Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IF the tobacco growing industry thinks it has suffered enough regarding reductions in European Union (EU) farm subsidies, then it could have a rude shock at the hands of the new agriculture commissioner designate, Mariann Fischer Boel, of Denmark.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW president of the European Commission, the former Portuguese prime minister Jose Manuel Barroso, has made clear that for the next five years at least there will be a reform-minded team at work in Brussels driven by a powerful desire to eliminate accounting fraud, inefficiency and the protection of special interests.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NUCLEAR energy industry is losing a key ally in the European Commission, with the impending departure of energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. She will be replaced in the Commission from November by Hungary’s current foreign minister László Kovacs.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved state aid made by the French government to Atlantic coast fish farmers following the Erika disaster in 1999, although it has branded illegal handouts to farms elsewhere in France. These subsidies – reductions in social security contribution and other government charges – will have to be paid back, although their exact value is not currently known.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE KEY European Commissioner for Europe’s fashion accessory and shoe industries over the next four years will be Germany’s Guenter Verheugen, the current commissioner for the enlargement of the European Union (EU). He was appointed to take office from November by incoming Commission president José Durão Barroso as enterprise and industry Commissioner, promoting manufacturing and business.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Paris
A FRENCH court has blocked a bid by Air Canada to use its regular spot in the undamaged part of Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris. Air Canada was forced into the older Terminal 1 to make room for more Air France aircraft in the new building, some of its roof collapsed in May.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) could expand restrictions on the sale of jelly mini-cups, the gelatinous confectionary blamed for causing dangerous choking in young people. This follows advice from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that any mini-cup made with a gel-forming additive “could cause choking and not just in children”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is Europe’s laggard for implementing European Union (EU) environmental law, the European Commission has concluded. It its latest assessment of compliance with EU green regulations and directives, it notes 11 instances of France being recently censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) or threatened with legal action by the Commission over non-compliance with environmental legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) fishing boats will receive additional quotas this year for catches in Greenland waters, after a renegotiation of financial compensation from the EU to the Danish self-governing territory. If a proposal from the European Commission is accepted by EU ministers, a new quota of 1,000 tonnes for snow crab will be introduced, shared by Ireland and Spain.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IF the Danish agriculture minister Mariann Fischer Boel succeeds in winning the farm portfolio in the new European Commission, for which she has been nominated by the new president Senhor Jose Manuel Barroso, she may well rank as the most outspokenly reformist politician to have held the post.…