Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW international treaty significantly extending the public information required of companies over their output of pollutants has been agreed by 30 member countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and is expected to be formally adopted in Kiev in May.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPANIES, especially construction firms, will have to review their asbestos worker protection procedures, following the agreement by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers of an updated directive on the subject. The new rules, also backed by the European Parliament, introduce a single maximum average airborne exposure in excess of 0.1 fibres per cm3 measured over eight hours.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AFTER four years of negotiation a binding international tobacco control treaty has been agreed by the 171 member states of the World Health Organisation. The final, and acrimonious, round of talks on a text for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) ended on February 28.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to lend international private equity group Advent International Euro 10 million, to help it, and an associated consortium, buy 65 per cent of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which is being privatised.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Spanish government to reclaim Euro 104 million, (about Pounds 64.5 million), from the troubled textile company Hilados y Tejidos Puigneró. The Barcelona-based company, which produces yarns, fabrics and finished textile products, ran into debt in the 1990’s and the Spanish authorities were unable to recover money owed to them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORMAL agreement has been secured at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over a new legal aid directive, which would ease access to justice for litigants in cross-border civil and commercial disputes. Member States, (barring Denmark, which has opted out), will be bound to provide financial support to citizens who cannot afford legal advice for such cases held within the EU, unless governments deem that such actions are “manifestly unfounded.”…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has clarified rules for issuing visas to non-EU seamen travelling across the Schengen zone of Europe, where countries share common border controls. In future, transit visas will be issued at EU entry points to groups of seamen travelling together, where they are of the same nationality and their journey period is limited.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the introduction of common food and feed health controls for all EU Member States. The regime includes management principles (documented control procedures and internal audits) and stricter rules on the accreditation of laboratories.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERNS about potential eyesight problems in consumers have led the European Commission to propose tightening limits on the use of canthaxanthin as a colouring; it is particularly used to add a reddish colour to salmon, egg yolks and poultry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the acquisition of US-controlled edible oil company Lesieur by French-owned Saipol, which sells the same product.…