Search Results for: Spain

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is about to complete its own recommendations on safety improvements in long road tunnels. Its proposals include roadside checks on lorries to detect overheating and also rules on the amount of fuel carried through tunnels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission is to propose an extension of EUenvironmental legislation in the mining sector following completion of aconsultation exercise with interested parties. Brussels said it had decidedto proceed with three priority actions “to improve the safety of mines,relating to industrial risk management, management of mining waste andintegrated pollution prevention and control.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW international fishing deals are being developed by the European Union, which should allow fishing businesses to exploit grounds overseas while efforts are made to conserve stocking levels in Europe’s own territorial waters.

EU ministers have been asked to approve a deal negotiated by the European Commission with west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, which will last until 2006.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE THREE important central European tobacco-growing countries of Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary will be able to claim production subsidies from Brussels when they join the European Union on the same basis as existing EU producers, European Commission officials have confirmed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has lost two cases at the European Court of Justice, where it had been seeking to overturn financial penalties imposed by the European Commission, which alleged that the anti-fraud checks and controls on agricultural subsidy programmes within the country were so weak, that the EU should not fully meet Spanish claims for European grants.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has blocked the planned takeover by London-based CVC Capital Partners Group Ltd, (CVC), of Austrian man-made fibres manufacturer Lenzing AG. Because CVC already controls Acordis, Lenzing’s principal rival in Europe, and only rival in the United States, Brussels has ruled that a merged company would have a dominant position in a number of fibres markets, that could “reduce choice and lead to higher prices for customers and end consumers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROCESS of transforming the European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF into a truly independent operator, with enough investigative muscle and legislative teeth to make an impact in Brussels’ fight against financial crime, has proved to be a slow and difficult task, its latest report admits.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union competition Commissioner Mario Monti has announced that Brussels is to clamp down on special tax regimes affecting financial services in 11 Member States, which it claims are probably so lax, they constitute illegal state aid payments that could unfairly favour local companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment by the Spanish government of subsidies of Euro 152 million to General Electric Plastics SL to set up a new polycarbonate factory in Cartagena. The new plant will cost Euro 630 million in total.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A STATE aid inquiry has been launched by the European Commission into concerns that restrictions on the payment of further state aid by the Spanish government to porcelain manufacturer Grupo de Empresas Álvarez, (GEA), in Vigo, Galicia, have been circumvented.…