Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has formally established the European Food Safety Authority, along with the set of EU regulations that it is supposed to police. Ministers confirmed that the new agency would be established temporarily in Brussels, as Member States have been unable to agree the location of its permanent home.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTELLECTUAL property law specialists have been asked to comment on a report that suggests that European Union regulations limiting the scope of technology transfer agreements should be liberalised. The European Commission wants to know whether it should widen the scope of its so-called ‘block exemption’ from its competition rules regarding intellectual property issues.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE CREATION of a hydro electricity joint venture by German electricity giant E.ON and Austrian electricity producer Verbund has been approved by the European Commission; European Hydro Power will produce electricity for its parents, which will continue to sell the power separately to their customers in Germany and Austria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has made good on its plans to table formal legislation forcing polluters to pay for the cleansing of the European Union’s land, seas, rivers and atmosphere from the toxins that they have released.

Ministers will now be asked to approve a directive on environmental liability, allowing public authorities to hold companies legally responsible, not only for repairing ecological damage, but also for taking precautions to prevent such problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (general affairs) has approved an intensive double-checking system regarding the trade in steel products between Macedonia and the European Union. Its aim is to boost openness and transparency in the export of Macedonian steel, under the trade agreement Skopje has signed with Brussels, preventing the system being abused.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND MARK ROWE
THE EUROPEAN Union has agreed a suspension of Chinese imports of molluscs, crustaceans, frozen shrimps and prawns because of concerns about contamination; it follows the discovery of “serious deficiencies” in China’s medical residue control system and “problems related to the use of banned substances in the veterinary field.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has launched the first stage of disputes proceedings at the World Trade Organisation over provisional safeguard duties imposed by the Philippines government on imports of glazed and unglazed ceramic wall and floor tiles. The European Commission has called for formal talks on the matter with the Filipino government; if these fail, then Brussels could ask a WTO panel to arbitrate on the matter.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INDIA has triggered the first stage of World Trade Organisation disputes proceedings in a bid to force the United States to abolish changes made to its rules of origin legislation, that New Delhi claims favour the American and European Union textile industries.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is drawing up detailed guidelines informing its staff when they can talk to the media and the public, without breaching their contracts, following criticism from the European Ombudsman Jacob Söderman that existing rules were “insufficiently clear.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
A CHILD of divorced parents is entitled to receive an advance on maintenance payments from a foreign government in the European Union if one separated parent lives in its country, the European Supreme court has ruled.…