In Brief
EU money-laundering rule application BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Over half of the European Union’s members have been told to apply the bloc’s updated rules that crack down on terrorist financing or face legal action. EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has written to governments in Belgium, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, Sweden, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland asking them to apply the rules that came into force on December 15, 2007. Banks have told McCreevy they find it difficult to apply the new rules if all member states have not formally adopted them into law. «In these circumstances, the Commission has no other option but to proceed with legal actions… against those member states which have not implemented the directive, and to do so in as expeditious a manner as possible,» McCreevy said. Sabanci in talks for Turkish nuclear tender ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish conglomerate Sabanci said yesterday it is in talks with General Electric, Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Spanish utility Iberdrola SA on a tender to construct and operate Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. Sabanci Holding bought documents to bid in the tender, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange. Turkey has set a deadline of September 24 for bids to build the plant at Akkuyu near Mersin on the Mediterranean coast with a capacity of 4,000 megawatts, plus or minus 25 percent. Korean Electric Power Corp, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Japan’s Itochu Corporation, France’s Vinci Construction Grands Projets, Suez-Tractebel and Russian state firm Atomstroyexport have purchased tender documents, an Energy Ministry official told Reuters last month. Vioter development Vioter SA, a Greek construction company, will build holiday homes on a coastal plot it purchased, it said in a filing yesterday to the Athens bourse. The development will be located on a 25,083-square-meter plot in Galaxidi, 200 kilometers northwest of Athens, the statement said. (Bloomberg) Bulgarian roads Bulgaria will spend 120 million lev ($US97 million) of its budget surplus to finance road construction after the European Union froze aid for several projects on suspected misspending. The funds to be transferred from the Balkan country’s 2.4-billion-lev budget surplus will be used to build new sections of three national highways, the government said on its website yesterday. The European Union suspended payments on the three transportation projects in January, after its anti-fraud office found the state Road Agency chief awarded the biggest contracts to companies run by his two brothers. (Bloomberg) Turk regional grid Turkey’s sell-off agency OIB said yesterday that 16 firms met pre-qualifications criteria for the central Anatolian region of Meram electricity grid tender. The OIB also said seven firms fulfilled pre-qualification criteria for the power grid covering Aras in the east as part of the privatization process for four of 20 distribution grids of the state electricity distributor TEDAS. The sell-off had been due to start in 2007 but was put off until after elections last year. (Reuters)
