Search Results for: Poland

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a research project developing a virtual-reality unit, training construction workers in using potentially dangerous heavy plant, without the risk of injuring their co-workers. Researchers from Spain, Germany, France, Slovakia, Poland, Portugal and Italy are designing a computer-aided training programme, involving a virtual-reality platform or cabin with controls mirroring those on real-life equipment plant.…

KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY – which until recently had a Green-Socialist government – is home to five of the 10 dirtiest electricity plants in the European Union (EU), a report from conservation group WWF claims. Its assessment of carbon-dioxide emissions from power stations found Germany’s lignite Frimmersdorf RWE plant second most polluting, behind Greece’s lignite plant at Agios Dimitrios.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-wide customs initiative has netted two huge hauls of fake branded cigarettes smuggled in from China. The consignments, totalling more than 17,203,000 cigarettes, were seized at Belgium’s major port, Antwerp, during a two-week exercise involving customs authorities, the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF, and the European Commission’s taxation and customs directorate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has been singled out for criticism by a European Environment Agency (EEA) report on urban wastewater treatment, noting that despite Euro 3.8 billion in targeted subsidies, it does not comply with relevant European Union (EU) laws. The EEA said only 55% of the population is connected to public sewage treatment plants, “and advanced treatment remains an exception”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a research project aimed at developing a virtual-reality unit, training construction workers in using potentially dangerous heavy plant, without the risk of injuring their co-workers. Researchers are currently designing a computer-aided training programme, an electronic simulator, and even a virtual-reality platform or cabin allowing workers to use controls mirroring those on a piece of plant.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is not only concerned with trade and to underline this point the European Commission acted this summer to authorise national government subsidies for museums and other cultural organisations in Hungary, Poland and Denmark. The sums involved were not enormous – the total subsidies and tax breaks was only around Euro 30 million – but such decisions are politically sensitive and care has been taken by the Commission to avoid being accused of allowing one country’s cultural organisations to have better treatment than another.…

BY MARK ROWE
IN times of conflict, cultural property, such as archaeological sites, works of art, museums and monuments, can also suffer grievously at the hands of opposing military and guerrilla forces. In recognition of this, such objects are accorded protection by the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened another formal state aid investigation into long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs), this time those struck by Polish state-owned network operator Polskie Sieci Energetyczne (PSE) with power generators. The inquiry follows the launch of a similar probe into purchase agreements in Hungary.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE POLISH government has been alarmed by a call from Russia’s Gazprom to renegotiate its long-term natural gas supply contract, which is supposed to expire in 2022. Poland’s freshly-appointed prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said he was baffled by the move: “It’s hard to understand this step.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced its latest tranche of funding to help European Union (EU) drinks producers sell products outside the EU. Maybe the most significant grant is Euro 1.43 million being paid over three years by Brussels to Lithuania to boost exports of wines and spirits.…