Search Results for: France

BY CHRIS JONES, in Brussels

ANOTHER major round of reforms to that most controversial of European Union (EU) programmes – the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – are planned for 2008, but will the changes mean that life becomes easier or harder for European food companies?…

BY CHRISTOPHER JONES, in Brussels

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is currently considering a root-and-branch reform of its common market organisation for wine. A key player in these discussions is Neil Parish (NOTE: SPELLING IS CORRECT), a British Conservative MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s influential agriculture committee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RUM producers from French overseas departments (counties) have been given a 50% tax break on excise duty charged on sales within mainland France, stretching until December 2012. Most affected manufacturers are based on the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and the Indian Ocean island of Réunion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of the global biscuits, snacks and cereals business of France’s Danone by US-based Kraft. Brussels’ competition approval depends on Kraft selling off Spanish biscuit brands Artiach, Chiquilin, Filipinos and Marbú Dorada and a Spain biscuit production plant, along with Hungarian chocolate brand Balaton.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPANISH wine makers will receive the most money – Euro 162 million – for improving their vineyards, in the latest European Union (EU) grants for this purpose. The European Commission will spend Euro 510 million across the EU on viticulture reform in 2007/8, for variety conversion, vineyard relocation and management improvements.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PROPOSED liberalisation of European Union (EU) design rights legislation, allowing lorry parts makers to copy and sell spares already made by vehicle manufacturers across the EU has been accepted by the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee. A committee communiqué said: "The directive will allow suppliers to produce motor vehicle components which are identical to the original parts without infringing design protection."…

By Keith Nuthall in Brussels

Initial support from ministers representing the European Union’s (EU) 27 member states has been secured for the expansion of the EU’s global Erasmus Mundus exchange programme. Assuming formal approval comes from the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, the scheme will spend ?493.69 million from 2009 to 2013 on exchange programmes for students and academics from the EU and other countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

"TEA is known to be good for you, now it is also getting better for the environment:" so said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner, when launching renewable power initiatives in east Africa. UNEP is coordinating two Global Environment Facility (GEF)-financed projects greening tea production in the region, where it is a pivotal industry.…

BY ANDREW SALMON, in Seoul

THE WORDS ‘nuclear’ and ‘Korea’ automatically conjure up images of Kim Jong-il’s underground atomic weapons programs, but south of the heavily militarised border, it is South Korea that has quietly built up one of the world’s most competitive nuclear industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) researchers have devised a way of reducing the weight of noise insulation materials in cars without making them noisier. The EU research network Eureka says the Euro 4 million France-led project E!2411 ERTAC has discovered that by layering compressed felt with a low density felt, the weight of sound insulation could be cut by 50%.…