Search Results for: Spanish

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S legitimate tobacco trade may face a renewed increase in black-market supplies, if renewed pressure from the European Commission on the British government to reduce customs seizures of EU-duty-paid tobacco is successful.

The Commission has started formal European law infringement proceedings against the UK, seemingly unimpressed by concessions from its government over the amounts of tobacco and alcohol that can be imported from other member countries for personal use.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted competition clearance to the acquisition by Spain’s Vidacaixa of Swiss Life España (SLE) from the Swiss Life Insurance and Pension Company Holding. Brussels has investigated concerns that the merged company could be too dominant in the Spanish life insurance sector, but concluded that highest possible combined market share would “not exceed 20 per cent” and that “there remains a sufficient number of strong competitors”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BINDING energy conservation targets have been proposed for European Union (EU) Member States by the European Commission, a move that could further tighten fuel economy rules for Europe’s transport sector. Brussels has proposed a general energy saving target of one per cent a year from 2006-12, measured against average energy distribution from the previous five years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Commission president Romano Prodi has announced a string of reforms designed to further toughen his organisation’s ability to fight internal fraud and mismanagement. Stung by criticisms following the Eurostat scandal that he has failed to deliver on his goal of squashing European Union (EU) financial misconduct, he told the European Parliament’s budgetary affairs committee that the Commission would increase the political responsibility of Commissioners for the actions of their officers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPANISH nut and locust bean producers are to be paid up to Euro 241.50 per hectare in aid to improve production under proposals approved by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Spanish fish products group MAPESCA Euro six million to establish a fish processing plant in the northern Mauritania port of Nouadhibou. Its aim would be to manufacture fish products that could be exported direct to western markets, rather fresh fish being consumed locally or exported without manufacturing value being added locally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of a deal struck with the Ivory Coast that will allow European Union (EU) fishing boats access to its rich tropical fish reserves this year and next. It has asked EU ministers to approve a deal allowing 600 GRT of Spanish demersal vessels to fish of the west African country, along with 18 tuna seiners from France and 21 from Spain; five Portuguese and 15 Spanish surface longliners and seven pole-and-line tuna vessels from France and five from Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Commission has granted clearance under the Merger Regulation to the acquisition by the Italian energy company Enel Produzione S.p.A of a stake in Spanish electricity producer Unión Fenosa Energías Especiales S.A., which is currently wholly controlled by Unión Fenosa Generación S.A.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT is an odd and depressing fact that employees who expose corruption, negligence and other malpractices in their work-place usually end up more reviled and outcast than those actually responsible for the wrong-doing in the first place. The institutions of the European Union offer excellent case studies in this regard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW advanced carbon-fibre composites have been developed by a European Union research project that can be used to strengthen decaying and historic buildings, allowing contractors to avoid using more cumbersome traditional methods. The international COMREHAB project has created high resistance synthetic fibres from epoxy or polyester resin matrixes.…