Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government will have to defend itself at the European Court of Justice against claims by the European Commission that it has broken European Union law over tough personnel regulations, restricting the employment of qualified social care workers from other EU Member States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government will have to defend itself at the European Court of Justice against claims by the European Commission that it has broken European Union law over tough personnel regulations, restricting the employment of special needs teachers from other EU Member States.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking France to the European Court of Justice for applying a reduced rate of withholding tax on income from investments and contracts with a debtor who is resident or established in France, while not allowing this tax break when the debtor lives in another EU Member State.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A PARTIAL agreement on the opening of France’s highly protected energy markets appears to have been the main achievement by EU leaders at their summit in Barcelona this weekend (March 15-16th); importantly, France won an assurance that it could protect disadvantaged citizens and rural areas from the effects of liberalisation.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE and Luxembourg have been referred to the Europe Court of Justice on the grounds that their compulsory no-claims bonus systems for third-party motor insurance are in breach of the EU’s insurance regulations. In both countries premiums are determined by “detailed, mandatory criteria laid down by law that are incompatible with the freedom to market insurance products,” the European Commission said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority by European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. A Brussels official in the Commission’s directorate general for fisheries told Fishing News International that a future deal could lead to EU fishing crews being given access to fish US waters and for European factory ships to be allowed to buy stocks from American fishermen at sea.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
REQUESTS by France and Italy for authorisation to pay national aids to wine producers in connection with the distillation of table wine have been sharply criticised by the EU wine commissioner, Dr Franz Fischler for removing incentives for European wine makers to produce quality vintages.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. EU ministers said Brussels officials should

Meanwhile, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed a regulation aiming at boosting cod stocks in the Irish Sea this year, protecting adult cod during the spawning season, notably enforcing an area closure from February.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EXPOSURE of European Union citizens to man-made radiation increased by about 76 per cent between 1987 and 1996, a new European Commission report has claimed, citing discharges from reprocessing plants in Britain (Sellafield) and Normandy, France, (Cap de la Hague) as the “most important” sources of this pollution increase.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPLIT has emerged in the European Union Council of Ministers over the possible scrapping of subsidies to tobacco producers under a possible review the common market regime, which should happen this year. On one side in a debate at a recent agriculture council were a group including many of the EU’s tobacco growing countries, (Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Greece, Spain and Portugal), who are opposed to cuts, whilst other Member States, (notably Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden), backed a recital to a current proposal to adjust subsidies over the next two years that calls on the EU to review the regime this year “to allow the progressive deletion of subsidies.”…