Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has been ordered by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to scrap its “gold alloy” designation for lower carats of gold with a fineness of 375 or 585 parts per thousand. Under French regulations, only gold with a purity of more than 750 parts per thousand (18 carat) can be sold as “gold” to the public.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is flirting with potentially huge daily recurring fines from the European Court of Justice by ignoring three rulings ordering compliance with EU environmental laws. Judges told Paris last year to adopt pollution reduction programmes under the 1976 directive on discharges of dangerous substances to water, grant more access to environmental information and create extra protected nature sites.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEWLY launched European Union (EU)-funded research project will uncover genetic factors linked to depression, helping to develop new drug treatments over the next five years. The NEWMOOD project has received Euro 7.2 million in EU funding. It will help researchers “revolutionise antidepressant drugs, which have not changed much over the past 30 years,” claimed the European Commission.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SWEEPING reforms of the European Union’s (EU) sugar regime proposed earlier this month (July) by the European Commission appear to be good news for the confectionery and other big sugar-using industries – but representatives have warned of rearguard action by producers.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
GAZ Metropolitain, Quebec’s dominant natural gas distributor, will import LNG to avoid dependence on the resources of fellow Canadian province Alberta. Gaz de France and Enbridge, of Calgary, are also involved in setting up an import terminal and distribution network, costing over CDN$2.7 billion by 2009.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOLLOWING the success in collecting data about prehistoric climate changes from polar ice cores, the European Union (EU)-funded PROMESS1 project has collected 500,000-year-old sediment samples from the Mediterranean floor. These, said a European Commission note, “will allow researchers to reconstruct climate variations since pre-historic times, thus providing keys for understanding what is happening to Earth’s climate now…holding (geological) archives of past developments”.…

Keith Nuthall
AN UNUSUAL private-public transport fund, with money available for European airport projects, has gained support from the European Union. The Galaxy Fund – run by France’s Caisse des Dépôts, Italy’s Sanpaolo IMI Group and Germany’s KfW – has been given Euro 25 million by the European Commission, whose spending will be managed by the European Investment Bank.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is flirting with potentially huge daily recurring fines from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by failing to implement three ECJ rulings, one on some of the European Union’s (EU) oldest water legislation. Paris, claims the European Commission, has failed to adopt pollution reduction programmes required by the 1976 directive on discharges of dangerous substances to water, such as heavy metals, pesticides and chemicals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NECESSARY research that will allow France to maintain its nuclear power capacity should be carried out with Europe’s new liberalised electricity market in mind, the International Energy Authority has warned. In an assessment of French energy policy, it noted France’s “substantial government R&D in this field and the marketing and construction of French nuclear plants abroad…will help in keeping the nuclear option open.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
France Telecom said it and the French government were to appeal against the order, accusing the Commission of muddled thinking. In a statement, the utility said: “The Commission appears to have made its decision without precision, in a climate of confusion fuelled by many leaks, rumours and public announcements that have been premature to say the least.”…