Search Results for: Finland

KEITH NUTHALL
AS the European Union (EU)’s greenhouse gas trading scheme beds in this year, its environment ministers can push ahead with fighting pollution, in the knowledge that the EU should hit its Kyoto Protocol emissions targets. According to the European Commission, current and planned policies should enable the expanded EU to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8% from their 1990 levels during 2008-2012.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL complaint has been lodged with the European Commission by the Finnish Food Marketing Association about Finland’s alcohol sales monopoly system, which the group claims breaks European Union (EU) competition law. The association claims Finland’s Alko has moved away from its original role of limiting the sale of alcohol, instead becoming an effective marketing machine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN EUROPEAN Commission official has told just-drinks.com that Brussels needed to overcome a political battle with vodka producing countries over ingredients, before it was able to formally table reforms to European Union (EU) spirit labelling rules yesterday (WED 21/12).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has supported proposals to allow Finland re-impose restrictions beer its citizens can import from Russia, because of fears about booming cross-border sales. Under European law, private travellers can normally import 200 litres of beer from third countries into Finland.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE WORLD is waking up to biofuels, increasingly produced from food crops and their waste by-products, and now one of the growing energy alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. As prices for traditional energy rise year on year, and energy watchers warn of oil production peaking around 2010, governments are looking towards food producers to grow the raw feedstock for the fuel of the twenty-first century.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission will take Austria, Finland, Italy, Germany and Luxembourg to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to implement a 2002 directive on aircraft noise. It mandates specific procedures regarding the introduction of noise restrictions at EU airports near urban areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASED compensation of up to US$1.152 billion for damage caused by serious oil spills will be made available from March 3 next year, when an International Oil Pollution Compensation Supplementary Fund comes into being. This follows the ratification of its founding protocol by Spain, fulfilling the minimum number of major oil importing states required for the formal creation of this International Maritime Organisation (IMO)-coordinated fund.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL governments are often jealous of attempts by the European Union (EU) to increase its power into policy areas that they consider none of its business. Defence and foreign affairs are obvious examples, but health is another. EU member states have long resisted Brussels’ calls for influence over their health policies, but their resolve has weakened of late.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN the latest development of the Anheuser-Busch versus Budejovický Budvar battle, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled the Czech brewer has some protection where it had previously secured rights to the name Budweiser, and they subsequently lapsed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ARCTIC is experiencing “the most rapid and severe climate change on earth”, twice the rate of other regions, says an Arctic Climate Impact Assessment by the Arctic Council, representing Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US.…