Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
WATER pricing reform is on its way in the European Union. The water framework directive passed last year imposes a commitment on Member States by the year 2010 to ensure that their pricing policies “provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE THREE important central European tobacco-growing countries of Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary will be able to claim production subsidies from Brussels when they join the European Union on the same basis as existing EU producers, European Commission officials have confirmed.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
GERMANY’S coal industry is to be allowed to receive Euro two billion, (about DM 4 billion and Pounds 1.2 billion), in state aid from January 1, 2002, to July 23, in 2002, the European Commission has agreed. The grants will cover operating aid of DM 1.9 billion, (Pounds 580 million), aid for the reduction of activity of DM 785 million, (Pounds 238 million), aid to maintain the underground mining workforce of DM 33 million, (Pounds 10 million), and exceptional charges of DM 1.32 billion, (Pounds 400 million).…

From Alan Osborn
The British drink can manufacturer Rexam plc is to sell its beverage can

plants at Runcorn in the UK and its factory in France to the German company

Schmalbach-Lubeca under a deal approved today Tuesday by the European

Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REFUGEES and stateless persons resident in a European Union Member State are not entitled to claim social security rights available to EU citizens, when they have arrived from outside the EU and have remained in their country of arrival, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

BY ALAN OSBORN AND KEITH NUTHALL
A NUMBER of tax regimes run by European Union countries are being investigated by the European Commission, which is following up suspicions that they are so loose, they amount to a breach of the EU’s competition laws.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing a potentially groundbreaking initiative to overcome the problems created by the existence of 15 different tax systems throughout the European Union, which could involve setting a harmonised EU corporation tax. In a report due to be released shortly, obtained by Accountancy Age, the Commission says differing tax national systems have caused losses in economic efficiency, generated compliance costs and contributed to a lack of transparency.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE USA takes more scientists and engineers from Britain than from any other country in the western industrial world, according to the latest Science, Technology and Industry indicators published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The report shows that 7,086 scientists and engineers from the UK are at present employed in the US, followed by 5,351 from Canada, 2,298 from Germany and 1,843 from Korea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released its priority projects for investment under its ongoing trans-European networks programme; the list includes a range of projects designed to improve rail links, in a bid to encourage freight operators to abandon road transport.…