Search Results for: Hungarian

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Commission investigators have raided Hungarian power operators looking for evidence that long-term electricity purchase agreements break European Union (EU) competition laws. The probe is one of a series of actions taken by the Commission’s directorate general for competition to drive restrictive practices out of the power sector across Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POLITICAL battle is underway at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over whether EU import duties on unwrought aluminium should be retained or scrapped. The struggle pits Poland and eight other member states against Germany, which wants the current 6% duties retained.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FINANCIAL assistance secured by the Hungarian government for its national coal industry has been approved by the European Commission, notably fixed feed-in tariffs for coal imposed on state-owned power company MVM in 2004-5. Although Brussels concluded this did represent a transfer of state money to Hungarian coal producers, it has ruled it "compatible with the common (European Union) market.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is not only concerned with trade and to underline this point the European Commission acted this summer to authorise national government subsidies for museums and other cultural organisations in Hungary, Poland and Denmark. The sums involved were not enormous – the total subsidies and tax breaks was only around Euro 30 million – but such decisions are politically sensitive and care has been taken by the Commission to avoid being accused of allowing one country’s cultural organisations to have better treatment than another.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s ‘rapid alert system for food and feed’ RASFF has reported a series of salmonella contaminations within pigmeat. Italian authorities have detected it in meat from Germany (three outbreaks), Belgium and Spain. RASFF has also reported salmonella discovered in Estonia within Lithuanian chicken thighs, and in Italy amongst Hungarian frozen eviscerated ducks and chitterlings.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) management committee for wine has agreed that Hungary be allowed to make a “crisis distillation” of 400,000 hectolitres of table wine, paying subsidies of Euro 1.914 per hectolitre times the percentage of alcohol by volume (abv) and 100,000 hl of quality wine at Euro 2.30 per hectolitre per % abv.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH and Swedish governments are being targeted for legal action over alleged insurance legislation infringements in European Commission’s regular summer round of litigation. It is formally threatening Ireland with a referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over national rules preventing the payment of any compensation, whatever the circumstances, from the Irish Insurance Bureau to drivers in an accident where all vehicles involved are uninsured.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PROACTIVE competition inquiry has been launched into the European Union’s (EU) natural gas sector, with the aim of rooting out anti-competitive practices. If the European Commission discovers instances of gas companies breaking existing EU competition law, legal action could follow.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved state aid payments planned until the year 2010 by the Polish and Hungarian governments to their countries’ shrinking coal mine sectors. Regarding Poland, Brussels approved its spending of Polish Zloty 6.2 billion (Euro 1.4 billion) in restructuring its coal industry from 2004-6, mainly “financing inherited liabilities”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending Euro 10 million to Hungarian vehicle leaser Merkantil Car, for on-lending to micro and small businesses seeking help for leases of up to Euro 125,000. The EBRD loan is complementing Euro 1 million in support from the European Commission to help Merkantil Car fund staff training and other costs.…