Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE POLISH government is launching a disputes case at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), complaining about the Czech Republic’s imposition of 50 per cent additional duties on Polish pig-meat exports. Poland says that the duty is illegally discriminatory, as they have not been imposed on imports from other countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given the go-ahead for the acquisition by Gaz de France (GDF) of the German oil and gas activities of Preussag Energie. Brussels has been examining the potential effect on competition in Germany’s upstream energy market and concluded that these were “only small.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has offered to open up the European Union’s market in IT services to suppliers based outside the EU, as part of the ongoing Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organisation.

If its trading partners offer adequate concessions in return, Brussels is offering to remove regulatory restrictions preventing non-EU computing companies from offering services in Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPARED with the years of tortuous wrangling that slowed the adoption of the first – and legally abortive – European Union (EU) tobacco advertising directive, the EU Council of Ministers has speedily approved its replacement.

The council has accepted amendments tabled by the European Parliament and approved the legislation on its first reading, with Germany and Britain voting against.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH accountants are the second most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), with their Danish colleagues having the most freedom according to a European Commission-funded survey, promoting liberalisation in Europe’s professions. Belgium, Austria and Germany – where heavy regulation is often favoured – have the union’s most tightly restricted accountancy professions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH architects are among the most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), with their Danish, Irish, Dutch and Swedish colleagues enjoying a similarly light regulatory burden, according to a European Commission-funded survey, promoting liberalisation in Europe’s professions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBERS of the European Parliament are rushing to push the European Union deeper into the jurisdiction hitherto ruled unchallenged by the International Maritime Organisation, by trying to speed agreement over legislation that would make EU institutions an arbiter over sea safety issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD researchers will be able to use the world’s largest library of genetic information about wheat, created by the combination of data by Britain’s John Innes centre and the National Institute for Agronomical Research, France.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is claiming partial victory in its dispute with India at the World Trade Organisation over the EU decision to impose anti-dumping duties on sales of Indian bed linen, despite Geneva’s declaration that Brussels had suffered a reversal at the hands of the WTO appellate body.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CARIBBEAN sugar processing companies in the Caribbean have lost a bid for damages at the European Court of Justice, over claims they were wrongfully penalised by safeguard duties imposed on their exports into the European Union. Rica Foods, Free Trade Foods and Suproco, of the (non-EU) Netherlands Antilles and Aruba were ordered to pay costs.…