Search Results for: Irish

BY MARK GAO, IN BEIJING

THE LEADER of China’s meat industry has told the country’s annual national meat conference that his sector is starting to consolidate and move away from its past reliance on small businesses. China Meat Association (CMA) secretary general Chen Wei noted that only 20% of the country’s 10,000-plus slaughter houses were large in scale, with the rest "artisanal or unmechanised."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a strategy designed to encourage the growth of cloud computing and data services, especially through the development of common standards and certification.

Brussels’ policy paper (called a Communication) ‘Unleashing the potential of cloud computing in Europe’ is a wide-ranging action plan that is designed especially to promote interoperability between cloud services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered the Irish government to recoup unfairly earned revenues from airlines dominating Irish airports after ruling illegal a departure tax penalising flights serving destinations 300km or more from Dublin. Passengers for these slots have been charged Euro EUR10 since 2009, while flights to destinations closer to the Irish capital have attracted just EUR2 in tax.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS; DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS; MICHAEL KOSMIDES; AND KEITH NUTHALL

THE DEBATE about whether compulsion or voluntarism best aids energy efficiency is one of the oldest in the electricity sectors: do we save more energy by being ordered to switch off the lights; or by being advised our bills will fall if we do?…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS, AND ROB STOKES

CRITICS of European Commission proposals for sweeping changes to audit practice and market regulation probably have a year or so to influence the final outcome.

This emerged in The CA’s interview with Jonathan Faull, the Commission’s director general for internal markets & services, about the so-called ‘Barnier proposals’ put forward by the European Union’s (EU) internal market Commissioner Michel Barnier.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPE’S confectionery industry is fighting rearguard moves at the European Parliament to delay the abolition of European Union (EU) quotas on EU sugar production. A report from French conservative MEP Michel Dantin on the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has proposed that the quotas stay until 2020 – they are currently to be phased out by 2015.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

CHINA’S meat imports exceeded its exports in 2011 according to figures collected by the country’s China Meat Association (CMA). China exported 894,000 tonnes of meat in 2011 valued USD3.47 billion while meat imports totalled 1.9 million tonnes, valued USD3.42 billion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINA producers in Ireland, Italy and France have escaped an order from the European Commission that they pay their respective governments additional excise duty for heavy fuel oil they bought between 2002 and 2003. Brussels had told them to pay up because the companies had enjoyed a reduced rate of duty, which the Commission concluded was an illegal disguised subsidy.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH the global organic food market in a state of exponential growth, a new trade deal between the world’s two biggest organic food producers – the United States and the European Union (EU) – could significantly boost organic food and drink sales in both their markets, currently valued at more than USD50 billion annually combined.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved the appointment of Irish finance ministry secretary general Kevin Cardiff to the European Court of Auditors, against the advice of its own budgetary control committee. It had opposed his serving on the European Union’s financial watchdog over its claims that Cardiff had overseen a Euro EUR3.6 billion accounting error at the ministry.…