Search Results for: Spain

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has demanded refunds of Euro 232 million in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies from Greece because of alleged frauds and mismanagement in administration and management. Euro 163.7 million was demanded for olive cultivation, because a compulsory register checking declarations was not set up; Euro 37.4 million was to be repaid for cotton subsidies, where Athens failed to cross-check production aid and did not penalise errors; and Euro 30.9 million was to be returned over poorly checked grape aid, paid for an overestimated geographical area.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is pushing signatories to its new Protocol on Water and Health to its Convention on Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes to agree detailed targets on improving European water quality.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain, Trinidad

THE WHITTLING away of preferential export markets for traditional Caribbean agricultural production has sparked economic pain in the region, but it has also generated innovation in the form of new confectionary and sweet baked products, available for export.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have ordered a freeze on catches of round-nose grenadier in the North Sea, including in Norwegian waters, saying catches in 2005-6 should match average annual catches in 1996-2003. It is one of a number of conservation-minded measures recently ordered by the EU Council of Ministers, one being a ban on catching and landing white sharks and basking sharks in any EU waters, the ban applying to non-EU and EU-flagged fleets.…

BY MARK ROWE

DESPITE devastating hailstorms along Italy’s Adriatic Coast and concerns over damage from the olive fly, the forecast for the olive oil market for the 2006 season is positive, according to the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC).

"All the information available predicts a good harvest for this season" said a spokesman for the IOOC.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

MOROCCO’S US$1.37 billion tobacco market is undergoing a transformation following Altadis’ full buyout of the country’s tobacco monopoly earlier this year, with the distribution process to be overhauled and leaf production increased and diversified away from dark tobacco.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN academics think of European Union (EU) funding for their projects or institutions, they often consider the European Commission, with its high profile in education and research spending through its framework programmes. But there is another EU institution developing an increasingly important role as a financial fountainhead for European higher education: the European Investment Bank (EIB).…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain

TIME-WAS that food production in the Caribbean was dominated by commodities, with sugar and bananas being king and queen of island economies. Protected from the rigours of world markets by age-old ties to current or former colonial markets, these cash crop supplies remained largely unchanged for centuries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved in principle a proposed European Union (EU) regulation which would allow police and other law enforcement officials within the EU’s Schengen open border area to inspect registration documentation held in all countries of this zone.…

BY JAMES FULLER, in Port of Spain

CRICKETERS and illegally-licensed drivers are two of the more unusual factors currently affecting the Caribbean paint market.

The impending Cricket World Cup, to be held in the West Indies during March and April 2007, has spawned a flurry of construction activity with resultant benefits for the paint industry.…