Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ruled that tax breaks granted to German nuclear power operators, to help them build up reserves for the eventual decommissioning of their plants and the safe disposal of nuclear waste, do not actually constitute the payment of unfair and illegal state aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has extended its formal investigation into state aid paid by the German regional government of Thuringia to eastern Germany porcelain companies Kahla Porzellan GmbH (Kahla I) and Kahla/Thüringen Porzellan GmbH (Kahla II). Brussels is to examine subsidies of Euro 14.9 million, which it thinks were probably unlawful under EU regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is a curious fact that whilst Britain has a lot more wind than Germany, it has significantly less wind power electricity generation. Also, why has a country blessed with as much sun as Greece, failed to develop solar panels as quickly as its fellow southern Mediterranean EU Member State Spain?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
European Union transport ministers have dealt a heavy, and possibly fatal, blow to the EU’s Galileo global positioning project by refusing to provide finance for the crucial development stage of the programme. The 3.6 billion euro (pounds 2.2 billion) Galileo scheme is designed to establish a satellite-based tracking system that, when operative in 2008, will allow transport operators and others to pinpoint positions on earth and reduce dependence on the American GPS navigation system which is shared with military users and where signals to civilian operators cannot be guaranteed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that an EU national government cannot insist that waste shipments to another Member State are disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way, as a condition of allowing a cargo to leave its territory.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE USE of azocolourants for dyeing leather and textile goods is to be banned throughout the European Union following acceptance by EU ministers of scientific evidence that they present a cancer risk. Some EU countries already ban the nitrogen-based chemicals and the European Commission wants to harmonise the situation in the interests of free trade.…

BY MARK ROWE and BEATA PLONKA
THE CENTRAL European Air Traffic Services (CEATS) project, first tentatively suggested back in the early 1990s, is intended to radically redraw the aviation map of the region. The project aims to provide a significant boost to the airspace capacity of what many commentators call eastern Europe and address the main challenges facing aviation in the 21st century; safety, delays and rising volumes of traffic.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEALTH experts have been discussing a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, (OECD), which has shown Britain performs poorly against its competitors in western Europe and north America, regarding the number of nurses employed per head of population in the late 1990’s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has launched a review of its anti-dumping and countervailing rules, as part of the agreement to embark on a new general round of negotiations.

Ministers agreed at their summit in Qatar, for talks “aimed at clarifying and improving disciplines,” on these protective duty regimes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL state aid investigation has been launched by the European Commission into exemptions from excise duty on heavy oils used for the production of the aluminium raw material alumina, allowed by the governments of Ireland, France and Italy

They have used powers available to them under the 1992 Directive on the approximation of the rates of excise duties on mineral oils, to exempt alumina producers in, respectively, the Shannon region, Gardanne and Sardinia, from paying excise on the oils.…