Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is developing technology sterilising medical equipment using gaseous plasma. Focusing on plasma the ionised gas, rather than the blood fluid, the EU-funded BIODECON research project wants to kill bacteria, viruses and even prions on dirty scalpels, clamps and catheters by surrounding used medical equipment with plasma.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A LENGTHY row over European Union (EU) energy policy is shaping up following the publication in April of a detailed independent study sponsored by the European Commission of the electricity markets in six EU countries.

The study – Structure and Performance of Six European Wholesale Electricity Markets in 2003, 2004 and 2005 – was drawn up by the consultants London Economics in association with Global Energy Decisions and focuses on the electricity wholesale markets in Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the UK excluding Northern Ireland.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
GERMANY’S cigarette market in recent years has provided a classic illustration of the truth that faced by higher prices, consumers will try most things – except give up smoking. In the four years to late 2006 there were five German government-imposed excise tax and VAT increases affecting tobacco which had the combined effect of raising the price of most cigarettes by 30% o 40%.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALTHOUGH Germany is a leading player in developing regenerative medicine, it must do more to remove administrative and business barriers preventing useful research being commercialised a report published by the German Ministry for Education and Research has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN an intervention with potentially significant political implications, the European Parliament’s economics committee has backed abolishing European Union (EU) common excise duty minimum rates, set on the creation of the ‘single European market’ in 1992. Instead it has proposed a voluntary code of practice designed “to encourage member states with duties above the EU average to freeze and gradually lower them, and those with duties below the average to consider raising them.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has dropped legal action against Germany’s deposit and return scheme for drinks packaging, concluding reforms stopped it being an illegal restriction of trade within the European Union (EU). The German government had initially said retailers should only accept returned bottles and cans of the exact type, shape and size in stock, while Euro 0.25 deposits were charged regardless.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN an unusual pro-liberalisation intervention with potentially significant political implications, the European Parliament’s economics committee has backed abolishing European Union (EU) common excise duty minimum rates. Instead it has proposed voluntary code of practice designed “to encourage member states with duties above the EU average to freeze and gradually lower them, and those with duties below the average to consider raising them.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ETHICALLY conscious consumers are spending more money on buying certified fair trade wine, although the marketing of other drinks certified to promote social development in poorer countries has been slower to grow.

Fair trade wines volumes are now respectable, with the London-based Fair Trade Foundation saying consumption is highest in the UK, with worldwide sales volumes totaling 618,000 litres in 2004 (bought entirely in Britain), and 1.39 million in 2005, with Britons buying 1.12 million of the share.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN and PAUL COCHRANE
WITH the European Union (EU) securing around 25% of its gas from Russia and natural gas being an ever more important fuel for thermal power plants, the failure thus far of the European Union and Russia to agree a new long-term energy agreement has to be of concern to the electricity industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the key May 18 European Union (EU)-Russia summit in Samara, Russia, looming, the European Commission is continuing efforts to find suitable alternative energy partners to Moscow. Russia and the EU want to start tough negotiations on forging a new energy agreement, with both sides firming up their positions.…