Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
POLAND has agreed to reduce by 30 per cent its preferential duties on spirits and by 50 per cent the duties on vermouths under a deal reached with the European Commission. The agreement, initialled in Warsaw in October, was formally adopted by the Commission today (Friday) and if accepted by EU ministers will come into effect early next year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s fisheries committee has welcomed European Commission plans to make aquaculture an integral part of the European Union’s reformed Common Fisheries Policy, while calling for some important changes to existing Brussels blue-prints. It has backed a report written by French conservative MEP Hugues Martin that calls for the EU to fund start-up subsidies in the sector for young people and also grants aimed at improving fish farming’s environmental performance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its allies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade have made a significant concession, which may be the basis for a future deal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has – almost certainly – a new tobacco advertising directive, which its framers will hope will be more legally robust than its predecessor; struck down by the European Court of Justice. The EU Council of Ministers saved the European Parliament from having to debate the proposal a second time by accepting the few amendments that were agreed at a parliamentary plenary session in November.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked by the European Commission to shelve import tariffs on a range of leather products, because of concern that demand is outstripping supply in the EU. The suspension of duties would be indefinite, although the European Commission will inevitably review these tariff breaks within a year; assuming they are approved, they come into force on New Year’s Day.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE programme to improve the response of European Union (EU) institutions and member governments to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear terrorist attacks has been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers.

Following almost a year of debates, the approved plan requires governments and institutions to develop a comprehensive set of contingency actions, including political, economic, diplomatic, military and legal means, covering the prevention of attacks and the limitation of their consequences.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has called on the European Union and its Member States to scale down and harmonise requirements that they are making on businesses to store Internet and e-mail traffic data to help police and intelligence services fight organised crime and terrorists.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW rules changing the place of taxation for VAT purposes of natural gas and electricity have been proposed by the European Commission “so as to facilitate the functioning of the single market for energy.” Brussels said the proposal would eliminate the current problems of double taxation and non-taxation and distortions of competition between traders by changing the place of taxation of natural gas in pipelines and of electricity from the place of supply to the place of consumption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers have ordered that new textile trade agreements agreed between the European Commission and Cambodia and Nepal be provisionally implemented from January 1, pending formal ratification. All parties agree they should last until December 2004.…

From Alan Osborn
The UK has been given the go-ahead by the European Commission to provide up to pounds 3 millions in state aid to help road freight companies reduce carbon dioxide emissions over the next four years. Brussels said the schemes being considered under the UK Logistics Transaction Programme could help prevent about 350,000 tonnes of carbon emissions which would count as part of Britain’s commitments under the Kyoto protocol on climate change.…