Search Results for: Icelandic

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ICELANDIC government is facing potential legal action at the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) Court for failing to implement European Union (EU) directive 2008/121/EC on textile names. This insists EU member states and associated countries in the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes Iceland, use uniform rules on textile product names, composition and labelling, easing European sales.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN and Iceland farm organisations have warned Icelandic meat and dairy production could be seriously hit by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Europe’s Copa-Cogeca and the Farmers Association of Iceland have both warned ash is falling on an important agricultural area – home to 15% of the country’s cattle and 6% of sheep.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, KARRYN MILLER and ALAN OSBORN

WITH the ongoing eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has grounded airlines and stranded passengers across the world for nearly a week, airports have been scrambling to accommodate the millions of people blocked by an enormous plume of ash filling prime airspace.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER

THE EXODUS of the McDonald’s restaurant franchise from Iceland may have captured the international headlines. But the rest of the island nation’s food sector and 300 production companies face a great deal of change, uncertainty, debt financing challenges and initiatives driven by cost-reduction imperatives, particularly small to medium-sized enterprises.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE COSMETICS markets in Scandinavia, as elsewhere in the developed world, face an uncertain 2009. Iceland’s economic crisis is well documented but the few surviving local producers are presenting a determined face to the challenges they face. On the other hand, the markets of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark look likely to slow after healthy growth in 2008 (this growth almost universally excluded sunscreens, on account of the wet summer of 2008), but also to escape the worst of the problems.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE COLLAPSE of the over-extended Icelandic banking system last October – the first and so far the most calamitous outcome of the global credit crunch – led to rowdy street protests in Reykjavik, the resignation of the prime minister Geir Haarde and his cabinet in January (26-1) and a pledge of new elections in May.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have formally approved reductions to total allowable catches (TACs) in the Baltic Sea, with the aim of conserving stocks. That said, ministers did not reduce catches to the levels preferred by the European Commission: western Baltic herring catches have been cut by 39%, while Brussels wanted a 63% reduction: the Commission was mollified by a commitment from ministers to establish a long-term management plan for this stock.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITISH fishing fleets may finally obtain easier access to Icelandic fishing grounds, with Reykjavik saying that applying for European Union (EU) membership is now a possibility. That this idea has been floated by Iceland’s fisheries minister Einar Gudfinnsson is seen as particularly significant, given that control of its fishing grounds is the main reason why Iceland has remained outside the EU thus far.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has now formally opened its agency coordinating the policing of fishing rules in its member states’ fishing fleets, amidst a call for it to receive more powers. At a formal launch ceremony for the Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA) it its base in Vigo, Spain, a senior Spanish socialist MEP Rosa Miguélez Ramos said she hoped that "unlike previous [EU] agencies, it will extend its remit and its tasks".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to approve an increase in the exploitation by EU ships of the rich tuna stocks surrounding Indian Ocean island archipelago the Seychelles. EU fishing businesses will have to pay for the privilege however: whilst the general limit on EU tonnage accessing Seychelles waters should rise from 55,000 to 63,000 tonnes, the money paid by vessel operators will rise from Euro 25 to 35 per tonne per annum, which would – said a note from the European Commission – bring fees in line with other EU tuna access agreements.…