Search Results for: Spain

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW campaign to promote the merits of European wines is set to open in selected off-licences and other retail outlets in the next few months following agreement by the European Commission to pay half the cost.

The project, which involves spending of Pounds 3.6 million in total for all the EU countries, will stress the quality characteristics of European wines and focus on regional identification.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

Keith Nuthall
COMPANIES and sole traders that alter and mend household linen, clothing and shoes have been granted the option of having another year of reducing VAT on their services by the European Commission. Brussels has decided to extend an experimental scheme, which allows Belgium, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Britain to reduce VAT on specified labour-intensive services to boost jobs.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
BRITISH investors have been given the opportunity to help produce the world’s first air powered car.

French inventor Guy Nègre and his company Moteur Development International (MDI) unveiled their concept to industry and Government officials in September (20th), hopeful of establishing manufacturing units in the UK.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has cleared the way for Spain to restart subsidising investments by its hauliers into buying or hire-purchasing new lorries and vans.

Annulling a decision made by the European Commission in 1998 that blocked Madrid from helping haulage operators pay the interest on loans they raise for new vehicles, judges said Brussels was wrong to brand these payments as illegal state aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND PHILIP FINE

IN the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, the shocking images of two planes slamming into two of the most famous buildings in the world fuelled a strong desire tighten up security systems around the world, especially in civil aviation.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has made it clear that it will not countenance the creation of certain special tax regimes within the European Union for so-called coordination centres, that provide services including banking, marketing, insurance and logistics to companies within an international group.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE SPANISH company Logista, a wholesale distributor of tobacco in Spain and Portugal, is to take joint control of Logesta Gestion de Transporte in a move that will extend Logista’s activities into freight forwarding. The European Commission has approved a deal under which Logista will share control with another Spanish company, Gestcamp, which operates in the warehousing sector among others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOVERNMENTS and international organisations have highlighted tobacco smuggling as one of the largest illegal drains on their tax revenues. An international conference has brought law enforcement professionals together with health officials to fight this problem. Keith Nuthall reports.…

From Alan Osborn
The European Commission has increased its grants for the

restructuring and conversion of vineyards in the EU in the 2002-3 marketing

year by 5 per cent over the 2001-2 figure to 443 million euros (pounds 270

million). The allocation will be topped up by some 42 million euros (pounds

26 million) which was unspent in 2001-2 because not all countries could

justify claims.…