Search Results for: Russia

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT’S coming up to 18 months since the French tobacco industry was hit by the last of a triple whammy of excise tax increases over a single year and it seems a reasonable moment to take stock. The three tax increases – 10% in January 2003, 20% in November 2003 and 10% in January 2004 – were part of a health drive by Jacques Chirac’s government, worried by the continued popularity of smoking among young people among other things.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FEASIBILITY study is to be staged by the European Union (EU) and Russia into integrating their electricity markets, as part of a wide-ranging series of joint actions on energy policy. These have been agreed in a detailed cooperation “road-map” approved at a Moscow summit by Russian president Vladimir Putin, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and current EU council president Jean-Claude Juncker, of Luxembourg.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANDRIS Piebalgs, the European Union (EU) Commissioner for energy, has announced that energy conservation would be his top overall policy priority for his five-year term, not developing new energy sources. The European Commission will this year launch a ‘European Energy Efficiency Initiative’, he said, setting the EU “an ambitious but realistic and achievable target” to save, by 2010, the equivalent of 70 million tonnes of oil per annum, saving the EU Euro 15 billion annually.…

BY MARK ROWE
LEADING insurance associations have welcomed a recent agreement between the European Union (EU) and Russia that will liberalise the Russian insurance industry. At a summit in Moscow involving Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, the EU and Russia struck a detailed cooperation agreement on a range of economic and trade issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Russia have agreed to intensify their work together in the nuclear sector, with the industry receiving significant attention in a new detailed cooperation agreement. It said joint nuclear projects would have “particular emphasis on nuclear safety and security”, including information exchanges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Russia have agreed to cooperate to fight customs fraud, using EU anti-fraud office OLAF to coordinate “reliable channels of information exchange” between their respective customs services. This would, said a “road map” agreed at a summit in Moscow “increase the effectiveness” of joint operations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WIDE-RANGING joint-actions involving the European Union (EU) and Russia in terms of environmental policy has been agreed in a cooperation deal forged at a summit in Moscow. Russian president Vladimir Putin, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and current EU council president Jean-Claude Juncker, of Luxembourg, struck the deal.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to create a Euro 50 million loan facility to be on lent by banks in Bulgaria to individuals and households making energy efficiency improvements to their homes. The country – which joins the European Union (EU) in 2007 – is a notorious spendthrift when it comes to energy usage.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UKRAINE silicon carbide producer has failed to persuade the European Commission that existing 24% anti-dumping duties on its exports to the European Union (EU) were outdated and should be abolished. Although Zaporozhsky Abrasivny Combinat (ZAC) had made price undertakings to avoid paying the duties, it claimed that the 1996 analysis behind their imposition was flawed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said that pledges totalling US$200 million were made at this month’s (May) donor meeting in London for the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, which it manages. The European Union (EU) and G8 countries offered US$185 million of this money, with Russia contributing for the first time.…