Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A STATE aid inquiry has been launched by the European Commission into concerns that restrictions on the payment of further state aid by the Spanish government to porcelain manufacturer Grupo de Empresas Álvarez, (GEA), in Vigo, Galicia, have been circumvented.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the proposed takeover of SSM Coal BV, of the Netherlands, by Germany’s Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH, concluding after an inquiry that the deal would not create competition problems in the EU petcoke market.

Rheinbraun, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German RWE Group, distributes coal and other solid fuels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DEVELOPMENT of sophisticated electronic devices embedded within every-day objects would be a priority of the oncoming Sixth Framework Programme of EU research, under detailed plans being drawn up by the European Commission. Speaking at an IST information day in Brussels, information society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen said that the studies would assist a “radical shift from the current PC based systems and from the keyboard, mouse and screen towards almost invisible technology of natural and effortless use.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A ROLLING programme of technical reforms to automobile manufacturing standards have been agreed by the European Commission with EU and Japanese carmakers, to design-out features that can harm pedestrians and cyclists and design-in elements that promote their safety.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
LEADING City banks and other financial institutions have agreed to take part in a large-scale computer re-cycling operation costing Pounds 1 million. The scheme, which is jointly financed by Lambeth Council and the European Commission’s LIFE-Environmental programme, has been selected by Brussels as a possible model for other EU cities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRACTICAL guidelines on steps that governments should take to fight digital piracy have been released by the Council of Europe, an organisation whose members include Russia and other eastern European countries, and where such crimes are known to have taken place in the past.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*Final approval has been given for a the spending by the European Commission until 2006 of Euro 15.4 million on rural development projects in Northern Ireland under the EU LEADER plus initiative. The scheme covers all province rural areas and will especially focus on farm families, women, young people and the long-term unemployed, funding training programmes, advice and assistance for rural enterprises, processing of local products and e-commerce initiatives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ASSESSMENT of the cost of European Commission plans to introduce legislation to control the emission of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons has been released by Brussels. The study examines the benefits to human health of reducing concentrations of PAH’s in the air to meet different possible limit values, and theh economic costs involved in meeting them.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IN what could almost be said to be a Brussels tradition, the beginning of the long summer break at the European Commission – when officials disappear to the south of France to lap up the Mediterranean sun – is usually heralded by the announcement of a series of legal cases against Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Central Bank has ordered that non-currency reproductions of Euro banknotes should in future be one-sided only, countermanding earlier rules that allowed double-sides copies to be made. The permitted size of specimen copes will remain at 125 per cent or larger or 75 per cent or smaller of the relevant notes and any material can be used for their reproduction.…