Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MALE-MENOPAUSE ridden men buying powerful motorcycles that they cannot ride properly is one of two reasons for a levelling off in a 10-year decline in road accidents in rich countries, an OECD report claims. The other problem is an increase in illicit drug use by drivers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has sued RJ Reynolds in New York, seeking damages against allegations that it illegally laundered the proceeds of cigarette smuggling. The case – which also involves Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg – also seeks an injunction stopping future alleged laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has publicly backed the growing privatisation of Europe’s water utilities, with its internal market commissioner backing British government moves to inject competition into its national sector.

Indeed, Frits Bolkestein defended the much-maligned record of privatised water services in the UK, blaming the price rises in the 1990’s on a failure to ensure private water companies could compete and previous government neglect.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE has escaped virtually scot-free over its six-year ban on exports of British beef in spite of a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last December that the ban was illegal. The European Commission announced today Thursday that it had withdrawn its application to the ECJ for the imposition of a daily fine on France for failing to implement the December judgement.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION is important in the provision of water services, whether that be to prevent the contamination of supplies by a return of this summer’s floods, or to source drinking water for arid areas where ground reserves are running dry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SURVEY conducted for the French Union for Electricity by France’s “Centre d’études et de connaissances sur l’opinion publique” has indicated that 61 per cent of French citizens would prefer not to use nuclear energy in the future, and 62 per cent said that they would be prepared to pay up to 10 per cent higher electricity bills if that meant France abandoning nuclear energy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HALF-HEARTED efforts by European Union Member States to impose controls on shabby shipping have been blamed for the disastrous sinking of the ill-named Prestige oil tanker, off Galicia, Spain. Placing on record their disgust at the environmental tragedy, the Council of Europe’s environment committee deplored “the negligence of governments and their lack of any real determination to provide themselves with the means of preventing such disasters – or at least minimising their impact.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is considering a range of requests to liberalise its insurance sector under commitments it will make in a future World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal, following the ongoing so-called Doha Development Round.

These include calls for it to eliminate existing restrictions in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal on the cross-border supply of maritime and air transport insurance.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A TIE-UP between the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, could have important consequences for industrial insurance in the context of risk management and disaster control throughout Europe.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Significant economic gains, including a better deal for insurance companies and other long-term institutional investors, will follow from the creation of a single EU market in financial services according to a research study made for the European Commission by London Economics, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Oxford Economic Forecasting, published today (Tuesday).…