Search Results for: France

By Monica Dobie

Academics in France have swapped their laboratories for cafés and pubs – in a recent study Université de Bretagne-Sud scientists have found that the louder the music is in a bar the more people drink.

Researchers observed 40 male subjects aged 18-25 in French bars on Saturday nights in a medium-sized city in western France.…

By Keith Nuthall

The launch of a new Euro-Mediterranean University in Slovenia dedicated to higher education courses focused on issues of importance to European, African and Levantine countries bordering the sea has been given a formal seal of approval. The creation of the institution was welcomed within a joint declaration issued by heads of state and government from 43 countries at a Paris summit launching a Mediterranean Union organisation.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

A RECENT study from the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France has found that the louder the music is in a bar the more people drink.

Researchers observed 40 male subjects aged 18-25 in French bars on Saturday nights in a medium-sized city in western France.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PETER Mandelson, the European Union’s (EU) trade commissioner may have to push aggressively for agreement on creating a mandatory World Trade Organisation (WTO) geographical indication register to avoid future political problems in Geneva.

Although the WTO Doha Development Round negotiations collapsed on Tuesday over developing country import tariffs, the talks have not been abandoned and are expected to resume at a technical level in the autumn.…

BY CHRIS JONES

EUROPEAN Union (EU) telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding faces significant opposition to her proposals for increasing the European Commission’s power of veto over national telecoms regulations (NRAs) and the creation of a new Europe-wide regulatory agency.

NRAs in the 27 member states, which together form the European Regulators’ Group (ERG), have made it quite clear that any attempt by Reding to undermine their authority will face fierce resistance.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FEW people would challenge the European Commission’s assertion earlier this year that, in practice, market integration in the gas market in the European Union (EU) "is still far from a success."

In its report Progress in Creating the Internal Gas and Electricity Market published in April, Brussels said that major barriers to the efficient functioning of the market still existed largely because of "insufficient implementation of European legislation."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend up to Euro 400 million to France’s Société d’Enrichissement du Tricastin (SET) to improve its uranium enrichment plant. This investment would supply almost a third of the Euro 1,227.5 million required for Areva-controlled SET’s Georges Besse-II (GB II) programme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FRENCH government has kicked off an activist six-month presidency of the European Union (EU) until December by urging an informal meeting of EU energy ministers in Paris to consider practical ways of boosting energy efficiency and renewable energies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ANGLO-Dutch oil giant Shell is not in much doubt that hydrogen is one of the fuels of the future, if not the fuel of the future. Barely a month ago, in June, Duncan Macleod, (NOTE: SPELLING IS CORRECT) global vice president of Shell Hydrogen, told an clean technology conference in the US that Shell had restructured its organisation "to prepare for hydrogen’s transition into the mainstream, bringing it into our downstream fuels portfolio, alongside gasoline, diesel, LPG, CNG – as well as biofuels and GTL."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ANOTHER eight traditionally made European food products have been added to the European Union’s (EU) protected geographical indication lists, preventing these foodstuffs being copied by food manufacturers based outside the regions where they are traditionally manufactured.

Three of these newly protected products are from Portugal: a special rice – ‘Arroz Carolino das Lezírias Ribatejanas’; a smoked sausage ‘Alheira de Vinhais’; and a ham ‘Presunto de Vinhais’, also known as ‘Presunto Bísaro de Vinhais’.…