Search Results for: Portugal

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RAFT of legal cases are being prepared by the European Commission against eight European Union Member States, to force them to monitor and restrict their production of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

In a bid to make the EU stick to its Kyoto Protocol commitments, the Commission has formally warned Britain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain and Germany of potential legal actions at the European Court of Justice.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is piling political pressure onto industries, especially fossil fuel electricity generators, which pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, to force them to clean up their processes, adding costs to their bottom line.

In a move that will only serve to make CHP and renewable plants more competitive by comparison, the Commission is preparing a raft of legal cases against eight European Union Member States, to force them to monitor and restrict their production of key greenhouse pollutants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSTRUCTION companies in Germany, Italy, Greece and Portugal may soon be forced to use quieter plant, including concrete mixers, mobile and tower cranes, dumper trucks and hydraulic excavators, because of legal threats against their national governments. The European Commission is warning it may launch cases at the European Court of Justice to force them to implement directive 2000/14/EC on noise emissions from outdoor equipment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXPORT assistance will be given to Lusophone countries by the World Intellectual Property Organisation to help them establish collective copyright management societies. It is part of cooperation deal signed between WIPO and Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, whose members are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and Sao Tome and Principe.…

Keith Nuthall
NOONE should ever accuse the European Commission of fighting shy of regulation, and given that proposals on promoting shipping safety are generally framed with good intentions, it would be fair to say that Brussels at least tries to improve standards.…

KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN consumers still lack the confidence to buy in countries other than their own, in spite of all the efforts made to open up the internal market, the European Commission reports. A special survey by the Commission shows that only 31 per cent of consumers think their rights are well protected when they shop cross-border in the EU, against 56 per cent who feel well protected in their own country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to take Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal to the European Court of Justice for allegedly failing to fully implement the EU Basic Safety Standards Directive on protecting the health of workers and the public against dangers from ionising radiation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has approved an application from France to extend for another seven years its right to reduce by up to half the rate of excise duty applied in mainland France to traditional rum from the French Caribbean and Indian Ocean departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion and Guyane.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a case at the European Court of Justice in a political battle with the EU Council of Ministers over whether Portuguese pig farmers should receive Euro 16.3 million in state aid. Ministers had allowed Portugal to release the money to refund losses incurred by an earlier order from the Commission that previous subsidies of this value should be repaid, in effect overruling Brussels’ decision.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPLIT has emerged in the European Union Council of Ministers over the possible scrapping of subsidies to tobacco producers under a possible review the common market regime, which should happen this year. On one side in a debate at a recent agriculture council were a group including many of the EU’s tobacco growing countries, (Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Greece, Spain and Portugal), who are opposed to cuts, whilst other Member States, (notably Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden), backed a recital to a current proposal to adjust subsidies over the next two years that calls on the EU to review the regime this year “to allow the progressive deletion of subsidies.”…