Search Results for: Greek

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

ANCIENT, natural techniques for making dyes and pigments have been made available today’s textile industry as a result of a European Union (EU)-funded research project, Med-Colour-Tech. A consortium of Mediterranean institutions, headed by the Ormylia Art Diagnosis Centre, operating under the auspices of the Sacred Convent of the Annunciation, Dependency of the Monastery of Simonos Petra at Greece’s Holy Mountain, identified dyes and materials used in different historical periods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s plans to lavish Euro EUR9.1 billion on developing energy transmission networks that link the energy systems of the European Union’s (EU) 27 member states go to the heart of the EU’s raison d’être: that Europe’s compact countries can achieve more in concert than in competition.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THESE are dark times for Greece’s textiles and clothing industry, which has been particularly hit by the country’s economic woes. Speaking to just-style, Vassilis Masselos, managing director of leading underwear manufacturer and retailer Nota Masselos SA and former president of the International Apparel Federation noted that "with more than 1 million unemployed, slashed wages and pensions and unprecedented taxation, Greeks today have very little disposable income for clothing".…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

ACCOUNTANTS and auditors in Greece have found themselves at the centre of the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis, and it is a far from comfortable place to be. Depending on who one speaks to, Greek official data had been cooked either when the country entered the Eurozone or when it asked for help; Greece was either saved by default or managed a controlled default; the conditions for the bailout loans by the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are either putting Greece back on track or are deconstructing the labour and social framework of the country.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

OFFICIALS at Greece’s competition regulator have told just-food the PepsiCo subsidiary fined almost Euro EUR16.2 million for abusing its dominant position in the market from 2000 to 2008 had been operating "without giving a thought to competition".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is coming under pressure to act against child labour in the global cocoa sector, with proposals being debated at the European Parliament to track cocoa produced with the help of children. That could mean an EU law creating a monitoring system making it clear to consumers where cocoa products risked being tainted by child labour, maybe through the "possible introduction of ‘child-labour free’ product labelling," said a draft report from the EP’s international trade committee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FUTURE of the natural gas sector is guaranteed in any viable European Union (EU) energy mix, the European Commission has said in a major policy paper. In its ‘Energy Road Map 2050’, Brussels argues that gas is the relatively clean fuel that will buy the EU time to adopt new energy technologies.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

LIKE most other sectors, Greece’s book market felt the profound effect of the debt crisis this past Christmas, in terms of sales. Annie Ragia, president of the Hellenic Federation of Publishers and Booksellers said that although the country’s market picked up a bit after mid-December, "that was far from enough, as there has been an estimated a 30-40% drop in sales in 2011."…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK ministry of rural development has appealed at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against a European Commission order that it collect from food producers and return to Brussels almost EUR425 million of European Union (EU) subsidies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT; AND HELENA FLUSFELDER, IN JERUSALEM

IT is not often that a country that has serious energy security issues gets to choose about whether it wants an energy export industry – but the State of Israel is in this relatively happy situation.…