Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU Council of Ministers for the environment has given political agreement to the creation of official guidelines for Member States on Integrated Coastal Zone Management. It means that EU governments will have to develop strategies coordinating national, regional and local regulations and initiatives fighting the pollution of coasts, covering beaches and cliffs as well as the sea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
WATER pricing reform is on its way in the European Union. The water framework directive passed last year imposes a commitment on Member States by the year 2010 to ensure that their pricing policies “provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE LATEST report of the European Court of Auditors on annual spending by the European Union is depressingly familiar. It says the figures do not warrant official approval. It puts a questionmark over some Pounds 2.5 billion out of the pounds 50 billion spent by the EU in 2000, with most of the suspect figures again in the farm sector.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
WITH the daily number of flights across European skies expected to increase from the current average of 25,000 to 50,000 by 2020, the continent’s air industry is facing a serious threat of longer delays, higher rates of air accidents and escalating operating costs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FROM the beginning of next year exporters of medicinal products will find it easier to sell in Japan following completion of a Mutual Recognition Agreement between that country and the EU.

The deal includes a Good Manufacturing Practice agreement under which both sides will agree to honour each other’s testing, certification and approval of products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL state aid investigation has been launched by the European Commission into exemptions from excise duty on heavy oils used for the production of the aluminium raw material alumina, allowed by the governments of Ireland, France and Italy

They have used powers available to them under the 1992 Directive on the approximation of the rates of excise duties on mineral oils, to exempt alumina producers in, respectively, the Shannon region, Gardanne and Sardinia, from paying excise on the oils.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT was telling that the first step taken by President Bush against Islamic terror groups following the World Trade Centre disaster was to freeze bank accounts. The international community has now responded by agreeing common controls to stop terror groups laundering funds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOOMY report from the World Trade Organisation has concluded that the growth in global commerce has fallen steeply and is now expected to reach just two per cent, compared with much healthier estimates at the start of the year and a 12 per cent boom in the year 2000.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally adopted a regulation that will force the aquaculture industry to label their fish and fish products as being farmed or cultivated in a bid to better inform consumers and help officials police the Common Fisheries Policy.…

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.…