Search Results for: Finland

SOME eight months after the European Union’s (EU) new system for regulating the use of biocides became operational, the implications of the changes are sinking in. Biocides, widely used by paint and coatings manufacturers as preservatives, and in some cases to impart special qualities such as mould resistance, are far more toxic than most chemicals and require special approval rules.…

RUSSIA is challenging the European Union’s (EU) third energy package at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), claiming its requirements for market access and unbundling break EU WTO commitments for open trading with other countries. Moscow is concerned the law will, for instance, allow competitors access to infrastructure such as the South Stream pipeline it wants to build across the Black Sea.…

WHEN Finland’s Tobacco Act came into force on October 1, 2010, it made news around the world. For the first time a country had stated explicitly it wanted to end smoking on its territory and gave a date: Finland would be non-smoking by 2040.…

The Nordic paints and coating market is competitive and growing, being dominated by a handful of strong players headed by Tikkurila and Teknos in Finland and Jotun in Norway. In Dyrup, the region could boast a fourth major local player, although American corporation PPG Industries paid the Danish firm’s parent, Monberg & Thorsen, EUR115 million for the company in 2011.…

NORWAY may have suspended military cooperation with its neighbour Russia over the Ukraine crisis, but it seems less keen to mothball its coordination on energy policy, notably in the high Arctic.

Norwegian and Russian energy companies have long been eyeing the potential hydrocarbon resources in the Barents Sea to the north of the Russo-Norwegian border, and both sides want to exploit them without causing major environmental problems.…

FINLAND’S Stallhagen brewery is recreating French beer found aboard an 1840s shipwreck in the Baltic Sea in 2010 (along with 145 champagne bottles). The company will sell 2,000 0.6-litre bottles of Stallhagen Historic Beer 1842 (approx abv 4.5%) brewed by a specialist team at Hogeschool Gent, Belgium, who developed a recipe based on five French beer bottles found on the wreck, which includes a wild yeast ingredient.…

REPRESENTATIVES from Europe’s sugar industry want sugar to be excluded from the current free trade negotiations between the United States and the European Union (EU). Speaking at an EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) briefing in Brussels, Oscar Ruiz de Imaña – the deputy director general of the European Association of Sugar Producers (CEFS), warned of the uncertainties in the sugar markets on both sides of the Atlantic.…

THE RUSSIAN publishing and bookselling sector is shrugging off the risks posed by potential wide-ranging economic sanctions that could be imposed on their country by the European Union (EU) and USA over the Ukraine crisis.

Thus far, asset freezes and visa bans have been introduced against a number of Russian and Ukrainian officials, and some Russian banks have seen their international payment systems shut down.…

THE INSTABILITY prompted by the crisis in Ukraine is increasing the risk of crime-tainted Russian assets being moved into new safe havens to avoid the effects of possible sanctions. With EU member state Cyprus long favoured by Russian investors, and likely to be covered by any sanctions, could the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) offer an attractive alternative?…

AUSTRIA

The location of ECC Austria in central Vienna means many consumers drop by to receive advice or lodge complaints in person with the ECC’s five staff members. A top priority in 2013 was increasing public awareness about e-commerce fraud; a brochure aimed at combatting the problem was published and more than 600,000 were distributed throughout Austria.…