Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union competition Commissioner Mario Monti has called for close cooperation between international business regulators such as the European Commission and their opposite numbers in national governments and in north America. Speaking to the World Forum on Energy Regulation, in Rome, Monti said that by combining their efforts, competition authorities would “achieve more than each would be able to achieve on its own.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A TOBACCONIST strike in France has seen 88 per cent of the country’s 34,000 state-run tobacco shops close their doors or refused to sell cigarettes for a day (20-10) because of a recent 20 per cent price increase, the second hike this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted to allow France to continue levying low rates of duty in Corsica, but only until December 2009, when the concession is supposed to be scrapped. MEP’s voted to start phasing in the increase in duty from next year, but that amendment can be overturned by the EU Council of Ministers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has bit the bullet and drawn up plans to lend US$250 million to help build the planned key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend the city government of Lyon, France, Euro 150 million to modernise its drinking water supply and waste water disposal systems. The plan includes the renewal of Lyon’s 3,600 kilometres of drinking water supply pipelines, to bring the city in line with European Union environmental health quality rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN is to receive up to Euro 7.7 million in funds from the European Commission next year to fight transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) and other animal diseases (zoonoses). The money is part of an EU-wide Euro 76.9 million package which can also be used to fight other animal diseases, such as brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, enzootic bovine leucosis or rabies and prevent outbreaks of foreign zoonoses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LEGAL final warning letters have been sent by the European Commission to Britain, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain and Sweden, calling on them to swiftly implement a directive guaranteeing consumer protection when insurance companies are wound up.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CURRENT European Commission leadership, under Italy’s Romano Prodi, was supposed to be the clean-hands team, ridding the institution of the corruption and mismanagement that thrived under his predecessor Jacques Santer. The ongoing Eurostat scandal is undermining that reputation.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A FIERCE row over the blame for the electricity blackout which affected virtually the whole of Italy on September 28 has broken out between the Italian, Swiss and French governments, which may delay Rome’s moves towards liberalisation of its energy markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A THREAT is emerging of European legal action against countries that allow public procurement tenders to stipulate that Intel processors must be used in computers bought by public sector purchasers. The European Commission has warned France, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden of possible action, saying such conditions could break European free trade laws.…