Search Results for: Italian

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined four Italian tobacco processors Euro 56 million in total for colluding for six years over the fixing of prices paid to growers and their agents, and on choosing which supplier to use. Such a cartel is illegal under European Union (EU) competition legislation, and has sparked fines of Euro 30 million to Deltafina; Euro 14 million to Transcatab; Euro 10 million to Mindo (formerly known as Dimon); and Euro 2.05 million to Romana Tabacchi.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressuring Italy to implement a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling telling it to liberalise restrictive investment rules that effectively prevent large foreign publicly-owned utilities from controlling Italian electricity and gas companies. Under Italian law, where such foreign groups enjoy a “dominant position” in their home markets, they cannot exercise voting rights beyond 2% normally attached to Italian energy holdings.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS
THE RELATIONSHIP between Caribbean people and tobacco could have at one time been described as virtually umbilical, with important outward feeders to Europe and other parts of the world. Tobago, the smaller unit of the twin-island state of Trinidad & Tobago, bears the name of the instrument used by native Amerindians 500 years ago to smoke Burly blends.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST formal votes have been held on the European Union’s (EU) proposed chemical control system REACH, with amendments being passed by the European Parliament’s environment committee that will generally make life more difficult for petrochemical producers.

MEPs rejected the idea of a light touch for materials produced only in small quantities of between one to 10 tonnes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called on the European Central Bank (ECB) to heed public opinion and print Euro 1 and 2 banknotes, rather than relying on coins for these denominations, as at present. A majority of MEPs have signed up to a written formal declaration arguing this point, drawn up by Italian right-wing MEP Amalia Sartori.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT is probably true, as some anti-tobacco campaigners claim, that if the European Union (EU) had had the statutory authority to act in the public health area in recent years, then the legal crackdown on smokers would have been far tougher than it has been.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called on European Union (EU) countries to further liberalise their professions, including accountancy, although a detailed report praises Britain for its reforms. The UK “is making good progress” across the board in fighting restrictive practices regarding profession entry, fees and advertising, along with Denmark and the Netherlands, said Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s Management Committee for Wine has approved a plan to allow crisis distillation of up to two million hectoliters of Italian table wine. Assuming the decision is accepted by the European Commission, distillation could begin from September 25, with Euro 1.914 per hectolitre multiplied by a wine’s abv percentage being handed over to producers facing a wine glut.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has pushed ahead with securing more overseas fishing access deals for EU fishing crews in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Crucially EU ministers have been formally asked to approve a deal regarding the key Pacific grounds off the Solomon Islands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that a series of experimental wine-making practices are made permanently legal across the European Union (EU). The proposal follows a trial period, where these oenological techniques have been tested. They include the treatment of must and fermenting wine with charcoal, the use of L-ascorbic acid, the addition of dimethyldicarbonate (DMDC) and also of yeast mannoproteins.…