Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRUSSELS is always looking for big ideas by which it can justify its existence to a doubting public and one of the latest of these is the concept of a European Research Area. This idea is that Europe – with its patchwork of nations and national research units – should coordinate its academics and researchers, making sure that they do not duplicate their efforts, rather dovetailing them with a single European goal in mind.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LOCAL authorities in the European Union are unprepared for the introduction of single European currency notes and coins next January, even though they have a crucial role in spreading information among small businesses and community groups, the European Commission has claimed.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is distributing 1.2 million leaflets this summer, which aims to educate holiday-makers on how to use the single European currency, the Euro, whose notes and coins will be launched in January.

Called “Don’t forget to Pack the Euro,” the leaflet encourages tourists to get used to the concept of the Euro whilst vacationing abroad this summer.…

KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE has been ordered by the European Commission to recover 100 million French Francs, (Euro 15.2 million), which it paid to ailing textile and clothing company Manufacture Corre(E IS ACUTE)zienne de Ve(E HAS CIRCUMFLEX)tements Ve(E HAS CIRCUMFLEX)tements (MCV).

Brussels had not been notified about the payments, which it says broke EU state aid rules, because they did not promote effective investment in the company which would have allowed it to become self-sufficient.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has decided to take France to the European Court of Justice, for failing to implement the EU gas directive before its August 2000 deadline. Paris has pointed out that draft legislation has been adopted, but Brussels asked the ECJ to order it to comply, because there is no date for it to be approved by the national assembly.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EXPERTS from 54 countries and five international organisations are considering the results of a simulated nuclear accident at the French reactor at Gravelines, near the border with Belgium, across the English Channel. The exercise, which was carried out on May 22-23rd, was to test national and international procedures following a nuclear emergency, the co-ordination of information, and the effectiveness of advisory and decision-making mechanisms.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union has voiced “disappointment and concern” at a decision by the US Department of Commerce to impose provisional countervailing duties on imports of low enriched uranium from the EU.

European Commission officials said that the case concerned uranium that had been processed for use in electricity generation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that sulphur should be banned from petrol in the EU by 2011, and has proposed that sulphur-free petrol and diesel should be made available in every Member States from January 1, 2005.

Brussels thinks sulphur elimination is important, because the chemical damages catalytic converters and makes them less efficient.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
(maximum marks for this one, I think. Only drawback – it’s only as good as the alarm system it comes with.)

Price (installed):

the 2000 model (155 cubic metres) – pounds 1,350

the 4000 model (250 cubic metres) – pounds 1,800

the 8000 model (400 cubic metres) – pounds 2,200

Contact:

Smokecloak

10 Cochran Close, Crownhill

Milton Keynes, Bucks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CASE brought by the European Commission against the Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds corporations for their alleged involvement in cigarette smuggling has opened at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The Commission has now been formally joined in the case by Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, who have given mandate Commission lawyers to represent them.…