Search Results for: German

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that tax breaks granted to German nuclear power operators, to help them build up reserves for the eventual decommissioning of their plants and the safe disposal of nuclear waste, do not actually constitute the payment of unfair and illegal state aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMAN porcelain manufacturer Graf von Henneberg is facing an uncertain future, after the European Commission ruled that it must repay state aid of Euro 71.3 million, (DM 139.4 million), paid to it and a predecessor company, because it was paid in circumstances that break EU rules.…

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 KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the proposed take-over of Haindl, a German family-owned paper company, by Finland’s UPM-Kymmene and the subsequent sale of two of the Haindl mills to Norwegian paper manufacturer Norske Skog. Brussels concluded following an inquiry that the deal would not erode effective competition in European Union paper markets, notably in those for newsprint and wood-containing magazine paper.…

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
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the takeover of Filtrauto S.A., the French manufacturer of automotive filters, by its Italian rival Sogefi S.p.a. Brussels cleared the deal on competition grounds, because the merged company will still have to fight for sales, facing opposition particularly from German manufacturers Mann & Hummel and Mahle.…

BY JOHNATHAN THOMSON
DESPITE the general fears about air travel sparked by the World Trade Centre disaster, commercial aviation is not only incredibly safe, but is getting safer each decade despite the considerable rise in global traffic. Tens of thousands of passenger aircraft take to the skies every day across the world, yet during the 1990’s there were only 483 fatal air accidents globally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has cleared the way for German judges to order cosmetics giant Hans Schwarzkopf GmbH to label its hair dyes with health warnings about chemical ingredients that may be harmful to human health.

At present, Schwarzkopf includes these warnings for its Igora Royal range only on an enclosed leaflet, with its outer packaging and tube being printed with the note: “For commercial use only.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HOLIDAYS and pregnancy leave are a serious business, both for the employees who take them and the employers who pay for them. Unfortunately for personnel departments who might want a little more flexibility over whether they should shell out or not, recent cases at the European Court of Justice have underlined the right of EU citizens to take paid leave, rather than erode them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REFUGEES and stateless persons resident in a European Union Member State are not entitled to claim social security rights available to EU citizens, when they have arrived from outside the EU and have remained in their country of arrival, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…