Search Results for: European Union

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has demanded the immediate introduction of

a uniform driving “attestation” for drivers from non-EU countries using roads in the EU. MEP’s said that this should certify that the driver met the employment conditions of the country where he or she was operating.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to take France to the European Court of Justice, for failing to implement the EU gas directive before its August 2000 deadline. Paris has pointed out that draft legislation has been adopted, but Brussels asked the ECJ to order it to comply, because there is no date for it to be approved by the national assembly.…

KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE has been ordered by the European Commission to recover 100 million French Francs, (Euro 15.2 million), which it paid to ailing textile and clothing company Manufacture Corre(E IS ACUTE)zienne de Ve(E HAS CIRCUMFLEX)tements Ve(E HAS CIRCUMFLEX)tements (MCV).

Brussels had not been notified about the payments, which it says broke EU state aid rules, because they did not promote effective investment in the company which would have allowed it to become self-sufficient.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is investigating whether Brazil has failed to stick to a promise to scrap a minumum-price regime on certain textile products, which had restricted the amount of EU exports that could enter its market.

World Trade Organisation disputes proceedings had been launched by Brussels because of the problem, which especially affected ‘home textiles,’ such as mattress ticking, carpets and rugs, with Belgian and Spanish producers being the hardest hit.…

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
FRAUDSTERS are still fleecing the European Union’s budget of hundreds-of-millions of Euros, according to the latest European Commission fraud report. It says that Member States last year alerted Brussels to 2,400 new cases of fraud or irregularity affecting revenue collection, involving Euro 535 million, (of mostly import duties), and 4,200 cases regarding spending programmes, involving Euro 600 million.…

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.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EU Council of Ministers has agreed to impose definitive countervailing duties on imports of synthetic polyester fibres from Australia and Indonesia, which will prevent European producers facing unfair competition because of subsidies paid to their rivals in these Asia-Pacific countries.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to apply further pressure on Member States to harmonise their drinks excise duty rates later this year, when it releases a report on alcohol taxation. The paper will focus on the problems created in the EU’s Internal Market by wide contrasts between rates and its effect on competition between different categories of alcoholic drinks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has established a Clean Air for Europe programme, which includes a commitment to create an integrated anti-air pollution strategy by 2004. It will promote the collection of detailed information on the problem, which will be the basis for decisions supposedly based on sound science.…