Search Results for: Latvia

Biomass is under threat as the leading source of renewable energy in the European Union (EU) under controversial proposals to cap use of primary woody biomass and end subsidies by the end of 2026. Bioenergy Europe figures (1) show that 69.6% of biomass energy feedstock used in Europe comes from woody biomass, which are forestry and wood industry residues with the remaining feedstock sourced 18.3% from agricultural biomass and 12.1% biowaste.…

The European Union (EU) is edging towards a digital Euro, one of several jurisdictions worldwide developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), but what anti-money laundering controls would need to be built into the system and how can this be balanced with data protection and privacy considerations?…

The European Union’s (EU) new ‘Women on Boards’ directive (1) is designed to force change in the EU’s director cohort by requiring that the ‘under-represented sex’ (which could be male on rare female-dominated boards) make up 40% of non-executive directors or 33% of all major company directors.…

The European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has told its member states that it expects their governments to actively combat fraud in spending under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). That this is an ongoing problem was highlighted in a report for the EU’s financial watchdog the Court of Auditors issued in July (1).…

An international operation led by the European Union’s (EU) police and judicial agencies, Europol and Eurojust brought down the criminal gang behind a multimillion-Euro crypto investment scam. In a November 8 and 9 action day, raids on 15 call centres across eastern Europe – six in Albania, five in Georgia, one in North Macedonia and three in Ukraine – led to five arrests.…

The Nordic and Baltic beer markets are increasingly diverse, with craft beer sales growing faster than those for standard beers across the region, with only Lithuania bucking the trend. According to UK-based market researcher GlobalData (which owns Just Drinks), sales of craft beers Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia have all seen significant sales increases over the past five years with many exhibiting double-digit growth.…

Enforcement action to tackle foreign bribery in compliance with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (1) declined from 2018 to 2021, according to Transparency International (TI), after reviewing 47 leading export economies. These were 43 convention signatories plus China, India, Hong Kong and Singapore.…

Australia’s commitment to strengthen its anti-money laundering legislation is now an eight-year-old promise that has yet to be fulfilled. However, with a change in government in May 2022, with the Labor Party taking power after nine years of government by the right-centre Liberal-National Coalition, there is renewed hope that reform could finally be delivered.…

European Union (EU) member states are lagging in compliance with a requirement in the fifth anti-money laundering directive (5 AMLD) (1) to create public ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) registers by January 10, 2020. A European Commission webpage (2) on 5AMLD compliance last updated June 2 (2022) shows 12 governments are facing infringement proceedings either because they have not adopted legislation writing the directive fully into national law or because they have implemented it incorrectly.…