Search Results for: European Parliament

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that the EU’s nuclear arm Euratom should be authorised to lend an additional Euro 2 billion to projects improving the safety or efficiency of non-EU nuclear power stations. An expected approval by ministers would raise Euratom’s lending ceiling for these schemes and the financing of EU nuclear power plants from Euro 4 to 6 billion.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
SIMPLIFIED rules for ensuring that clean bathing water set out in the final proposal for a revised European Union (EU) bathing water directive will need to stand up to cost benefit analysis, water utility representatives have stressed.

The European Commission has now tabled proposed revision for agreement by EU ministers and MEPs, after years of argument that stalled previous attempts to update the 1976 directive.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE TOTAL phasing out of nuclear energy being carried out by a number of EU countries is not justified according to the EU’s internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein (CORRECT SPELLING). In a speech headed “Nuclear energy needed more than ever” given to the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, Mr Bolkestein said nuclear energy provided the technical capacity to increase energy diversification which was needed to reduce external dependence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has followed up an agreement to integrate Balkans countries’ electrical systems with that of the European Union by announcing a Euro 130 million loan for developing the region’s electricity networks.

Euro 70 million is being lent to the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, (Euro 59 and 11 million respectively).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ENVIRONMENTALISTS have gained significant new access rights to information held by public authorities and others under legislation agreed by the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU) and the European Parliament. In what was welcomed by environmental campaigners as a victory over some EU member governments, the agreement goes well beyond the United Nations’ 1998 Aarhus Convention on information, decision-making and redress in environmental matters by widening the range of what can be accessed and simplifying the procedures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved Germany’s controversial Euro 647 million state aid injection to TotalFina Elf subsidiary Mitteldeutsche Erdöl Raffinerie for constructing the Leuna 2000 refinery in Saxony-Anhalt. Brussels had re-examined the project and has now cleared all aid, including Euro 61.4 million, which had been blocked pending the decision.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…

BY ALAN OSBORN AND KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILED allegations of irregularities in the budget of the European Commission made by the Commission’s former chief accountant Marta Andreasen are expected to be heard by the European Parliament early in 2003. Miss Andreasen was suspended by the Commission after her charges were made public this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REGULATORY controls have been proposed by the European Commission to prevent discounted AIDS, malaria and TB medicines supplied to developing countries under emergency medical programmes from being re-exported fraudulently into the European Union (EU). Brussels is worried that existing laws might be insufficient “after strongly discounted pharmaceuticals are sold to the poorest developing country markets (when) the economic interest in trade diversion into high priced markets therefore may increase significantly.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN consumers are being ripped off by fraudsters making illegal use of the CE mark according to evidence submitted to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The CE mark denotes that a product was made in the European Union (EU) and conforms with EU safety legislation.…