming industry facing more fundamental change than it has in decades, it could be said that funding research into ways of making this transformation less painless has to be a good thing. Whatever the view on this fairly facile assumption, the eyes of the agricultural sector should at least be partly turned on Brussels thus year, where debates for the preparation of a new five-year EU research programme are being staged.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been asked by justice and internal affairs ministers of the 15 EU countries to consider legislation that would make it compulsory to include an adjective and alphanumeric code specifying the colour of a vehicle on the registration certificate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DIGITAL third generation mobile operators are likely to be disappointed by the result of the first EU joint telecoms-transport council, which has refused to abide by their concerns over the European Commissions new draft guidelines regarding Significant Market Power (SMP).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has adopted a series of action plans to integrate the protection of biodiversity into EU agricultural, fishery, environment and development policies. Their aim is to stop losses in wildlife, ecosystems, crop varieties, domestic animals and fish.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted all quotas on imports of textile and clothing products from Ukraine, in line with the agreement struck between Brussels and Kiev last December. The move follows confirmation that Ukraine has lowered its tariff levels for EU textile exports.…

KEITH NUTHALL
DISCUSSIONS are to be held between the European Commission and ACEA, the European car producers’ association, on striking a voluntary agreement on guidelines for car front designs, that will minimise pedestrian casualties in accidents.

A statement from the Commission, following a meeting with manufacturers, said that there were benefits in a voluntary deal over a regulation, in that “a negotiated agreement can be considerably faster to implement and thus more lives could be saved faster.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN utilities will be able to apply for grants from budgets of Euro 1.7 billion, which has been earmarked for energy, transport, sustainable development and global change and of Euro 3.6 billion, for information society research – including telecommunications – if proposals from the European Commission for a new framework research programme, are agreed.…

Keith Nuthall
A NEW power-charging system for electric cars has been developed by a European Commission funded research project. The idea is to set up land-based recharging terminals at that can combine with apparatus attached to cars, leading them to be automatically recharged with electricity when they are parked.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE LOCAL Council – what are the worst images conjured up when thinking of those words?

Let me make it easy for you.

Lazy employees that take forever to process requests, generally unhelpful and bored, unfulfilling positions that can transform a new recruit full of fresh ideas and faith in the system, to the jaded staff that many of us have encountered at our local councils.…