Search Results for: European Union

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PROPOSED European Union directive that would restrict spamming and other controversial online marketing devices for financial services has failed to secure approval at the EU Council of Ministers, despite having been tabled in 1998. A communiqué from the council for the European internal market said, that following a long debate, ministers were “not in a position to reach agreement by qualified majority on this issue.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
IN the world’s continually growing urban communities, household consumption of water accounts for the bulk of demand, and as such, has to be the target of conservation strategies, for them to maximise their effectiveness.

However, a rather gloomy report from the European Environment Agency has claimed that high prices and lack of information are preventing many households from using devices that can substantially cut their water consumption.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ducked making a potentially controversial ruling on the legality under EU freedom of trade rules of the Swedish laws banning alcohol advertising.

Judges had heard a case referred by the Stockholm district court, which had been brought by Sweden’s consumer ombudsman against a food and drink magazine Gourmet, which had carried ads for red wine and whisky.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CASE brought by the European Commission against the Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds corporations for their alleged involvement in cigarette smuggling has opened at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The Commission has now been formally joined in the case by Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, who have given mandate Commission lawyers to represent them.…

BY KATE REW
THE NEW edition of the global code, which sets the standard for imports and exports of healthy fish has just been released. The third version of the International Aquatic Animal Health Code published by Office International des Epizooties (corr), lists the diseases that would stop the import or export of fish, molluscs and crustaceans, under international trade laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for the oncoming sixth framework programme on EU research to treat the development electronic money purses, especially through the use of 3G mobile phones, as a priority for funding. As it stands, the proposed plan would earmark Euro 3.6 billion for ‘information society’ research from 2002 to 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to develop a new kind of European Union patent, which would allow R&D units to gain protection for their inventions across the EU by making one comparatively simple application, are being discussed. A so-called Community Patent would be easier to operate than the existing European Patents, which have to be translated into the official language of each Member State in which it is to apply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has banned Glaxo Wellcome’s dual pricing system in Spain, where the company requires Spanish wholesalers to pay a higher price for pharmaceuticals, which they export to other Member States, than when reselling the same products locally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has returned to the political fray over tobacco advertising. Bloodied from its experience at the European Court of Justice, yet apparently unbowed, it has proposed a fresh directive which seeks to ban companies from buying publicity in the print media, radio and the Internet.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
MANY Health and Safety leaflets are going over their small and medium-sized business targets’ heads because the reading age needed to understand them is too high for their owners and managers.

Delegates at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents’ (RoSPA) recent conference at Birmingham heard Sandra Caldwell, head of the Health and Safety Executive’s Health Directorate, bring this surprising fact out in the open.…