Search Results for: Hungarian

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PUBLIC subsidies paid to the polluting energy producers, such as coal-fired power stations, should be screened for promoting environmental damage, an influential European Union (EU) expert group has proposed.

The EU’s High-Level Group on Energy, Competitiveness and the Environment, which includes EU Commissioners, national government representatives, and executives from European industry, unions, non-governmental organisations and regulators, said “subsidies must serve the common interest”, or be phased out.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank is injecting US$4.53 million into an eastern Europe and central Asian fund promoting geothermal energy production, with the lion’s share (US$3.7 million) going to the Hungarian Oil and Gas Company (MOL) to fund geological risk insurance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the acquisition of Borsod-Chem Nyrt of Hungary by Permira Holdings Ltd of Guernsey, the Channel Islands. A Brussels note said that Permira subsidiary First Chemical Holding Vagyonkezel? Kft (itself controlled by another subsidiary the Permira IV Fund) would take over the Hungarian company.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN academics think of European Union (EU) funding for their projects or institutions, they often consider the European Commission, with its high profile in education and research spending through its framework programmes. But there is another EU institution developing an increasingly important role as a financial fountainhead for European higher education: the European Investment Bank (EIB).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FLEET managers looking to offload used-cars in Hungary will be pleased the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared illegal high Hungarian registration duty charged on imported second-hand vehicles. Registration duties on old vehicles previously used in Hungary are reduced to take depreciation into account, and so are lower than imported cars.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HUNGARIAN government has banned the sale of three Lush henna hair colouring products over alleged excess bacteria, ordering a consumer recall. The move covers caca noir; caca marron and caca brun varieties, all made in Britain. Tests indicated the presence of banned bacteria pseudomonas aerugonosa in all three lines, reported the European Commission.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Commission investigators have raided Hungarian power operators looking for evidence that long-term electricity purchase agreements break European Union (EU) competition laws. The probe is one of a series of actions taken by the Commission’s directorate general for competition to drive restrictive practices out of the power sector across Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POLITICAL battle is underway at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over whether EU import duties on unwrought aluminium should be retained or scrapped. The struggle pits Poland and eight other member states against Germany, which wants the current 6% duties retained.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FINANCIAL assistance secured by the Hungarian government for its national coal industry has been approved by the European Commission, notably fixed feed-in tariffs for coal imposed on state-owned power company MVM in 2004-5. Although Brussels concluded this did represent a transfer of state money to Hungarian coal producers, it has ruled it "compatible with the common (European Union) market.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is not only concerned with trade and to underline this point the European Commission acted this summer to authorise national government subsidies for museums and other cultural organisations in Hungary, Poland and Denmark. The sums involved were not enormous – the total subsidies and tax breaks was only around Euro 30 million – but such decisions are politically sensitive and care has been taken by the Commission to avoid being accused of allowing one country’s cultural organisations to have better treatment than another.…