Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is storming ahead of the European Union’s league table for the export of electricity, supplying other EU Member States with 69,479 GWh in the latest year for which comparable figures are available (2000); Austria was the only other significant EU exporter, supplying 1,296 GWh, although outside the union, Norway recouped significant earnings from exporting 19,055 GWh.…

Keith Nuthall
INSURANCE companies will be able to reduce their exposure to natural and technological disasters within the European Union and eastern Europe in the future, assuming EU ministers agree plans to establish a central contingency emergency aid fund commanding between Euro 500,000 and Euro 1 billion; it would be raided by Member States and eastern European countries wanting to join the EU that fall victim to such disasters.…

KEITH NUTHALL
APPLICATIONS made by Nicaragua and Germany for the trade in two hardwoods to be controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have been supported by the CITES secretariat. The species are big-leaf mahogany (Brazilian mahogany) and tree-of-life (pockwood or sonora guaiacum).…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend up to Euro 25 million to a German company Eurostamp Deutschland, to enable it to construct and install a production plant for stamped and assembled auto-body parts. The factory would be sited in one of the poorest areas of Saxony, in eastern Germany, which is labelled as an Objective 1 zone by the European Commission and hence eligible for generous EU development grants; the project would create 90 new jobs until 2005 and 150 until 2007.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has made it clear that it will not countenance the creation of certain special tax regimes within the European Union for so-called coordination centres, that provide services including banking, marketing, insurance and logistics to companies within an international group.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOVERNMENTS and international organisations have highlighted tobacco smuggling as one of the largest illegal drains on their tax revenues. An international conference has brought law enforcement professionals together with health officials to fight this problem. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ITALIAN leather manufacturer appears to have lost an international legal struggle to prevent a former German company from using a trade name similar to its own to market furniture upholstered with leather bought from alternative suppliers. In a test case at the European Court of Justice, Italian Leather, of Bironto, Italy, has failed to establish that a ruling that it secured at Bari District Court should overrule a decision made earlier at the Regional Court, Koblenz, Germany.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is signalling a possible move from its ban on hybrid or inter-specific vines being used in appellation brands by paying for a research project into their quality and disease resistance, “taking into account all the scientific elements in order to provide a basis for decision.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AN INTERNATIONAL team of scientists based at Galway, in Ireland, has made a surprising discovery that could have significant consequences for future climate change.

The EU-sponsored Parforce research project, led by the National University of Ireland, has found that iodine vapours released by marine algae can help thicken haze and cloud layers, blocking sunlight and thereby partially offsetting global warming from greenhouse gases.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has filed an appeal against the dismissal of its cigarette smuggling action in the US against three tobacco companies: Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds and Japan Tobacco. Notably, it has received formal support in the proceedings from the US Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association for its action, along with the World Health Organisation, the US Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.…