Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is planning new trade measures to help Pakistani exports, specifically targeting clothing and textiles, which account for three-quarters of the country’s sales to the EU. In a move linked to helping Pakistan deal with the current war on its Afghan neighbour, the plan is to remove all tariffs on clothing and to increase quotas for Pakistani textiles and clothing by 15 per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BEEF consumption within the European Union has continued to rise, despite the Foot and Mouth crisis, according to EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler, who maintains there is a “slow but steady recovery.” He has claimed that consumption is now just 5.7 per cent lower than the same period last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government is being questioned by the European Commission over claims that its officials are breaking EU law by restricting the amount of tobacco brought into the country from other Member States. Brussels will use the replies to decide whether to start legal proceedings, which could reach the European Court if Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HOLIDAYS and pregnancy leave are a serious business, both for the employees who take them and the employers who pay for them. Unfortunately for personnel departments who might want a little more flexibility over whether they should shell out or not, recent cases at the European Court of Justice have underlined the right of EU citizens to take paid leave, rather than erode them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has thrown out proposals to weaken a planned directive limiting emissions from outdoors mobile equipment, by allowing manufacturers to produce machines with high emissions, if they also make greener engines at the same time.

MEP’s voted to scrap European Commission plans to introduce the so-called ‘averaging and banking’ system used in the USA, because it unfairly favours large manufacturers.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of the conditions that it will probably attach to applications by EU Member States to pay state aid to airlines to fund insurance cover, at a time when private companies have been withdrawing policies.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers for transport was expected this month (Oct 15) to approve detailed proposals to beef up aviation security within the EU, as a response to the terrorist attacks on the USA and continuing concern about reprisals to the military action launched by the west.…

KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH hauliers may not in future find themselves at such a competitive disadvantage with eastern European competitors regarding the commercial transport of animals, because of a planned updating to a Council of Europe welfare convention.

Its commitments apply to countries both outside and within the European Union, where hauliers already have to comply with expensive rules on trailer standards, journey times, rest periods and the watering and feeding of livestock.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening to take Belgium and Finland to the European Court of Justice, claiming that their mandatory no-claims bonus systems for motor insurance breaks the EU’s third non-life insurance directive.

Brussels claims that the regulations deny insurers the freedom to set scales of premiums allowed in the EU legislation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE TERRORIST attacks in the USA have increased the urgency felt in Brussels to decrease the dependency of the European Union for its energy needs on Middle East oil, with EU research Commissioner Philippe Busquin saying that studies into renewable energy sources should have greater priority as a result.…