Search Results for: France

BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEALTH experts have been discussing a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, (OECD), which has shown Britain performs poorly against its competitors in western Europe and north America, regarding the number of nurses employed per head of population in the late 1990’s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has launched a review of its anti-dumping and countervailing rules, as part of the agreement to embark on a new general round of negotiations.

Ministers agreed at their summit in Qatar, for talks “aimed at clarifying and improving disciplines,” on these protective duty regimes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CYNICS may look at the hastening political process of allowing eastern European countries, and their large agricultural sectors, into the European Union, and ask, ‘what’s in it for us?’

It’s a good question given that the 10 countries that are at the front of the membership queue, (with the tiny exceptions of Malta and Cyprus), are hardly wealthy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to raise fuel prices, so as to improve their environmental performance and promote investment in energy efficient industries.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe recently addressed the issue, with its Committee on Sustainable Energy and the Committee on Environmental Policy agreeing to produce guidelines on price reform.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE LATEST report of the European Court of Auditors on annual spending by the European Union is depressingly familiar. It says the figures do not warrant official approval. It puts a questionmark over some Pounds 2.5 billion out of the pounds 50 billion spent by the EU in 2000, with most of the suspect figures again in the farm sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT was telling that the first step taken by President Bush against Islamic terror groups following the World Trade Centre disaster was to freeze bank accounts. The international community has now responded by agreeing common controls to stop terror groups laundering funds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SYSTEM of tax exemptions allowing French companies to deduct liability for losses incurred by subsidiaries or branches abroad breaks the European Coal and Steel Community’s Steel Aid Code, the European Commission has ruled.

Following an investigation, it has concluded that none of the exemptions provided for, such as aid for research and development, environmental protection or closures, are applicable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
WATER pricing reform is on its way in the European Union. The water framework directive passed last year imposes a commitment on Member States by the year 2010 to ensure that their pricing policies “provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A REVIEW of European safety laws designed to prevent industrial explosions – such as that which recently ripped through the Atofina fertiliser plant in Toulouse, France, killing 29 people – is to be launched by a specialist EU committee.…