Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the creation of an international electricity distribution joint venture called European Market Coupling Company (EMCC). This will be run by three transmission system operators – Energinet.dk of Denmark, E.ON Netz GmbH of Germany and Vattenfall Europe Transmission GmbH of Germany – and two energy exchanges – Nord Pool Spot AS of Norway and the European Energy Exchange AG (EEX) of Germany.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S federal constitutional court has declared illegal regional state laws implementing a partial smoking ban that allowed large bars to set aside special areas for smokers. This flexibility has been allowed in rules introduced by most of Germany’s 16 Länder, but this was challenged legally by two small bars who said they and similar businesses had no room for such areas and so were being placed at a competitive disadvantage.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, JAMES BURNS, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and PHILIPPA JONES

"IT is better to be beautiful than to be good," wrote Oscar Wilde in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Many cosmetics and personal care companies worldwide may still believe this statement to be true, but being, or at least claiming to be, "good" has become an essential part of the sector’s public image.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Commission president José Manuel Barroso has tried to coax German public opinion into favouring nuclear energy. In an interview with the weekend newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Barroso said: "Nuclear energy is a delicate issue in Germany…on the other hand, more and more countries see in nuclear energy an at least temporary solution to stop climate change and to reduce our dependency on oil and gas."…

BY MARK ROWE

FOLLOWING the extended frenzy that saw multinational companies move into eastern Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s, several markets in the region are approaching the maturity of western Europe. And while Russia lags behind in general terms, the micro-economies of Moscow and St Petersburg are similarly saturated by high-end brands and developed consumer choice and tastes.…

By Eric Lyman in Rome

There are problems in the world that cannot be confronted with any success by a single state, no matter how powerful. Big environmental issues and world hunger and poverty immediately come to mind, along with many regional peacekeeping needs and most economic and trade-related problems.

Enter multilateralism, the consensus-driven process that democratically pulls countries together for collective problem solving, usually under the auspices of an umbrella organisation such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation.

Multilateralism has been hailed as the natural evolution from the bipolar world order that marked the period after World War II – with influence split between the camps of US and the Soviet Union – and the unipolar order based on the power and influence of the US since the end of the Cold War.…

BY CHRIS JONES

EUROPEAN Union (EU) telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding faces significant opposition to her proposals for increasing the European Commission’s power of veto over national telecoms regulations (NRAs) and the creation of a new Europe-wide regulatory agency.

NRAs in the 27 member states, which together form the European Regulators’ Group (ERG), have made it quite clear that any attempt by Reding to undermine their authority will face fierce resistance.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ANGLO-Dutch oil giant Shell is not in much doubt that hydrogen is one of the fuels of the future, if not the fuel of the future. Barely a month ago, in June, Duncan Macleod, (NOTE: SPELLING IS CORRECT) global vice president of Shell Hydrogen, told an clean technology conference in the US that Shell had restructured its organisation "to prepare for hydrogen’s transition into the mainstream, bringing it into our downstream fuels portfolio, alongside gasoline, diesel, LPG, CNG – as well as biofuels and GTL."…

BY MARK ROWE and GAVIN BLAIR

WHILE the idea of using nano-titanium particles to enable textiles to "self-clean" is not new, the applications to which this technology is being applied and enhanced are increasing almost daily. A number of products are currently being designed or put on the open market in Europe and the United States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE POLITICAL map of Europe these days looks very blue. Most of it (discounting Russia) is part of the European Union (EU) and those countries that have yet to join are increasingly the odd men out.

The European Commission and its fellow EU institutions are keen on some of these countries becoming members and less keen on others, but the countries that are almost destined to join the EU (if they want to) are those surrounded by EU territory.…