Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Reports from Brussels say the European Commission is ready to abandon its call for "ownership unbundling" of energy company assets in order to force separation of generation and transmission facilities. The proposal has been strongly opposed by France and Germany, with the backing of others, and there is now a clear threat the plan might be formally vetoed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A REPORT from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for the European Commission has pressed for simplifying bureaucratic procedures demanded of renewable energy producers wishing to connect to national grids. Following a survey of generators, a majority of respondents "perceived the permission and the grid connection procedures they face in their countries as too complex and above all too lengthy," said the report.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission was poised when the Petroleum Review went to press to unveil a long awaited package of energy proposals, although Brussels was expected to shy away from tabling wholesale unbundling of gas producers and distributors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GERMAN government has given the go ahead in principle for additional spending on research into carbon capture and storage, including – initially – three pilot plants sequestering CO2 from coal-fired power plants. Germany has a large coal sector, with many deposits being dirty-burning lignite.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE OUTCOME of the political struggle about this month’s (Sept) release of a comprehensive proposed package of European Union (EU) energy directives and regulations insisting on some unbundling between power producers and transmitters will test the EU’s ability to threaten core interests of national governments.…

BY MARK ROWE

RUSSIA’S new-found belligerence and confidence is not confined to the political and military sphere: in the past four years – and increasingly so in the past 12 months – Russia has adopted an aggressive, take-it-or-leave it stance when it comes to imports of dairy and other food products.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE MONEY Laundering Bulletin has found effects of the European Union’s (EU) second money laundering directive’s (2MLD) extension of EU anti-money laundering regulations to a range of businesses and professions are complicated by differences in the definition of the professions between the 27 member states.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded survey has revealed that traffic noise is the most annoying unwanted sound for EU urban citizens. Carried out by the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, at Germany’s University of Dortmund, initial results showed that 61% of metropolitan area residents are annoyed by traffic noise, with 32% confessing to being "very or extremely annoyed".…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris

STEM cells leapt to the attention of the cosmetics world earlier this year when US-based Voss Laboratories used Russian biotechnology to launch Amatokin, a ‘miracle’anti-wrinkle skin cream that uses stem cell technology. LVMH Recherche, the research arm of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, the luxury perfume and cosmetics group, believes stem cells are central to creating ever-more effective cosmetics.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT is common currency amongst extreme British Eurosceptics that business and government on the continent of Europe is a cesspit of dishonesty and corruption, against which Britain shines like a beacon of virtue and decency.

Allowing "Europeans" who lack Britain’s traditional sense of fair play and transparency control over the laws and regulations mandated by the "Mother of Parliaments" is heresy to such folk.…