Search Results for: European Parliament

BY ALAN OSBORN
COMPENSATION payable to air passengers denied seats on aircraft as a result of over-booking or where flights have been cancelled or delayed will be sharply raised from present levels following legislation given conditional approval today (Thursday) by the European Parliament.…

BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.

Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF has claimed that EU treasuries were cheated of Euro 6 million because of a rules of origin scam involving steel wire, which has now been uncovered.

In its 2001-2002 annual report on the fight against fraud in the EU, OLAF tells of inquiries into information provided by British customs officers about an apparent increase in trade between India and the United Arab Emirates in steel wire.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE WORLD Bank has warned Indonesia that foreign donors may further reduce their environmental grants to the country in response to the government’s recent decision to allow several mining firms to operate in protected forests. “We can’t give our funds to improve environmental conditions where there is a high risk of not succeeding,” said Kathy MacKinnon, the World Bank’s senior biodiversity specialist.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FINNISH Energy Industries Federation has published guidelines on how to improve corporate social responsibility in its sector. The European Commission said that the paper was of particular relevance to the nuclear industry, as four reactors supply 30 per cent of the country’s electricity, a figure set to grow because of the approval of a new reactor by Finland’s parliament this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AMENDENTS to the latest proposed guidelines for European Union (EU) trans-European energy network grant applications would force the European Commission to consider the effect of subsidised projects on competition amongst EU utilities.

The European Parliament has amended the criteria governing the award of grants to make sure that public subsidies to one electricity or gas operator do not negatively impact on a rival or lock out potential new competitors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC has welcomed the long-awaited final agreement reached over a proposed European Union directive on the energy efficiency of new and renovated houses, saying that it will push electricity producers into adopting a more profitable strategy of value-added service provision.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW LEGISLATION limiting the amount of noise that employees may be exposed to at their place of work has been agreed by government ministers of the EU nations and the European Parliament and is likely to become European law before the end of the year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Ombudsman wants a “clarification” of European Union data protection legislation, which he claims is being abused by EU institutions and national governments to access to public information. Jacob Söderman says data protection rules are being misinterpreted “as implying the existence of a general right to participate anonymously in public activities.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Fraud appears to be on the increase in the European Union according

to the 2001/2 annual report of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) which

reports 552 new cases during the year. OLAF’s caseload increased by about

30 per cent compared to its first two years of activity.…