Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament this week (on December 11th) cleared the way for a European Food Safety Authority early next year with powers to set and monitor safety standards for the entire food chain “from farm to fork.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN online book retailers are likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT requirement for books downloaded from the Internet. The system allows for online EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises websites based in the United States, (or other third countries), selling to consumers in the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency has established a data link between satellites using a laser beam to carry signals, the first time this has been achieved. The SILEX system on ESA’s Artemis satellite was able to receive images in real time from the French space agency CNES’s Earth observation satellite SPOT 4, relaying them to an image processing center in Toulouse.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that tax breaks granted to German nuclear power operators, to help them build up reserves for the eventual decommissioning of their plants and the safe disposal of nuclear waste, do not actually constitute the payment of unfair and illegal state aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to undertake root-and-branch reforms to promote energy effieciency and environmental performance within their utilities and industries, including the raising of gas and oil prices.

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 reforms for the region.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is lending a town in northern Sweden Euro 33 million to build a biomass fuelled combined heat and power station, which will consume a fuel that is widely available in the area: timber and wood chips.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that the Spanish government should be authorised to levy a special 25 per cent tax on imports of tobacco into the Canary Islands, to help protect its dwindling tobacco industry; a Brussels report claimed that between 1985 and 2000, the sector shed 67 per cent of its jobs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has launched an aggressive rebuttal of claims by French trade union’s that the European Commission’s single sky initiative is an effective privatisation of air traffic management that will compromise safety standards.

The conservative Spanish commissioner said: “Let there be no misunderstanding: the purpose of the Single Sky is not to boost competition or privatise air traffic control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Euro 35 million to the state owned Namibia Power Corporation Pty Ltd. for the construction of 400 kV power transmission lines, supplying the new Skorpion zinc mine in the south-west of the country.…

Keith Nuthall
POLITICAL difficulties blocking the agreement of common European Union invoicing rules, that would sanction the legitimacy of electronic billing for VAT purposes across the EU, have been cleared.

The EU Council of Ministers, (finance), has unanimously agreed in principle the proposed new invoicing directive.…