Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Mining companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and the agency has issued 58 guarantees for the sector since it was formed in 1988.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has launched a case against the European Union’s (EU) long debated cosmetics animal test bans, claiming at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that it breaks World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Paris is arguing that the inconvenience caused is illegally disproportionate to the benefits created in terms of saving animals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DECEMBER 2005’s semi-successful World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong means that the sacrifice forced upon the European Union’s (EU) well protected sugar sector the month before will – largely – be worth the pain. Unlike the previous big WTO meeting, in Cancun, Mexico, trade ministers did not leave in rancour having achieved little.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PROMOTORS of a European Commission-supported research project encouraging municipalities across Europe to establish local broadband services say their four trials have proved a success. The scheme is especially designed to help local authorities seed new comms tech investment in zones deemed too remote by commercial service providers for investing in infrastructure.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has censured France for failing to remove obstacles to its recognition of legitimate tourist guide qualifications gained in other European Union (EU) member states. Judges ordered France to bring its regulations in line with directives directive 89/48/EEC on the mutual recognition within the EU of professional diplomas and 92/51/EEC on professional training.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A FRENCH perfume and clothing company has failed at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to trademark the "smell of ripe strawberries", because judges deemed this insufficiently precise to serve as a unique identifier. Eden SARL, of Paris, cited a previous case, where the ECJ had ruled non-visual signs, such as sounds or odours, could become trademarks "provided that they can be represented graphically".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN has been given a generally positive report on its environmental performance by a detailed and long-term European Environment Agency (EEA) report. Overall, the EEA said that the UK was "fortunate to have implemented a series of structural economic changes in the recent past that have brought environmental improvements".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SEPTEMBER 11 attacks sparked a tightening of security restrictions around the world and the shipping industry has been a key focus. The latest initiative is the creation of a global system of biometric identifiers for seafarers. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WINE growers in the southern France Rivesaltes region will have to repay a portion of state aid paid by the French government during a sales crisis from 1996-2000. The European Commission has ruled that money paid to growers who later sold their product as table wine rather than under the ‘Rivesaltes’ or ‘Grand Roussillon’ denominations was paid illegally and will be repaid, although Brussels is unsure of its value.…

KEITH NUTHALL
AS the European Union (EU)’s greenhouse gas trading scheme beds in this year, its environment ministers can push ahead with fighting pollution, in the knowledge that the EU should hit its Kyoto Protocol emissions targets. According to the European Commission, current and planned policies should enable the expanded EU to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8% from their 1990 levels during 2008-2012.…