Search Results for: France

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has taken an important step towards giving EU water legislation more teeth, by moving against Belgium’s system of “tacit approvals” of pollution. Belgian law allows companies to assume that they have a right to pollute if they make an application to regulators and then receive no reply.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE LEGAL formalities for creating the Single European Sky are approaching completion. The initial proposal from the European Commission for integrating the EU’s national air traffic control authorities into a continental ATC system has now been approved by the EU member governments and, in slightly amended form, by the European Parliament.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PROVIDERS of domestic care services to the young, elderly, sick or disabled, may be offered the chance to cut the VAT they charge their customers in the future, with the European Commission planning to extend a pilot scheme currently operating in Ireland, Portugal, France and Greece.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW campaign to promote the merits of European wines is set to open in selected off-licences and other retail outlets in the next few months following agreement by the European Commission to pay half the cost.

The project, which involves spending of Pounds 3.6 million in total for all the EU countries, will stress the quality characteristics of European wines and focus on regional identification.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission because of its failure to scrap a law insisting that labels on foodstuffs imported into France must be written in the French language. Brussels says this breaks EU free trade rules.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the proposed merger between

Ernst & Young France and most of Andersen France’s business, finding that

although the deal would create France’s biggest auditor for large and

quoted companies there was “no danger of the creation of a single dominant

position.”…

From Alan Osborn
The European Commission has increased its grants for the

restructuring and conversion of vineyards in the EU in the 2002-3 marketing

year by 5 per cent over the 2001-2 figure to 443 million euros (pounds 270

million). The allocation will be topped up by some 42 million euros (pounds

26 million) which was unspent in 2001-2 because not all countries could

justify claims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NORTH Sea is Europe’s blackspot for maritime sulphur dioxide emissions from fishing vessels, a report ordered by the European Commission has claimed. Pollution from ships in the southern North Sea east of East Anglia and north of the Straits of Dover is the worst in the continent, at between 0.2 and 0.5 kilotonnes annually per square 50 km, with emissions for the northern North Sea coming in at between 0.1 and 0.2 kilotonnes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOVERNMENTS and international organisations have highlighted tobacco smuggling as one of the largest illegal drains on their tax revenues. An international conference has brought law enforcement professionals together with health officials to fight this problem. Keith Nuthall reports.…