Search Results for: Germany

From Alan Osborn
The European Commission has opened a formal State aid investigation

procedure into a decision by the German government to give financial

assistance to BMW for the construction of a new car plant in Leipzig. Total

investment in the factory is around 1.2 billion euros (about pounds 720

million) of which some 418.6 million euros (pounds 250 million) is covered

by the planned aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSTRUCTION companies in Germany, Italy, Greece and Portugal may soon be forced to use quieter plant, including concrete mixers, mobile and tower cranes, dumper trucks and hydraulic excavators, because of legal threats against their national governments. The European Commission is warning it may launch cases at the European Court of Justice to force them to implement directive 2000/14/EC on noise emissions from outdoor equipment.…

Keith Nuthall
NOONE should ever accuse the European Commission of fighting shy of regulation, and given that proposals on promoting shipping safety are generally framed with good intentions, it would be fair to say that Brussels at least tries to improve standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRACTICE of allowing companies to deduct bribes paid to secure contracts overseas from their domestic tax bills is still widespread, with a United Nations report saying it was allowed in 50 per cent of countries surveyed. The paper on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions said that it was however banned in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Nigeria, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FINANCED global action plan to improve safety in the nuclear energy sector has been approved in principle by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A number of countries have pledged around US$4.6 million to fund its programmes, although this falls far short of the US$12 million price tag claimed by the IAEA, which also wants a fund of US$20 million established to handle security emergencies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Generally organic meat production in the EU is low, said, Jean-Luc Meriaux, general secretary of the European Livestock and Meat Trading Union. For instance, in the key sector of organic beef, “very little” is produced in the EU, he said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RAFT of legal cases are being prepared by the European Commission against eight European Union Member States, to force them to monitor and restrict their production of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

In a bid to make the EU stick to its Kyoto Protocol commitments, the Commission has formally warned Britain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain and Germany of potential legal actions at the European Court of Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU’S Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has approved a European Commission plan to ban the export of all live pigs and porcine semen, ova and embryos from the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany, except districts east of the Rhine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S health authorities provide fewer drug addicts with substitution treatment than do a majority of other European Union Member States, a statistical review by an EU drug-use agency has claimed.

The proportion of “problem drug users” given alternative medicines to wean them off their addiction ranges between six and 22 per cent in the UK, taking into account available data, estimates the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has claimed that energy use is still rising in the European Union, mainly because of increasing transport consumption and has alleged that the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions could return to their 1990 levels by the year 2010 unless Brussels and Member States take firm action; this would include promoting renewable energy, said the EEA.…