Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to permanently ban the additive konjac in jelly mini-cups and similar jelly confectionary, because consumers have choked to their deaths on the sweets. Konjac prevents the jelly dissolving and so was temporarily banned this April by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority has nominated its choice as its first chief executive; he is Geoffrey Podger, current chief executive of the UK Food Standards Agency. Conformation of the appointment was expected by November.

Its management board has elected Britain’s chair of the National Consumer Council, Deridre Hutton, as its vice-chair and appointed as chairman Codex Alimentarius vice-chair Dr Stuart Slorach, also Deputy Director of the Swedish National Food Administration.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union has hit out at developing countries trying to force a “rebalancing” of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing at the World Trade Organisation, claiming that commerce within the sector “should not be a one-way affair.”

Speaking at a WTO general council meeting, an EU delegate claimed that Brussels should not speed up its timetable abolish its quotas because so far, it had stuck to its ATC commitments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ENVIRONMENT committee of the European Parliament wants a review of the safety levels of food additives used in confectionery to check whether they are safe for children. It backed a report by Swedish liberal MEP Marit Paulsen, which calling for a European Commission act within three years, because such additive levels are set with the health of adults in mind.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUND-breaking environmental initiative is being developed in Greece involving a desalination plant being powered wholly by the heat of the earth’s upper crust.

The plant’s electricity turbines will be driven by geothermal fluids pumped from deep underground fissures under the island, whose temperatures can reach 100°C.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST meeting of the management board of the European Food Safety Authority has elected Britain’s Chair of the National Consumer Council, Deridre Hutton, as a vice-chair and appointed as chairman Codex Alimentarius vice-chair Dr Stuart Slorach, also Deputy Director of the Swedish National Food Administration.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW DNA test has been developed which can detect tuberculosis in two to three hours; Professor Mike Barer from Leicester University used the results from the decoding of the mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium genome to look for markers that could be used to detect the germ.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union scientists have attempted to lay the ghost of the theory that sheep have developed a special form of BSE, distinct from the known brain disease scrapie. Brussels’ scientific steering committee has ruled that sheepmeat is BSE free and so “sheep casings should not be included in the list of specified risk materials in relation to BSE.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is to ban most travellers arriving in the EU from bringing personal imports of meat, meat products, milk or milk products, on their person or in their luggage, unless accompanied by veterinary documentation. Only travellers arriving from Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and eastern European countries applying to be EU members (barring Turkey) will be exempt.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has cleared the way for Spain to restart subsidising investments by its hauliers into buying or hire-purchasing new lorries and vans.

Annulling a decision made by the European Commission in 1998 that blocked Madrid from helping haulage operators pay the interest on loans they raise for new vehicles, judges said Brussels was wrong to brand these payments as illegal state aid.…