Search Results for: Netherlands

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have agreed reforms to the EU’s VAT directive 2006/112/EC enabling member states to swiftly impose reversed charge VAT mechanisms to fight tax fraud. They would act when faced with a sudden onset of large-scale VAT fraud, forcing suppliers to pay the tax, rather than final consumers.…

‘LA TORRE PUIG,’ the 22-storey Puig Tower now being fitted out in the Plaza de Europa, of the Catalan capital, Barcelona, for Puig SL, the family owned fragrances and fashion firm, will be yet another landmark building for one of Europe’s most beautiful cities.…

RECENT technical advances and headline projects show how companies with market leadership in high voltage direct current (HVDC) and Ultra HVDC (UHVDC) are pushing the envelope of what these technologies can do.

Since Sweden’s ASEA (now part of Swiss multinational ABB) installed the world’s first commercial HVDC link, under the Baltic Sea to the Swedish island of Gotland in 1954, it has become the technology of choice for transmitting current over very long distances on land or subsea.…

China in April successfully conducted a maiden test flight of the first aviation biofuel entirely processed on its shores, joining the US, Finland and France as only the fourth country in the world to independently research and develop a bio-jet fuel production technology.…

REVISED European Union (EU) nuclear safety rules proposed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, may undermine the authority of national safety regulators and complicate the work of nuclear operators, according to Foratom, the organisation representing the interests of the European nuclear industry.…

PLASTICS companies have not responded comprehensively to requests from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that they register certain ingredients and polymers in the now completed second registration process under European Union (EU) chemical control system REACH. ECHA says that by the May 31 deadline for registering chemicals made, used or imported in quantities of 100 tonnes or more, there were 984 substances left unregistered that companies had earlier promised to register.…

“We use our earth as if we have a planet and a half; we have a deficit relation with our natural resources. The biggest challenge facing not just business, society and government, but humanity is the question of our sustainability. And business, as usual, will do nothing to solve it.”…

THE CONSORTIUM running the European Commission-backed U-Multirank is working to better ensure the quality and reliability of the indicators it will use to rank universities, University World News has been told. Speaking exclusively to University World News, Jordi Curell, director of higher education and international affairs at the Commission’s directorate general for education and culture, said assessments were weakened by universities failing to monitor the professional success of their graduates: “There is an issue because some of the indicators are difficult to obtain, especially when it comes to the tracking of students, because they don’t exist everywhere,” he said.…

EUROPEAN biofuel industry knew it was in for a rough ride when the European Commission announced last October that it would stop subsiding food-based biofuels from 2020 and support the production of secondary biofuels based on waste matter and algae. But maybe it was not prepared for how the European Parliament would try to amend the proposals by introducing regulatory distinctions between types of biofuels that discriminate against biodiesel.…

CHEMICALS used as paint and coatings ingredients have been added to the European Union’s (EU) ‘authorisation’ list because of wide ranging environmental health concerns. A listing requires companies wanting to integrate these chemicals in their products or manufacturing processes to seek permission from the European Commission first – it will be advised in making this decision by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA).…