Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TECHNICAL and administrative units devoted to the development of the European Union’s EGNOS and GALILEO global positioning initiatives are to be merged. EGNOS – the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service – should be fully operational by next year and Brussels has asked EU ministers to approve placing it under the supervision of the GALILEO Joint Undertaking, which includes both the Commission and the European Space Agency.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A LOT of people are saying that cigar smoking may be in serious long-term decline given the way things are going in America. World Tobacco is inclined to treat the figures a little more cautiously. It is true there has almost certainly been a sharp drop in American consumption in recent years but, as Chris Boon, the premium cigar manager at British American Tobacco, points out, there are no true figures: “you draw own conclusions and arrive at an estimate.”…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, ALAN OSBORN, PHILIP FINE and KEITH NUTHALL

IF there had been feelings bubbling under the surface of the British civil nuclear industry that the regulations governing its security were due for an overhaul, the events of September 11, 2001 – becoming universally known by its American shorthand 9/11 – certainly brought everybody to the table.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINNISH lawyers are the most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), according to the surprising results of a European Commission-funded survey designed to promote the need for liberalisation in Europe’s liberal professions. Oddly, Greece, not known for its adherence to EU rules, has the union’s most heavily regulated legal profession; under a statistical indices developed by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Greece has a regulation burden of 9.5, while the laissez-faire Finns score a tiny 0.3.…

BY PHILIP FINE and KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED States is calling for countries to offer up more information on their legal pharmaceutical and bulk chemical industries so as to better catch those who are using them for illegal purposes.

In its comprehensive annual report on worldwide drugs activities, the US State Department places some of the blame for many legal chemicals ending up in the hands of illicit drug manufacturers, on government political structures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOVES by European health Commissioner David Byrne to lift the EU’s five year de-facto moratorium on GM food have been blocked by Germany, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria. He said new authorisations should begin, because the EU Council of Ministers has approved labelling and traceability rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PHD in rocket science is not required to understand that corruption is a problem worldwide. But such a qualification – and more – would be required to devise an effective plan to fight this financial plague. The United Nations’ (UN) is drafting an international convention on corruption and asked a string of experts to write reports to illuminate some issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to finance renewable energy projects in Germany, marking a change in mood towards supporting such green schemes. Up to Euro 200 million would be invested, mainly in wind power plants, and to a lesser extent geothermal, small-scale hydro power, solar energy and biomass based energy projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF has been called in to investigate financial corruption at the EU’s Committee of the Regions, the Brussels body representing local governments across Europe.

Its investigators are checking allegations made by Dutch socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten to the European Parliament that the record of financial probity at the CoR “can only be described as alarming.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STREAMLINING, multi-tasking and flexible posting of employees may be important weapons in the arsenal of a personnel team looking at getting the most efficiency out of their company, but managers had better make sure that their policies are legal, not only under national laws, but European law too.…