Search Results for: Ireland

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has underlined its determination to forge a European Union (EU) energy policy with substance by a slew of legal actions against member states over renewables, liberalisation and biofuels. Brussels has started proceedings against Britain, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic for failing to report progress under the 2001 directive promoting renewable energy sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) political leaders have agreed medium-term (2007-13) budgets for crucial spending projects for the energy sector: Trans European Networks (TENs) and the EU seventh framework programme (FP7) for research. On TENs, the European Parliament, Commission, and EU Council of Ministers have agreed a Euro 7.2 billion budget, Euro 500 million above previous drafts, although this will have to be split with TENs transport projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that efforts to squeeze Ireland-based creditors from Bank of America-inspired insolvency proceedings of a Dublin-based subsidiary of Italian food giant Parmalat could be blocked by the Irish courts. Although the ECJ ruling in principle also confirms the theoretical rights of Italian liquidators to have a role – noting that "the right of creditors or their representatives to participate" in insolvency proceedings "is of particular importance" – the effect in this case will be to guarantee the rights of a publicly appointed liquidator in Ireland.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PRACTICAL and regional initiative to remove barriers in trading electricity between neighbouring European Union (EU) countries has been launched by the European Regulators’ Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG). It is grouping states’ regulators and utilities together to focus on regulatory and technical difficulties impeding cross-border sales of electricity for countries sharing frontiers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SHARP decline observed in European butterfly populations by an international study has raised parallel concerns about worsening environmental conditions in general. The report published in the Journal of Insect Conservation says that butterflies "are very good candidates to build biodiversity indicators".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has unveiled imminent plans to abolish the European Union (EU) system of pre-financing export refunds for food, widely used in the past to manipulate EU beef sales. Because of this, EU agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel has told the EU Council of Ministers that the system would be replaced with direct beef export controls.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS Alexander Lukashenko exploits his contested mandate as president of Belarus to crush his country’s opposition, the European Union and the Nordic Council of Ministers have pledged Euro 2.78 million to help a Belarusian university in exile survive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has released plans to lend money covering half of the debt incurred by the Northern Ireland Roads Service in five construction projects. These include improvements to the M1, A1 and A4/A5 trunk roads, involving bridge pier strengthening; dualling the A1 from Beechill to Cloghogue; A1 junction improvements and M1 communications changes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to comply with a year 2000 European Union (EU) directive imposing limits on working time in the civil aviation sector. This enshrined in law an agreement struck by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), the European Cockpit Association (ECA), the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) and the International Air Carrier Association (IACA).…