Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TELECOMMUNICATIONS investment is being attracted to European countries with the least state involvement in dominant operators, according to a survey from the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA). It says that Britain, Denmark and Ireland are the most popular countries for telecoms investors, with Belgium, France, and Germany the least, (other countries surveyed were Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has claimed that a competition investigation that it launched last December has been responsible for forcing 18 European airlines to cease charging different prices for tickets on the basis of a customers’ country of residence.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ITALY has sparked off a dispute over use of the name Tokai for wine, saying that enlargement of the EU this year has effectively nullified an agreement reserving use of the name for Hungarian producers after 2007. Under a deal made in 1993 Italy and France were allowed to market wines bearing the name Tokai until 2007 after which Hungary would have exclusive use.…

BY MARK ROWE
ALCOHOL products are one of the major strengths that the new members of the recently enlarged European Union (EU) bring to its economic table. Of the 10 newcomers, six are wine-producing countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.…

BY MARK ROWE
During the time of the Soviet Union, museums in the satellite states of Eastern Europe routinely kept short working hours, closed without notice and were all too frequently dowdy, musty and inaccessible.

With the accession of 10 new states (including eight in eastern Europe), into the European Union, the future for museums from Lithuania to Malta, and from Slovenia to Slovakia is much brighter.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH Agency for Health and Environmental Safety (AFSSE) has blamed fossil fuel consumption in road transport for killing up to 10,000 people per year in France. Its critical report says that between six and 11 per cent of all lung cancer cases in the country are caused by such emissions, (up to 1,713 deaths annually).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is early days, but the European Union’s (EU) Solidarity Fund, subsidising the costs of large-scale disasters, shows every likelihood of being a permanent feature of the EU risk management scene. We’re not talking small beer here; the fund paid out Euro 104.7 million last year and Euro 728 million the year before that, easing the consequences of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission, which says French regulations illegally imposes “burdensome arrangements” for providing telecommunications services by cable. Brussels claims France is breaking the European Union ‘cable’ and ‘full competition’ directives, for instance by insisting cable businesses offering telecommunications services must consult with affected municipalities in advance, (standard telecom operators are exempted from this).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations has warned of an increase in road accidents in Austria and its eastern neighbours, following their accession to the European Union (EU). A UN report has noted Austria’s plans for a “huge new network” of roads to Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MARATHON by name and nature, the European Commission has closed a gas network access case involving the Norwegian subsidiary of American gas producer Marathon, after negotiations stretching from the 1990’s. The deal, involving French and German gas companies Gaz de France (GdF) and Ruhrgas, allows the Commission to close a competition file that has also sparked pipeline access deals with German companies BEB and Thyssengas, plus Dutch company Gasunie.…