Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has organised a conference to discuss the consequences of the abolition of quotas under the WTO’s agreement on textile and clothing. This symposium – The Future of Textiles and Clothing Trade after 2005 – will be held in Brussels on May 5-6.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered Spain’s wage guarantee fund to recover Euro 545,000 in debt owed by specialist heat resistant ceramics manufacturer Refractarios Especiales S.A., after it concluded that an earlier waiving of this due payment was an illegal government grant.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has authorised the European Commission to open negotiations with Vietnam on updating the 1992 EU-Vietnamese Bilateral Agreement on Trade in Textile and Clothing Products, which was last amended in 2000.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered Italy to scrap a tax break regime for insurance and other financial companies wanting to trade in eastern Europe, claiming that it breaks EU state aid rules. It wants the Italian government to close its Trieste Financial Services and Insurance Centre; this special registration system was one of a number of similar arrangements initially approved by the Commission in 1995, which saw them as offering a way to enhance the development of financial markets in east European countries and the former Soviet Union.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has speeded up its establishment of a European Maritime Safety Agency, which has been delayed because of disagreements within the EU Council of Ministers over the seat of its secretariat. As a result, the Commission has convened the inaugural meeting of the agency’s administrative board in its own Brussels offices, without waiting for a decision on where the organisation will be houses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHANGES have been made to European legislation aimed at protecting European Union (EU) airlines which could restrict slots allotted to foreign competitors receiving large government subsidies. The European Parliament’s transport committee have approved amendments which would specify retaliatory measures that could be taken against offending carriers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) judges and courts requiring assistance with cases that involve more than one EU Member State will be able to summon help from special international contact points from the New Year, when the details of the new European Judicial Network are posted on the Internet.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUCCESSFUL negotiations between the European Commission and Nepal and Cambodia have led to an extension of existing textile trade agreements between these Asian kingdoms and the European Union (EU) until December 2004. These list products – including wool – that can be imported into the EU without quota limits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the acquisition by German chemicals firm Celanese AG of the emulsions and emulsion powders business of Swiss company Clariant AG. Concluding that the deal does not raise any competition concerns within the European Union, Brussels cleared the takeover without conditions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DOUBLE checking systems introduced by the European Union to police steel trade systems struck with eastern European countries who now want to become Member States are to be indefinitely extended. The European Commission has proposed that these monitoring systems be maintained in place to guard against illicit steel exports from the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland and Slovakia until they are finally accepted as formal members of the EU.…