MULTIPLE WARNINGS SENT

The European Union is cracking down on members who aren't meeting environmental friendliness obligations:

A final warning was sent to Austria, Cyprus, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta and Poland for failing to submit information on what measures had been taken to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Member states are also obliged to report by 15 January each year their greenhouse gas emissions of the previous year. Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Spain failed to do so, prompting the commission to send these countries first written warnings.

Warnings were also sent to Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain because they failed to submit information in time to Brussels to prepare for international emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol.

Eleven member states were also told off by Brussels for removing bathing sites from their official list and thereby avoiding the application of EU rules aimed at protecting the health of bathers. [bathers = swimmers]

The member states involved are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

The EU gets the same level of cooperation from its own members as it gets from Iran.