Search Results for: Portugal

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LONGEST collectively agreed working hours in the European Union’s (EU) retail sectors are found in richer western European countries, as well as poorer new member states from eastern and southern Europe, a new study has shown. And Britain, usually attacked for having the longest working hours in western Europe, actually has below-average collectively bargained time at work in the retail sector, noted the European Industrial Relations Observatory, looking at 2004 figures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has called on the European Commission to frame an action plan on simplifying red tape for the fishing industry, “reducing their bureaucratic workload and the restrictions that bear down on fishermen”.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE SOUTH African paint and coatings industry is in a state of change as a shift in focus towards overseas markets coupled with a need to protect local markets is pushing manufacturers to reassess their quality and production volume capabilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DIVISIONS over the EU sugar regime reforms have been clarified at a European Union (EU) Council of Ministers (agriculture) meeting. British, Danish, German, Swedish, Latvian and Maltese delegations wanted “rapid reform, to make the sector more competitive”, though concerns of ex-European colonies in the African Pacific Caribbean (ACP) bloc “should be taken into account”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL initiative to raise Asian food safety standards to those required by the European Union (EU) for imports has been launched with the support of the European Commission. It is donating Euro 597,000 to the SELAMAT project to create a network of European and Asian food institutes, swapping information and best practice on meeting EU health-based food regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers have compromised on the final shape of a directive reducing sulphur content in marine fuels. The result is legislation that permits higher sulphur usage than the parliament wanted, cutting its marine fuels content to 1.5% by 2007, for all vessels in the Baltic, the North Sea, and the English Channel, and passenger ships in all EU seas and oceans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PORTUGUESE government has failed at the European Court of Justice to defend a contested claim it had abided by European Union law regarding the number of spot-checks regarding special beef premiums for 1999. The European Commission has long maintained that there were too few checks; producers may now have to return some subsidies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has accused nine European Union (EU) governments of dragging their feet over promoting biofuels in their countries. It has sent critical formal notices to Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovenia accusing them of failing to submit national reports framing 2005 targets for biofuel consumption, as required under the Biofuels Directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released a report detailing sales trends and environment improvements in European Union-consumed motor fuels. It shows, for instance, that the average sulphur content in petrol and diesel roughly halved between 2001 and 2003. In that year, 30.3% of diesel sold had less than 50 parts per million (ppm) of sulphur, with 24.9% less than 10ppm, (Germany and Sweden dominated consumption of this cleanest diesel, while regular diesel was most common in Austria, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRESSURE on oil companies to continue cleansing their fuels of potential pollutants continues to be applied within the European Union (EU), with the European Commission preparing for the introduction of a new standard ‘Euro 5’ in 2010. It has advised EU member states to harmonise any tax concessions encouraging the use of diesel cars cleaner than the ‘Euro 4’ emissions standard, (which became compulsory on January 1).…