Search Results for: European Parliament

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has widened health research under the oncoming EU Sixth Framework Programme to include studies on traditional diseases, widening European Commission plans to limiting its life science work to genomics and biotechnology. By contrast, the parliament wants money spent on cancer, cardiovascular diseases, degenerative nervous system illnesses, (including CJD), diabetes, viral hepatitis C, allergies, rare diseases and ageing conditions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has proposed the creation of a European Platform for Clinical Tests, a body whose aim would be to intensify and fast-track studies within the EU on AIDS/HIV, TB and malaria. He said that the platform would be a “cornerstone” of the Commission’s strategy against the diseases, especially where it is considering the needs of developing countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to approve the payment of Euro 60 million from the general EU 2001 budget to help finance the UN’s Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The money will be the first of two tranches, with the European Commission developing plans to give another Euro 60 million from the European Development Fund to be reserved for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers have been asked to approve a formal plan to computerise and coordinate the European Union’s customs procedures controlling the movement and surveillance of excisable products, including alcoholic drinks. The tabled EU Decision would establish a Euro 35 million Brussels budget to set up the system within five years, hopefully by 2006, which is to be matched by between Euro 5 and 12 million from each Member State.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has lost two bids at the European Court of Justice to overturn the refusal by the European Commission to fully meet Spanish claims for European grants for meat subsidies, because of concerns about Madrid’s “weak” anti-fraud controls.…

Keith Nuthall
A SET of comprehensive guidelines on the recovery of debts owed to European Union institutions has been adopted by the European Commission, which wants to avoid the unnecessary and expensive writing off of money owed. Debts to Brussels can amount to millions of Euro, and the in-house rules have especially been designed to prevent the recurrence of a case such as the Flechard Russian butter aid scandal, where a tender security of Euro 17.6 million was claimed, but only Euro 3 million was actually paid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCENTRATIONS of potentially harmful ground-level ozone pollution exceeded a critical threshold somewhere in the European Union on two out of every three days this spring and summer, according to the European Environment Agency.

In a report to EU environment ministers, the EEA said that from April to August, ozone pollution exceeded levels requiring public alerts in 11 of 15 EU Member States and in five out of 10 other (mostly eastern) European countries that supplied data.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SYSTEM of tax exemptions allowing French companies to deduct liability for losses incurred by subsidiaries or branches abroad breaks the European Coal and Steel Community’s Steel Aid Code, the European Commission has ruled.

Following an investigation, it has concluded that none of the exemptions provided for, such as aid for research and development, environmental protection or closures, are applicable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENVIRONMENTAL mainstreaming was the Brussels buzzword of the year 2000, it entailed the routine integration of green concerns into other EU policy areas. European ministers backed the concept and also accepted detailed papers explaining how this was to be brought about.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Authority should play a key role in seeking to allay the fears of European Union consumers about purchasing genetically modified foodstuffs, a senior official within the European Commission has claimed. The director general of the Commission’s directorate general for health and consumer protection, Robert Coleman, told a round table in Brussels that the unwillingness of EU consumers to buy GM food is because many are no longer “convinced by….…