Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S tax burden as a proportion of GDP fell sharply in 2002 to 35.8% from 37.3% in 2001, confirming the UK as among the lightest taxed jurisdictions in the European Union (EU). The contrast is especially marked with its key competitors Germany (40.2% in 2002), France (44.2%), and Italy (41.7%), according to the latest available comparative figures from EU statistical agency Eurostat.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ACCORDING to popular prejudice, Britons are work obsessed and driven, spending too many evenings in the office, while the French are lazy clock watchers, with an eye on that two hour lunch break – but this could be pure myth according to a European Union (EU) study.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ACCORDING to popular prejudice, Britons are work obsessed and driven, spending too many evenings in the office, while the French are lazy clock watchers, with an eye on that two hour lunch break – but this could be pure myth according to a European Union (EU) study.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONFIDENCE in the durability of public health systems is not high amongst continental Europeans, a new Swedish report has claimed. Without reform 81% of 8,000 citizens in seven European Union (EU) member countries fear that the quality of their healthcare will decline or stagnate.…

Keith Nuthall
AN UNUSUAL private-public transport fund, with money available for European airport projects, has gained support from the European Union. The Galaxy Fund – run by France’s Caisse des Dépôts, Italy’s Sanpaolo IMI Group and Germany’s KfW – has been given Euro 25 million by the European Commission, whose spending will be managed by the European Investment Bank.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY is being taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission for failing to protect the name “Parmigiano Reggiano” as a cheese that must come a particularly area of Italy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN research network has developed a quality offset press that it claims is flexible enough to thrive in the plastic films, paper or aluminium packaging sectors. The independent EUREKA network’s ‘variable sleeve offset printing’ project had to reduce the cost of machine parts printing variable sizes “as there are no standard sizes in packaging applications”, said a project memorandum.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the summer holiday season in full swing, hold those calls to Stockholm: the Swedes have more time off than other Europeans, Germany’s IW economic institute has claimed. In an international survey of holidays taken by workers in 2003 in 14 western European countries, the Cologne-based think tank said Sweden was closely followed by the Netherlands (31 days) and Denmark (30 days).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FEVERISH efforts are being made to rescue the European Union’s (EU) software patent directive after suggestions that a number of member states voted for it “by mistake” in May and now seeking ways of reversing their positions. One of those seeking to change its vote – the Netherlands – said it mistakenly thought the measure incorporated amendments approved by the European Parliament which excluded patents for pure software.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITHIN the newly expanded European Union (EU), Poland is the cheapest country in which to buy a car, although under current trends that honour may not last long. According to the latest European Commission figures, Polish car prices are on average 9% cheaper than those in Finland, the cheapest country using the single European currency.…