Industry

MEPs have come under fire for proposing a revised EU directive on temporary agency workers.

SINGLE Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein is set to unveil a directive clamping down on the fraudsters who cost the EU music and film industry billions of euro each year.

THE eurozone’s current economic malaise is set to continue, according to fresh data released by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

THE head of the European Commission’s merger task force, Götz Drauz, is still in line to be promoted to deputy director-general of the competition directorate – despite two major court defeats last week which prompted Competition Commissioner Mario Monti to postpone the decision.

THE European Investment Bank has agreed a €50 million loan to help Turkey to kit out its schools with new computer technology.

JAAP Winter, the EU’s ‘wise man’ on company law, will unveil on Monday (4 November) a charter for shareholders’ rights in an eagerly awaited report on corporate governance.

Five patients have died of severe allergic reactions after taking the anti-coagulant drug Reflundan, according to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.

A PROMINENT member of the Convention on the future of Europe has dismissed the idea of giving a member state the option of quitting the EU but staying in the eurozone, or vice versa.

SCIENTISTS from EU candidate countries have been granted full access to the Union’s new €17.5 billion R&D budget, Philippe Busquin, the research commissioner, announced this week.

THE latest stinging court defeat for Mario Monti, the competition commissioner, will add fuel to demands for a radical shake-up of the way the EU vets mergers, it is claimed.

TEN out of 15 member states have been ‘misbehaving’ when it comes to getting rid ofold cars and trucks in an environmentally friendly way.

A SENIOR economics advisor to Unice, the European business leaders group, has attacked Romano Prodi’s comments about the EU’s “stupid” and “rigid” Stability and Growth Pact.

THE blending of environmental concerns with transport policy may have suffered a major setback, European Voice has learned.

LUXEMBOURG is being taken to task by the European Commission for failing to stem the tide of nitrates flowing from farms to faucets in the EU’s smallest member state.

CONTROVERSIAL proposals by the European Commission to allow drugs firms to provide information directly to patients have been overwhelmingly rejected by MEPs.

ERKKI Liikannen, the enterprise and information society Commissioner, is set to unveil plans for a network security ‘task force’ to combat criminals and terrorists plotting to wreak havoc in Europe’s IT systems.

HI-TECH firms in the EU still face a skills gap despite a glut of information technology specialists on the market following the bursting of the internet and telecoms bubble.

THE European Investment Bank has granted a €5.5 million loan to Franco-German TV channel Arte to bolster its technical and production facilities at its new Strasbourg headquarters.
The Luxembourg-based EIB said the loan will “underpin Arte’s investment aimed at keeping pace with technological developments in traditional and digital broadcasting of television programmes”.

BABY experts have set the first pan-EU standard for the 100 million baby pacifier ‘dummies’ sold in the Union every year.

AFTER haggling late into the night, European parliamentarians and EU governments finally reached agreement last week on a sweeping new directive that will make companies pay for the recycling of the electronic goods they produce.

EUROPEAN employers have accused Commissioner David Byrne of exaggerating levels of support from industry for his radical plans to shake-up EU consumer protection law.

ERKKI Liikanen, the enterprise and information society commissioner, plans to launch a green paper to examine why the EU fails to nurture business start-ups as well as the United States.

THE European Investment Bank has granted Cyprus loans worth €220 million to boost energy, education and air transport on the Greek-speaking half of the island.

COMMISSIONER Mario Monti’s competition department has been accused of conducting a ’whispering campaign’ against the European Commission’s legal service over the allegedly poor way it has performed in court in two imminent appeals to merger decisions.