Search Results for: Greece

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A NEW European Union (EU) agency could be created to enforce and implement EU waste control legislation. That is the proposal of a new European Commission report, which says the standard of waste disposal in some EU countries remains low.…

BY PHILLIPA JONES

DESPITE ever greater restrictions on smoking, the land of the Gauloises (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) last year bucked trends with cigarette sales increasing by a small but significant 2% compared to 2008. According to British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s second largest tobacco company, the industry benefited from a number of factors, most notably a reduction in the purchasing of cigarettes from neighbouring countries, pushing the number of sticks sold in France up 55.6 billion in 2009.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS a new European Union (EU) energy Commissioner takes office for the next five years, EU member states are stalling over a plan to inject Euro 50 billion into European energy research budgets over the next decade. The Strategic Energy Technology (SET) plan released by the previous European Commission last October would involve a massive expansion of such spending from 2013 to 2019, but national governments have signalled nervousness.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has effectively accused Greece of fraud over its misreporting of government deficit figures. As the country teeters towards potential financial default, a report on repeated errors in financial data said the European statistical checking system run by European Union (EU) statistical agency Eurostat and national agencies had been undermined.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Maritime Organisation (IMO) has raised concerns that the hijacked Greece-flagged supertanker Maran Centaurus could be the source of a major oil spill. IMO says pirates have moored the vessel in an unsafe anchorage off Hobyoin port, Somalia, prey to unstable weather.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE and KEITH NUTHALL

SYRIA is such a staple of Middle East political turmoil, it is easy to forget that it is a near neighbour of Europe: less than 200 miles of sea separate it from Cyprus and it borders Turkey, which could be a European Union (EU) member by 2020.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINIUM of Greece could face paying an expensive Euro 17.4 million electricity bill, after the European Commission decided to open an in-depth investigation into whether low tariffs granted by the Greek state-owned Public Power Corporation were an illegal subsidy.…

BY ALAN OSBORN,ANCA GURZU and KEITH NUTHALL

THE GLOBAL trade in illicit tobacco is huge and growing and a significant source of dirty money worldwide. Tobacco multinational British American Tobacco (BAT) estimates that 6.3% of cigarettes worldwide are illicit products (either counterfeit, smuggled or sold domestically on the black market), which makes 332 billion sticks, and that is a lot of cigarettes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFTER the disappointment of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it is perhaps encouraging to note that the auto industry – so often painted as the bad boy of the climate change issue – really is reducing its vehicles’ carbon dioxide emissions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MARIA Damanaki, the Greek leftist nominated to become the next European Union (EU) fishing Commissioner from February 1, has promised a tough line on conserving fishing stocks. A senior member of Greece’s current socialist PASOK governing party, she has a far left background, having been a Greek communist MP in the past.…