Search Results for: Portugal

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking Portugal to the European Court of Justice, accusing it of insisting on excessive bureaucracy regarding the authorisation of polyethylene water pipe systems used in urban construction projects. Brussels claims that the rules are so rigorous, they break European Union free movement of goods principles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IF accountants want to give really useful advice to their clients that applies almost anywhere in the developed world, they should tell them to get married and have kids.

That would be the most logical conclusion that could be drawn from the latest Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) publication on tax, “Taxing Wages.”…

Keith Nuthall
PSYCHOLOGICAL harassment in the workplace, especially by colleagues, is the new growing health-and-safety threat in Europe, both as a source of stress and a cause of productivity losses, a European Union (EU) agency’s report has concluded.

‘Preventing violence and harassment in the workplace’ by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has found that defence industry workers and government officials are most likely to suffer this kind of victimisation, with 16 per cent reporting these problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORMAL threats of legal action at the European Court of Justice have been made against Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy and Portugal over their alleged failure to implement the 1999 Directive on minimum welfare standards for laying hens. European Union governments were supposed to have introduced the standards, (including minimum cage sizes), by January 1, 2002.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHILE the number of companies in the European Union’s (EU) insurance sector has been dwindling, the amount of business that it has been writing collectively has been booming, according to the latest comparative figures from EU statistical agency Eurostat.…

BY DENMARK FINCH AND FRITZ BRETT
INTRO

REDUCING stress amongst employees at work can make a major improvement to the bottom line of companies; indeed, so expensive is the problem, says the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, it is thought to cost the EU at least Euro 20 billion a year in lost time and health costs and affect more than 40 million of its employees.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WATER privatisation has certainly had its critics, but it has a new supporter in the shape of the European Commission. It has publicly backed the growing privatisation of Europe’s water utilities, with its internal market commissioner praising British government moves to inject competition into its national sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A DYNAMIC online forum on European energy policy has been launched by an international consortium; the European Union-funded INTUSER website contains information about current energy issues and questionnaires allowing specialists and the public to contribute to policy debates.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been asked to negotiate away restrictions maintained by European Union (EU) Member States that prevent non-EU companies from providing “services incidental to energy distribution” within the EU. The call has come from countries involved in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) three years old services talks, which were rolled into the WTO’s general Doha Development Round at its Qatar summit last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PORTUGAL has called for the resumption of EU funding of the International Olive Oil Council’s promotion of olive oil in non-EU countries with low demand, (including the USA, Australia and Japan). Payments were suspended over council tendering concerns.…