Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN’S recycling and waste sectors will be legally charged with helping the UK reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 2013, should a new proposal from the European Commission become law. Under a tabled ‘effort sharing’ directive, economic sectors not included within the European Union’s (EU) current and future emissions trading regime, should also help fight global warming.…

BY CHRIS JONES, in Paris

EUROPEAN vehicle rental companies are increasingly promoting themselves as the answer to the problem of tackling CO2 emissions, offering advice on eco-driving techniques to their customers and offering a wide range of ‘green’ vehicles with low emissions.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

SOMETHING must be in the water these days in Brussels. The European Commission seems determined to press ahead with its plans to reshape the European Union’s (EU) energy market, no matter how vociferous or powerful the opposition. In December, the Commission was bullish about unbundling, now it is being equally aggressive over renewable energy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HEAVIER vehicles such as SUVs and luxury models will be able to breach a proposed European Union (EU) carbon dioxide cap, under formally proposed legislation now tabled by the European Commission. Pressure from German manufacturers forced Brussels into abandoning an absolute cap for all new models of 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

FOLLOWING the introduction on July 1 of public place smoking bans in England 240 million people worldwide were covered by public smoking restrictions, according to the International Union Against Cancer (UICC). (NOTE – THIS IS A FRENCH ACRONYM)

The movement towards such restrictions is becoming ubiquitous in the European Union (EU), with Estonia, Finland, Scotland and Ireland already have full public-place bans, while Italy, Sweden and Malta have partial bans, allowing smoking only in closed-off, separately-ventilated areas.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHICHEVER way you look, the oil and gas sector is investing in biofuels. The larger energy companies – driven by an eye for a new and potentially lucrative market as well as shareholder concern and governmental and international political pressure – are investigating both first and second generation biofuels.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has given the go-ahead to legislation which will end design protection for most spare parts and other machinery components across the 27-country European Union (EU).

MEPs voted for the changes to the EU’s legal protection of designs directive, which will come into force in 2013, assuming it is backed by the EU Council of Ministers – which shares veto rights over EU legislation.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

PUBLIC place smoking bans are spreading like wildlife these days, with one country after another drawing up rules preventing tobacco use where it could expose non-smokers to second-hand smoke.

In the European Union (EU), this year, public place smoking bans have been introduced in England, Estonia and Finland, for instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PORTUGUESE presidency of the European Union (EU) has called for compromise proposals on the European Commission’s energy unbundling plans, under discussion at a Council of Ministers meeting on Monday (Dec 3). A paper released by Lisbon clarified the split between member states: supporting the proposal are Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Romania and Sweden; opposing are France, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg and Slovakia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

UNANIMOUS agreement has been secured at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over a recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Amidst widespread concern about overfishing and low stock levels, ministers have written into EU law, stock management policies for eastern bluefin tuna recommended by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2006.…