Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MINIMUM level of state aid payments to the European Union coal industry would survive until 2010, and probably beyond, under a new subsidy regime proposed by the European Commission that would recognise the need of the EU to maintain its own indigenous energy production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINLAND is the world’s most technologically advanced country, according to a United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP), report, which puts the UK at number seven in its league table, also behind the USA, Sweden, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing a new EU corporate take-over directive by setting up a high level group of company law experts and asking for preliminary recommendations by the end of the year. Brussels will propose a new directive to replace legislation that was scrapped in July when the European Parliament failed to approve it.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to lend Viking River Cruises US$15 million to acquire three cruise ships to ply the Danube and Volga rivers. The Scandinavian/Dutch owned company is the world’s largest river cruise line with a fleet of 30 ships operating in European and Russian waterways.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been formally asked to approve writing the new Protocol on Water and Heath to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes into EU law. The treaty commits signatories to ensuring adequate drinking water and sanitation, while preventing waterborne pollution and disease.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that the proposed European Food Authority is to play a central role in the evaluation of pesticide safety, in a speed up the current slow pace by which the EU is checking the toxicity of active ingredients in plant protection products.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Space Agency-supported satellite ground station has been helping Canadian fire fighters to tackle a spate of large-scale blazes in British Columbia. The

REMSAT unit is driven or flown by helicopter close to a particular fire, establishing a link with satellite cameras, which beam back accurate one-metre resolution images, enabling fire teams to target their work, including the mapping of blaze perimeters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE TIMING of concessions that can be achieved at the World Trade Organisation’s agricultural round, sweeping away the high tariffs, import quotas, production subsidies and export credits that make the working lives of every agricultural exporter more of a struggle, are likely to be set in the next three months.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
FINNISH steel companies Rautaruukki and Outokumpu are set to benefit from European Commission funding of Euro 600,000 granted to support the distribution of steel across Europe using alternatives to road transport.

The funded transport project is part of the EU’s PACT programme, which aims to move containers and similar units away from roads to rail, sea and inland waterways.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BOOK club companies must pay value added tax on the costs of delivering gifts in kind to existing customers as a reward for bringing in new business, the European Court of Justice has ruled. The judgement came in a case involving clubs operated by the German media giant Bertelsmann between 1985 and 1990 when books, records and bicycles were given to subscribers in return for the introduction of new members.…