Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission has made a pitch for world leadership in the fight against climate change by calling on the 27 EU member states to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% by 2020. The move is seen as an example to other countries of the kind of action needed in the post-Kyoto period if there should be no further international agreement for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by then.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The long-awaited energy policy package unveiled by the European Commission on January 10th will, as the EU’s competition commissioner Neelie Kroes says, “make uncomfortable reading for many energy companies.” This is not surprising. For the past year it’s been widely expected that, among other things, Brussels would be coming up with a plan for the enforced separation of power networks from suppliers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is pushing signatories to its new Protocol on Water and Health to its Convention on Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes to agree detailed targets on improving European water quality.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BALTIC States are the European Union’s (EU) boom-region for research spending increases, according to the latest R&D figures from EU statistical agency Eurostat, which show Britain’s performance as relatively static. Annual average growth rates in real terms research spending from 2001 to 2005 ranged from +18% in Latvia, +17% in Estonia, and +11% in Lithuania, (+15% in Cyprus).…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MARK ROWE
IN the space of some five years, biofuels have grown from almost total insignificance in the European Union (EU) to becoming the only practical alternative to petrol as a fuel for motor vehicles and much else – albeit still at a very low level.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have ordered a freeze on catches of round-nose grenadier in the North Sea, including in Norwegian waters, saying catches in 2005-6 should match average annual catches in 1996-2003. It is one of a number of conservation-minded measures recently ordered by the EU Council of Ministers, one being a ban on catching and landing white sharks and basking sharks in any EU waters, the ban applying to non-EU and EU-flagged fleets.…

BY MARK ROWE

DESPITE devastating hailstorms along Italy’s Adriatic Coast and concerns over damage from the olive fly, the forecast for the olive oil market for the 2006 season is positive, according to the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC).

"All the information available predicts a good harvest for this season" said a spokesman for the IOOC.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has reduced from Euro 15.96 million to Euro 11.97 million fines levied by the European Commission on the main French beef federations for suspending beef imports into France in 2001 and setting minimum purchase prices for certain beef lines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN science project has said it is ready to move ahead with tire giant Goodyear to commercialise tested and new tire sensors that can warn motorists of potential blowouts, skids, aquaplanes and other potentially dangerous accidents. The EUREKA research network’s TYRESENSE project said it is "ready to hit the ground running" with the sensors, which are a few square millimeters in size and embedded into tire treads.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union will not appeal against the World Trade Organisation disputes hearing ruling that backed an American complaint that Brussels has illegally blocked imports of genetically modified food during its moratorium on market approvals to 2003, and some continuing national bans by member states: in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg.…