Search Results for: Portugal

BY MARGUERITE-JEANNE DESCHAMPS, MINI PANT ZACHARIAH and WANG FANGQING

While sales of alcohol in pubs and bars in North America, Europe and the UK have seen a steady decline since the global economic downturn, experts are saying the shift from on-trade to off-trade sales of alcohol has not really had a financial impact on the alcoholic beverage industry as a whole.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project is about to start developing a prototype zinc-polymer car battery, which its scientists hope will be significantly lighter, safer and more environment-friendly than existing batteries. These are of course based on lead acid, lithium and nickel – all carrying problems associated with waste disposal, weight and chemical stability.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CONSULTANTS report for the European Commission on the impact of biofuel expansion has warned that a reliance on bioethanol could damage the European Union’s (EU) fossil fuels security of supply.

Written by experts from Wood Mackenzie, Ricardo and Celeres, the paper – just released by Brussels – says that with bioethanol sources focused on Brazil and a few other countries, "there is a risk of a high degree of reliance on few sources of ethanol supply."…

BY ALYSSA MCMURTRY

Illicit tobacco problem is reborn in high tax Spain

In the 1990’s Spain was a by-word for smuggled tobacco, but then the country successfully stifled the black market. Now, with higher taxes, contraband tobacco is back in Spain, and legitimate traders are worried.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Big European food retailers have been delighted with a new ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) slapping down regulations imposed by the Spanish government to restrict the location and operations of hypermarkets in Catalonia. The court, whose decisions are legal precedents throughout every country and region in the European Union (EU), said Spain had failed to fulfill obligations imposed by the "freedom of establishment" provision of the EU treaties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is undertaking a series of detailed studies on water scarcity, which will feed into a major policy initiative planned for 2012, almost certainly including legislative reform. The work follows growing concern that Europe is doing too little to conserve its drinking water resources, and that a firm hand from Brussels may be needed to secure future supplies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SCIENTISTS from a Euro EUR14.6 million research project are to unveil progress at a June 1-3 nanotechnology conference in Budapest on their goal of using nano-medicine to fight Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers in the NAD Project have tried to make a virtue out of the environmental concern that nano-particles can breach the blood-brain-barrier.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission may this year release proposals to reduce the vulnerability of the European Union’s (EU) emissions trading system (ETS) to fraud. Cyber-criminals launched a lucrative attack on its systems in January. How open is this ground-breaking system to fraud?…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

EUROPE: Diversifying university income is touch task – EUA

David Haworth

The rise in Europe’s student population combined with public funding cuts across the continent are producing an unprecedented crisis which can only be met by much greater diversifying of income sources, a conference of more than 100 experts heard in Brussels this week.…

BY LEE ADENDOORF, ALYSSA MCMURTRY, MAKKI MARSEILLES, and KEITH NUTHALL

GLOBAL olive oil manufacturing is on a roll, with the International Olive Council (IOC) saying 2009-10 world production was 3.02 million tonnes, a season-on-season increase of 354,500 tonnes (+13%). This would be the second best olive oil production year ever, next only to the record of 3.17 million tonnes produced in 2003/04.…