Word: european
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...Mediterranean tuna trade earns millions in tax revenues for Europe and employs thousands of Spanish and Italian fishermen, whose livelihoods have been pummeled by declining stocks in recent years. The specter of further job losses amid a global economic downturn has militated against European officials pressing for sharper cuts in bluefin-fishing. "None of the [fisheries] commissioners want to come back home and say, 'I have saved bluefin tuna but I have ruined my fishing industry'," says Fonteneau, who estimates that fishermen make as much in one month selling high-priced bluefin tuna as they do during an entire year...
...pharmaceutical industry is one of the few sectors around that appears to be weathering these difficult times with relative ease. On Friday the European Commission suggested why that might be: it claims Big Pharma systematically rigged the market to squeeze out copycat medicines...
...using patent lawsuits and other delaying tactics to prevent cheaper generic medicines from entering the market, the drug majors cost European consumers up to $4 billion over an eight-year period until 2007, E.U. competition commissioner Neelie Kroes contends. "Market entry of generic companies and the development of new and more affordable medicines is sometimes blocked or delayed, at significant cost to health-care systems, consumers and taxpayers," she said in Brussels...
...Commission won't complete its investigation until next spring, but Kroes is already threatening firm action against drug companies that conspire to thwart European competition rules...
...Such tactics may help fatten corporate profits, but they hurt consumers, says Ilaria Passarani, health policy officer at the European consumer organization BEUC. "These measures represent a huge cost for patients and healthcare systems," she says. "These major drug companies should be focusing on innovative medicines, but this report says they actually spend 23% of turnover on marketing and promotional activities, a third more than the 17% they spend on research and development...