Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to extend the legal duty on EU steel manufacturers to supply substantial amounts of statistics about their outputs and inputs, at least until the end of this year. With the expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community in July, the regulation forcing them to collate the figures would have lapsed, but the European Commission has formally tabled that it be extended until December, following calls from EU policy units and national ministries that the statistics should continue to be made available.…

KEITH NUTHALL
WIDE-RANGING consultation has been launched by the European Commission into the idea of harmonising national laws across the European Union that regulate who is liable when a product is defective and a consumer wants to claim compensation.

EU justice and home affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino has claimed that with cross-border shopping growing between Member States, European citizens should be clear about their rights, wherever they buy goods or services.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s financial watchdog, the Court of Auditors, has found “significant weaknesses” in both the concept and management of Brussels key education programmes, Socrates and Youth for Europe.

Costing some Euro 998 million and Euro 141 million respectvely, (Pounds 600 million and Pounds 85 million), between 1995 and 1999, the programmes are designed to encourage co-operation and exchanges between teachers and pupils, foster language skills and inject a European element into curricula.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOAL of creating a European Aviation Safety Agency to police common European Union rules affecting the sector has been achieved, with the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers settling last minute differences.

Resulting final amendments have been approved by MEP’s and the proposal will now return to the Council of Ministers for formal rubber-stamping rather than being haggled over in a time-consuming conciliation committee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LAST week a political deal was struck in Brussels on the shape of European cookie legislation. The result, in footballing terms: Lawyers 5 – IT industry 2.

On the plus side, the anti-cookie proposals of Council of Ministers, (which represents Europe’s Member States and shares the right of veto over this law with the European Parliament), have been softened, which should give some breathing room to the EU’s hard pressed Internet industry.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is piling political pressure onto industries, especially fossil fuel electricity generators, which pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, to force them to clean up their processes, adding costs to their bottom line.

In a move that will only serve to make CHP and renewable plants more competitive by comparison, the Commission is preparing a raft of legal cases against eight European Union Member States, to force them to monitor and restrict their production of key greenhouse pollutants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW European directive reducing pollutant emissions from new motorcycles by between 65-70 per cent within four years has been approved by a conciliation committee linking the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers. Reductions in carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions would be made in two steps; in 2003 and 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW pan-European pharmaceuticals company called Consilient Health has been launched in Brussels to help pharmaceutical companies from the eastern and southern European countries seeking membership of the European Union to integrate with its market and regulatory structures.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is trying to unite the EU’s footwear research and development teams in a network of excellence that will form part of its so-called European Research Area. This general policy aims to link researchers from different Member States so they can collaborate on projects, avoiding duplication and benefiting from economies of scale.…

Keith Nuthall
Members of the European Parliament are pressing for a partial delay to the introduction of the European Commission’s block exemption reforms, by proposing a two year delay to the introduction of the right of dealers to establish themselves in foreign Member States.…