Search Results for: European Union

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN is being threatened with fresh legal action over its failure to comply with a European Court of Justice ruling concerning ground waters and surface freshwaters affected by nitrate pollution. These proceedings could result in London being given massive recurring fines of up to Euro 100,000 a day, until it obeys the ECJ.…

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
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 ALAN OSBORN
DESPITE its rejection by America, the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has now been agreed and is set to move towards ratification and implementation within two years. Ministers from 180 countries reached a compromise deal over the treaty after lengthy negotiations in Marrakesh, Morocco at the week-end (finished on Saturday 10th).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a long-term strategy to combat the presence of PCB’s and dioxins in food, complementing its moves to establish maximum contamination values for these chemicals. For the next five years, Brussels wants to conduct hazard identification, risk assessment and management, research, public information and international co-operation on the problem.…

BY JOHNATHAN THOMSON
DESPITE the general fears about air travel sparked by the World Trade Centre disaster, commercial aviation is not only incredibly safe, but is getting safer each decade despite the considerable rise in global traffic. Tens of thousands of passenger aircraft take to the skies every day across the world, yet during the 1990’s there were only 483 fatal air accidents globally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FOOD processing industry could help make the EU economy more sustainable by increasingly spreading its waste on farmland, a European Commission report has claimed. It highlights the “elements beneficial to plant growth…rapidly available to plants,” with “very few trace organic compounds or heavy metals.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to raise fuel prices, so as to improve their environmental performance and promote investment in energy efficient industries.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe recently addressed the issue, with its Committee on Sustainable Energy and the Committee on Environmental Policy agreeing to produce guidelines on price reform.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE DEVELOPMENT of safe, trouble-free and cheap air travel in Europe rests on a nexus of co-operation between countries made possible by the existence of the European Civil Aviation Conference. As the only Europe-wide organisation with the membership and expertise capable of responding to the increasingly complex needs of the European air transport industry, ECAC can, in a real sense, claim to be the representative voice of pan-European civil aviation.…

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.…