Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (general affairs) has extended the double-checking system on certain steel exports to the EU from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until this December 31. The regime is designed to detect any abuses of the trade preferences enjoyed by these countries under association agreements with the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked EU ministers to extend until December 2009 special tax advantages offered by the German government to Hochtemperatur-Kernkraftwerk GmbH to enable the company to completely dismantle Uentrop nuclear power station, shut down since 1989.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have approved a new ‘solvency margin’ directive that increases by 50 per cent the minimum financial reserves that must be retained by EU-registered insurance companies writing aviation industry policies, as these are deemed by Brussels as ‘volatile-risk’.…

Keith Nuthall
A BRUSSELS convention reviewing the EU’s Financial Services Action Plan has concluded that in the wake of the Enron scandal the European Commission should redouble its efforts to make sure that European legislation underpins anti-corruption safeguards such as auditor independence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IMPORTS of books into European Union Member States with fixed-price regimes should also be subject to the same controls as locally published books under a comprehensive, but very flexible, EU directive on book-pricing, the European Parliament’s legal committee has said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FUTURE phytosanitary agreements between the EU and third countries should focus on “a limited number of products of undoubted importance to the parties,” said the European Commission following the emergence of a number of “practical problems” in existing deals.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has issued formal guidelines to its (mostly rich and often European) member governments to use their financial muscle when striking contracts for electricity supplies and power projects generally, to impose conditions that favour environmental good practice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MARITIME Museum of Finland and Britain’s Mary Rose Trust have teamed up with four other archeological groups to explore four important European shipwrecks, creating what will be a virtual exhibition of their findings.

Internet sites will publish pictures and information about the sites, which include:

*A late 13th Century cog, (small, trade vessel), off Mecklenburg, Germany;

*The Vrouw Maria, a Dutch sailing ship that sank off Finland in 1771, carrying artworks and treasures from Amsterdam to St Petersburg for Catherine the Great.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. EU ministers said Brussels officials should

Meanwhile, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed a regulation aiming at boosting cod stocks in the Irish Sea this year, protecting adult cod during the spawning season, notably enforcing an area closure from February.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RETURN of demand amongst consumers in the European Union for high quality beef following the decline of BSE has made the European Commission propose that the EU opens a special 1,000 tonne import quota for high quality fresh, chilled or frozen beef, with a low 20 per cent duty rate.…