Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HUNGARIAN and Romanian governments have agreed to connect their gas distribution systems, a move hailed by the European Commission as being important for eastern Europe security of energy supplies. Brussels is particularly happy the network operators of the two countries (Hungary’s FGSZ Ltd and Romania’s Transgaz will build the pipeline link, without any third country assistance, (such as Russia).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has now formally opened its agency coordinating the policing of fishing rules in its member states’ fishing fleets, amidst a call for it to receive more powers. At a formal launch ceremony for the Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA) it its base in Vigo, Spain, a senior Spanish socialist MEP Rosa Miguélez Ramos said she hoped that "unlike previous [EU] agencies, it will extend its remit and its tasks".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A FUND managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) has agreed to grant aid Euro 70 million four projects cleaning up nuclear contamination in north-west Russia.

As manager of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) Support Fund, the EBRD signed the funding agreements with Rosatom, the Russian State Corporation for Atomic Energy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is to spend Euro 3.5 million on setting up secure truck stops for hauliers having to wait at the frontier between the European Union (EU) and Russia. Length delays in processing cargoes mean "truck drivers are compelled to spend several days in a queue of many kilometres on the border", said a Brussels announcement: "This situation threatens not only road safety and drivers’ security but also creates a damaging environmental and social situation."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONCERNS that antibacterial cleaning products are weakening the natural immunity of children against diseases will be assessed by Euro 6 million research project involving 7,000 children in Finland, Estonia and north-western Russia’s Karelia. All three test areas have similar ethnic backgrounds, but widely differing standards of living and domestic cleanliness.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FEW people would challenge the European Commission’s assertion earlier this year that, in practice, market integration in the gas market in the European Union (EU) "is still far from a success."

In its report Progress in Creating the Internal Gas and Electricity Market published in April, Brussels said that major barriers to the efficient functioning of the market still existed largely because of "insufficient implementation of European legislation."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FORMAL negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Russia over renewing the 1997 partnership and cooperation agreement between them are under way at last: formal talks started in Brussels on July 4, following a successful EU-Russia summit at the Siberian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk..…

By Keith Nuthall

Research funding for a global project that seeks to harness the thermodynamics of the stars to create a sustainable and safe nuclear fusion reactor is starting to be released. A consortium of 14 research teams from across Europe has been formed to create a computer simulation of the international ITER fusion reactor, to model the technology required to operate it safely.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LAST May, a coordinated attack on essential computer networks in the tiny Baltic republic of Estonia set nerves upon edge amongst European Internet security specialists. Following the removal of a Russian war memorial from the centre of its capital Tallinn, a still unidentified group of computer users bombarded Estonian political, government, media and banking websites with so much data, they were forced offline.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

UKRAINE has become the 152nd country to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), making its energy trading with other WTO members more predictable, preventing it from arbitrarily raising tariffs on gas and oil exports. Russia is now the only major country worldwide remaining outside the WTO.…