Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the acquisition of paper merchants Scaldia, of the Netherlands, and Papeteries de France, by Finland pulp and paper group Stora Enso. The Finns had bought Scaldia from US-based International Paper (IP) in 2004, and the Commission launched a partly retrospective inquiry after Enso also decided to buy the French group from IP.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is staging an investigation into the toxicity of the food dye ‘para Red’ (p-Red), supported by the development of analytical methods by laboratories from Britain, the Netherlands, France and Spain. The data will help set an EU maximum contamination level.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RECEIVED wisdom on the rumbling row over the CAP pits Tony Blair’s neo-liberal agribusiness technicians, armed with computerised high-tech wizardry, against Jacques Chirac’s subsidy-cosseted peasants, idly scratching their pigs. Naturally, the reality is less simple: British farming is efficient, but it is not always as profitable as the French.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT won’t be long now before British and other European sugar beet growers find out exactly what kind of future they have – and even, in some cases, whether it’s worth them staying in the game at all.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HEAVYWEIGHT European international consortium will spend Euro 20 million on trying to develop commercially-viable flat plastic light sources, that could be moulded to fit spaces in homes and offices. The OLLA project (‘high brightness Organic Light-emitting diodes for information technology and Lighting Applications’) aims to build on basic research into these materials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has added Alsace honey, from France, and Romana ricotta cheese, from Italy, to its list of EU-made products whose names are protected under Brussels’ geographical indication register.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A DEAL has been struck between the European Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers that will pass reforms to the EU directive on the mutual recognition of qualifications. Their aim is to clarify the existing system, easing EU professionals’ exploitation of EU treaty rights to work in any member state.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
In another step expected to smooth the distribution of the country’s electricity, the World Bank’s Programmatic Adjustment Loan (PAL) programme for Romania will privatise all six distribution companies. In recent months, four European investors have taken over the companies that form the heart of the Romanian energy sector, in transactions totalling around €2.25 billion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers have compromised on the final shape of a directive reducing sulphur content in marine fuels. The result is legislation that permits higher sulphur usage than the parliament wanted, cutting its marine fuels content to 1.5% by 2007, for all vessels in the Baltic, the North Sea, and the English Channel, and passenger ships in all EU seas and oceans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CORNER shops and off licences harmed by ‘booze cruise’ alcohol imports from the continent have been offered hope by an order to the European Commission to draft an increase of the European Union’s (EU) minimum excise duty rates.…