Search Results for: Portuguese

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has accused the European Commission of putting the cart before the horse by attempting to begin a phasing out of tobacco growing subsidies, before a long term review on whether they should survive has taken place.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. EU ministers said Brussels officials should

Meanwhile, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed a regulation aiming at boosting cod stocks in the Irish Sea this year, protecting adult cod during the spawning season, notably enforcing an area closure from February.…

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
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority by European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. A Brussels official in the Commission’s directorate general for fisheries told Fishing News International that a future deal could lead to EU fishing crews being given access to fish US waters and for European factory ships to be allowed to buy stocks from American fishermen at sea.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WHAT is the region with the highest port consumption in the world? A fair assumption would be Portugal or maybe England, but actually, it is the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.

Port sales in the Canadian province have exploded from 276,000 750 ml bottles in 1995, to an estimated 3 million this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HOLIDAYS and pregnancy leave are a serious business, both for the employees who take them and the employers who pay for them. Unfortunately for personnel departments who might want a little more flexibility over whether they should shell out or not, recent cases at the European Court of Justice have underlined the right of EU citizens to take paid leave, rather than erode them.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE PORTUGUESE government has been ordered to scrap its reduced five per cent rate of VAT on equipment designed for research into alternative forms of energy, with the European Court of Justice ruling that it contravened the EU’s Sixth VAT Directive, which attempts to harmonise the application of sales taxes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SIMPLICITY is not one the virtues that is readily associated with the institutions of the European Union, so it is refreshing to note that the European Parliament has recently taken a straightforward step to boost its accountability to the citizens of the continent that it serves.…

Keith Nuthall
A FRENCH government state aid system for producers of liqueur wines and spirits, funding promotional measures, research, technical support and investment, is under threat, because of a European Court of Justice ruling that it should never have been sanctioned by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRUSSELS is always looking for big ideas by which it can justify its existence to a doubting public and one of the latest of these is the concept of a European Research Area. This idea is that Europe – with its patchwork of nations and national research units – should coordinate its academics and researchers, making sure that they do not duplicate their efforts, rather dovetailing them with a single European goal in mind.…