Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation has claimed that a probe of working conditions in Cambodian textile factories found no evidence of child labour, forced working or sexual harassment, but revealed problems related to overtime payments, working hours and union discrimination.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has stepped up a quarrel with France over bananas, where Brussels says French importers are entitled to only 4,000 tonnes of reduced-duty imports a year; France is insisting on 50,000 tonnes. Paris has now been given a month to respond or face action in the European Court of Justice.…

Keith Nuthall
TEXTILE designs are to receive uniform legal protection across the European Union in the future because of the agreement by the EU Council of Ministers of a new Regulation on the subject; it accords designers legal protection from the theft of their ideas, short of patent or copyright protection, but significant enough to deter plagiarists.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has produced cross-border action plans to conserve eight species of birds whose survival is threatened in the European Union. Working with BirdLife International, Brussels’ guidelines will help shape Member States’ conservation policies, encouraging them to work together to save the bittern, the ferruginous duck, Steller’s eider, the lammergeier, the greater spotted eagle, the lesser spotted eagle, Bonelli’s eagle and the little bustard.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation has claimed that a probe of working conditions in Cambodian textile factories found no evidence of child labour, forced labour or sexual harassment, but revealed problems related to overtime payments, working hours and union discrimination.…

Keith Nuthall
CHANGES to a European Union directive, which forces employers to make provision for their employees of they become insolvent, have been accepted by the European Parliament; the proposals aim to extend the scope of the legislation to include subcontractors and the officially self-employed who work mostly for one company.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Commission officials believe that rapidly growing oil and gas shipments from Russia to the EU could in time pave the way for the adoption of the Euro as a petro-currency. Gerassimo Thomas, spokesman for the Commissioner in charge of the euro, Pedro Solbes, said that the Commission had considered pushing for the euro to be used globally to denominate the price of oil but “we can’t tell the market how to behave.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission is now re-thinking its strategy over ship-building following rejection of its favoured approach by the EU Council of Industry Ministers on Wednesday.

Mr Heinz Mico, a spokesman for the trade commissioner Pascal Lamy, said the extension of the EU’s case at the WTO to include LNG carriers would only be realistic if there were “good reasons” for it that went beyond the complaint of one country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined eight companies Euro 855.22 million for participating in cartels inflating prices of vitamins they produced between 1989 and 1999. Companies involved included Switzerland’s Hoffman-La Roche, BASF, of (Germany), AG Aventis SA, (France), Solvay Pharmaceuticals BV, (Netherlands), Merck KgaA, (Germany), Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, (Japan), Eisai Co Ltd, (Japan), and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd, (Japan).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to contribute Euro 47.6 million, (about Pounds 29 million), towards a six-year cross-border support programme for Ireland and Wales, which can be tapped by local authorities for policies covering spatial development, environmental issues and co-ordination of regional economic activities.…