Search Results for: Spain

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY appears to be the most industrially innovative country in the European Union, filing 43.6 per cent of all EU patent applications with the European Patent office in 1999, well ahead of its nearest rival France, which filed just 14.9 per cent.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has expressed concern at the growing number of requests from EU wine-producing countries for permission to grant national distillation aid to growers. Franz Fischler, EU agriculture commissioner for wine, said it was “quite worrying” that member states were seeking to grant “pure operating aids which do not bring about any structural improvement.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Central Bank has concluded that the liberalisation of the EU telecommunications markets has contributed to a sharp cut in prices and that planned additional reforms are likely to make European charges cheaper still; it also concludes that reforms are likely to harmonise future electricity prices.…

Keith Nuthall
ITALY has announced that it is to join a growing band of European Union countries that want to grant special national aid for the distillation of excess wine stocks, in the teeth of opposition from the European Commission. It wants Member States to abide by the new common market organisation, which was designed to limit such production subsidies.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE SUPPLY and quality of water services and their environmental management have been near the top of the research agendas of institutions of the European Union this year, with the European Commission’s directorate generals (DG) for research and the environment being particularly active.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL action plan to fight forest fires is being drawn up with the assistance of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Experts from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and USA have been discussing proposals for a system involving mutual assistance and coordinated approaches to forest fire management.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE FAILURE of Greece, Italy and Spain to pass national laws, reducing sulphur content in a range of fuels, as required by a EU directive, has led to their governments being formally threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission president Romano Prodi has identified Britain and Spain as the governments holding up progress towards the creation of the so-called single European sky and the resulting accession of the EU to Eurocontrol. In a speech to the European Parliament on the outcome of the recent EU Stockholm summit, Mr Prodi said: “As we all know, a whole series of landmark proposals is now blocked, awaiting a bilateral agreement between Spain and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IN an attempt to stamp out smuggling and fraud, the European Commission is proposing that excise duties on popular cigarettes sold throughout the 15 EU countries should be brought much closer together. In a proposed new directive, the Commission says there should be a minimum fixed amount of excise duty of Euro 70 (about Pounds 42) per 1,000 cigarettes in the most popular price category, which would be in addition to the existing minimum excise requirement of 57% of the retail price.…

Keith Nuthall
A REPORT on allegations of irregularities and fraud regarding EU subsidies paid for the production of flax in Spain, has been sent to the Spanish authorities by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The report, which is expected to lead to criminal proceedings, has also been sent to Michaele Schreyer, the EU budget commissioner, the European Parliament and to the European Commission’s DG agriculture.…