New APEAMembers

overcome as the March 31 installation in Birzebbuga will be decommissioned.

As a result of liberalisation, owners of service stations will be able to import petrol, LRPand diesel even if they have to be in possession of both a petrol station and wholesaler licence. Vince Farrugia, director general of the Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprise, GRTU, said liberalisation should not occur overnight and disrupt the present situation where consumers are being well served. The GRTU represents petrol stations, fuel and gas distributors.

Mr Farrugia said it is good that the government is taking its time to have a proper structure in place before liberalising the market. "Liberalisation should lead to the service being as good as it is today. Customers are being well served and we do not believe there are cartels in the system," he said.

Energy and petrochemicals giant Shell and the local Falzon Group of Companies are known to have expressed interest in importing fuel when liberalisation takes place.

Europe, European regulation: improved safety for fireworks and air bags

The Commission has proposed to replace some 25 parallel national approval procedures of fireworks and airbags by one single EU directive. This practical example of better regulation will lead to a considerable reduction in costs for the industries concerned, and ensure that essential safety requirements for pyrotechnic articles are respected throughout the EU.

The basic aim is to reduce the risk of accidents caused by malfunctions and to increase consumer safety as substandard pyrotechnic articles will no longer be available on the EU market.

The EU market for fireworks is estimated at around €1.4 billion, but few fireworks are manufactured in the EU. Automotive occupant restraint systems are placed in around 20 million vehicles in the EU each year, which translates into 80 million airbag systems with a value of some €3.5 billion and around 90 million seat belt pre-tensioners with a value of approximately €2 billion. The Commission proposes the following safety requirements: •Resistance to normal, foreseeable handling and transportation

•Resistance against water and low and high temperatures •Safety features to prevent untimely or inadvertent initiation or ignition

•Suitable instructions in the official language or languages of the recipient Member State

Ability To Withstand Deterioration.

Manufacturers will be obliged to comply with these requirements, which in return give them the right to affix the CE marking and access to the internal market. At the same time, taking into account the variety of different national regulations on the marketing and use of fireworks, the proposal leaves the possibility for Member States to maintain their own regulations as far as the minimum age and the marketing and use of certain categories of fireworks are concerned.

And What About Storage And Manufacturing?

The intention of the proposal is to deal with product characteristics, not with questions arising from the storage and manufacture of pyrotechnic articles. That aspect is already being dealt with in the framework of Council Directive 96/82/EC (better known as the Seveso II Directive), aimed at the prevention of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances and at the limitation of the consequences of such accidents for people and the environment. For further information please visit:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/ch emicals/legislation/explosives/index.htm

French ban gasoline sales in cans

Local authorities in several parts of France banned the sale of petrol in containers to reduce the risk of a fresh outbreak of rioting in some high risk areas over the New Year celebrations. The measure was taken by prefects regional governors - in the Seine-etMarne and Val-de-Marne departments outside Paris and Bouches-du-Rhone centred on Marseille in the southeast. More than 10,000 cars were destroyed by fire in rioting in early November by youths. Similar arson attacks, although on a smaller scale, are something of a New Year's Eve ritual in French cities such as Strasbourg. Anationwide state of emergency remains in place in France following November's unrest, which authorities can invoke to order curfews and house arrests, and ban public meetings.

Europe, Petrol stations in Europe fewer and farther between but growth in the East makes up consolidation in the West

Whilst in the UK and western Europe the number of petrol stations continues to fall, in central and eastern European (CEE) markets such as the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Lithuania, a large increase in the demand for petrol and diesel is driving an expansion in fuel networks. While the everdecreasing number of petrol stations in the UK and western Europe has been the driving force behind increases in site efficiency, in the CEE motorists’ thirst for fuel is growing faster than new petrol stations can be built, according to a new report from independent market analyst Datamonitor.

Dramatic Fall In Western Europe

Increasingly difficult conditions in the retail sector of the otherwise lucrative oil industry continue to result in the fall in the number of retail fuel sites in western Europe. Of the 26 European markets assessed annually by Datamonitor, 12 experienced a decrease in the number of petrol station sites from 2004 to 2005 - 11 of these 12 markets were in western Europe. In most of these markets the decline in the number of sites has been sustained for the last 5 years, often leading to reported concerns of petrol station shortages in rural areas, says Datamonitor forecourts analyst Anne Marie Davis. “In fact, the only western European