Europe/EU - Latest Lunacy

[NotDeadYet]

And there was me thinking an island was just a dod o' land sticking up out of the sea. My geography teacher lied to me all these years.

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by Garf

Boo to you Tierney. Can't fault yor argument of course, but boooooo to you anyway

Cymru am Byth

Wales in the bath?

What? Together?

[Mr T.]

UK hatred of EU is our biggest challenge, says constitution commissioner
By Justin Stares in Brussels
(Filed: 20/02/2005)

Margot Wallström, the EU commissioner responsible for pushing through the controversial European constitution, has likened her task to "dressing Frankenstein's monster".

In her first public remarks about a job that will keep her busy for the next 18 months, Mrs Wallström told a press conference in Brussels that the British would prove particularly sceptical. "The UK is filled with hatred towards the EU institutions," she said. "But I consider this 'mission irresistible', not 'mission impossible'."


Margot Wallström

An easy win in today's Spanish referendum would put only a temporary spring in Mrs Wallström's step. The "yes" vote is expected to be overwhelming, albeit from a low turnout of about 20 per cent, but any rejoicing in Brussels is unlikely to last.

The European Commission expects the ride to become progressively rougher as the constitution bandwagon moves on.

The Netherlands, France and Denmark will be asked to vote on the text later this year, but the commission's opinion polls show the UK is more steadfastly opposed than any other country.

In a Eurobarometer poll last month, the UK was the only EU country in which opponents (30 per cent) outnumbered supporters (20 per cent). The rest said they did not know enough about the text to form an opinion.

Mrs Wallström said that winning minds was all about communication. She admitted that baffling bureaucracy, excessive use of "Eurospeak" and a culture of secrecy were in part responsible for the negative British perception of Brussels.

"Seven out of 10 people feel they know nothing or very little about Europe," she said. "And even more know nothing about the constitution."

She said Brussels had to own up to its weaknesses, including its bureaucratic way of working, before its image could be repaired.

When a city had to prove it was a city in order to be eligible for EU aid, she said, matters had got out of hand.

"We have to admit to systems that do not work properly," Mrs Wallström said. "When there is controversy, people shy away."

The commission's research suggests that better-informed citizens are more likely to say "yes" in a referendum – a discovery that prompted Brussels to allocate €8 million (£5.5 million) for information campaigns before the key votes.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has turned down any cash for Britain, fearing the expenditure would be portrayed by the "no" campaign as evidence of interference, and efforts to create a European "super-state".

President George W Bush is expected to avoid commenting on the constitution during his visit to Europe this week.

[resting rifleman]

2 passports comes in handy when "sightseeing" in columbia?

[Mr T.]

New EU law means no escape for drivers caught speeding abroad
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 25/02/2005)

The days when motorists could pick up speeding tickets and other fines on the Continent, then flee for the safety of home, were brought to an end yesterday.

In a major expansion of pan-European law enforcement, EU justice ministers adopted new rules that will oblige member states to enforce each other's fines and court-ordered financial penalties for criminal conduct.

Under the rules adopted in Brussels, a tourist given a fine or fixed penalty notice for any amount over £50 while in another EU country, could face the shock of a court summons, or policeman on the doorstep, long after returning.

The change, proposed by Britain with French and Swedish backing, will mean the authorities in each member state being obliged to seek collection of any fine or penalty over £50, as soon as they are informed that one of their nationals or residents owes the money.

British officials stressed that the main aim was to allow major court judgments and fines to be collected, and to close the "loophole" whereby they are ignored with impunity, simply by fleeing to another EU state.

Britain decided to seek new legislation after the collapse of a walkway leading to a ferry in Ramsgate in 1994, killing six people. The Swedish firms that built the walkway was fined £1 million which it has refused to pay.

However, the bulk of the court orders and fines are likely to be smaller fare, especially as driving offences are included.

The rule is already binding on all 25 member states, thanks to its adoption by EU justice and home affairs ministers yesterday. They have two years to write national laws implementing the rule, which will come into full force in 2007.

As an incentive for overworked courts and police officers to follow up on such foreign requests, EU ministers agreed, after some haggling, that the authorities who collect the fine will keep the proceeds, rather than send them back to the original scene of the crime.

It will not be a defence to argue that the crime committed while overseas is not a crime back home, for example because drink-driving or speed limits vary from country to country.

National authorities will have limited grounds to decline the task of collecting a fine.

Exemption will apply if the fine falls below the £50 threshold, or if paperwork is not in order, or if the alleged offender is below the age of criminal responsibility in his or her home country.

• A driver given a £30 fixed penalty notice for brushing his hair while stuck in rush-hour traffic, had the fine quashed yesterday.

Stephen Lynch, a 35-year-old father of two, successfully challenged what he called the "ridiculous fine" at Peterborough magistrates' court.

The court agreed that the police failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not have proper control over his Ford Focus.


Europa

[Mr T.]

And the fun of this is - you can't remove them by ballot, coz you didn't vote them in - you weren't given the right or opportunity to do so!!


Scale of EU fraud 'difficult to calculate'
By George Jones, Political Editor
(Filed: 04/04/2005)

The level of fraud in the £700 billion annual accounts of the European Union is "unknown and difficult to calculate", according to a committee of MPs.

The Public Accounts Committee, a parliamentary watchdog on government spending, said the EU's reputation had been seriously damaged by the high levels of fraud thought to exist within its financial arrangements.

For 10 years in a row the EU's accounts have failed to secure a clean bill of health from the European Court of Auditors. In 2003 member states reported irregularities, including alleged fraud, valued at £630 million. While this was 20 per cent lower than in 2002, it was higher than in 1999, when the anti-fraud office was created.

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "The task of achieving strong audit and accountability arrangements in the European Union is one Sisyphus himself, endlessly pushing his huge stone to the top of the mountain, would not envy. Little has changed because of institutional inertia."

According to the committee, "dramatic changes" were needed to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and structural funds, which help less well developed areas, to make them simple to control.

The MPs said the precise level of irregularity, including alleged fraud, was unknown and difficult to calculate.

[Mr T.]

Just do nothing, EU officials told (but be sure to fill in form to say you've done it)
By Justin Stares in Brussels
(Filed: 03/07/2005)

"If in doubt, do nothing" might seem like common sense to most people, but in Brussels it has just become official policy. But even doing nothing will entail some paperwork.

Conscious of its reputation for unnecessary meddling, the European Commission has issued staff with guidelines advising them that the status quo could be the best option.

Under a heading "To regulate or not to regulate, that is the question", commission bureaucrats are told that when they are confronted with a problem, they should resist any immediate instinct to conjure up yet another EU directive.

"The option of no EU action should always be considered," say the instructions. "Tackling the identified problem doesn't mean that you need automatically choose a regulatory option such as a directive or a regulation. Consider the full range of alternative actions available to the commission. Is self-regulation a feasible option?"

However, nothing is as easy as it seems and officials have been told they must fill out forms which state that they have taken no action. The document, entitled Impact Assessment Guidelines, has been published after the rejection of the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands.

The votes have set off a wave of soul-searching in Brussels, with commissioners and Euro-MPs asking why the public has become so hostile towards EU institutions. One reason behind it is believed to be the reputation of Brussels for generating red tape.

"Given the amount of existing legislation," the guidelines say - referring to the 80,000 pages of EU law in existence - "a 'doing less' option could also be considered. If existing measures in a certain area do not produce the expected effects, creating a new instrument is not necessarily the best remedy."

By its own admission, this is the first time the commission has set out a procedure for doing nothing. The guidelines also chime with the red tape-cutting objectives of the commission president Jose Barroso, and industry commissioner Gunter Verhuegen, who has talked of a need to show more "self-restraint".

Conservatives in the European Parliament suspect, that like the very stuff it is designed to tackle, the new do-nothing edict will end up as yet another piece of superfluous paperwork.

"It would be nice if this were true but we will believe it when we see it," said Philip Bushill-Matthews Euro-MP, Conservative spokesman for employment and social affairs.

To underline his point, Mr Bushill-Matthews said that he is fighting an EU Bill which could end in a ban on bare chests on building sites. Known in Brussels as the ''sunlight directive'', the proposed law seeks to protect workers from harmful ultra-violet radiation.

"The legislation might be a good idea in theory but it has gone totally out of control in practice," said Mr Bushill-Matthews.

[Mr T.]

Barmaids protest as EU plans cover-up in the beer gardens
By Kate Connolly
(Filed: 03/08/2005)

Bavarians are hot under the collar over an EU directive that will force their barmaids to cover up, supposedly to protect them from the sun.

Brewery owners, politicians and most of the women themselves have condemned the legislation as absurd, claiming the "tan ban", as it has been nicknamed, will destroy a centuries-old tradition.


A barmaid in dirndl at last
year's Oktoberfest

Bavarian barmaids typically dress in a costume known as a "dirndl", a dress and apron with a tight, low-cut top whose figure-hugging effect is enhanced by a short white blouse.

Under the EU's Optical Radiation Directive, employers of staff who work outdoors, including those in Bavaria's beer gardens, must ensure they cover up against the risk of sunburn.

Bavarian bar keepers have been told that the dirndl, generally rather revealing, will have to be replaced as it offers no protection against what the directive calls "natural sources of radiation", meaning sunlight.

Employers now face heavy fines if they fail to protect their workers from the threat of sunburn or skin cancer.

"This is European law-making at its most pedantic," said Munich's mayor, Christian Ude. "A waitress is no longer allowed to wander round a beer garden with a plunging neckline. I would not want to enter a beer garden under these conditions."

A spokesman for the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Union said: "I have spoken to lots of waitresses and none of them have told me that sunburn in the décolleté area has ever been a problem."

Organisers of the world's biggest beer festival, Munich's Oktoberfest, which habitually attracts more than six million visitors a year, were particularly angry at the proposed ban. "This is an attack on the traditions of a region," said a spokesman.

The new legislation, which is due to be voted on in the European parliament next month, was defended by Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfer, a Bavarian MEP. He said: "Sun rays have become more aggressive and there has been a huge increase in the amount of skin cancer."

The directive was initially accused of outlawing bare-chested British builders.

But Britain opted out of signing it, arguing that it was up to employees and employers to use their common sense to guard against the sun.





****************************************


Bitter, Fraulein?
(Filed: 03/08/2005)

For anyone who has had the good fortune to blow the froth off a pilsner in a traditional Bavarian beer garden, few memories of the experience will be more delightful than those of the pink-cheeked barmaid hoving into view, stout forearms laden with great litre glasses of icy beer, blonde hair in pigtails, and bosom blushing chastely from the top of her dirndl.

Yet as we report today, the EU seeks to force these lovely Frauleins to raise their necklines lest they become sunburnt on the upper slopes.

Fortunately, Britain - with the posterior embonpoints of its builders in mind - has already opted out of the directive. What better way at once to extend the hand of friendship to our European neighbours, and reverse the decline in custom for British country pubs, than to offer these beleagured barmaids the chance to wear their dirndls down the Dog and Duck?

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Mr T.

.....
But Britain opted out of signing it, arguing that it was up to employees and employers to use their common sense to guard against the sun.
............

Sun? Britain? PMSL.

Chris

[Mr T.]

LONDON (AFP) - A lawyer in Cologne has sprung to the defence of British holidaymakers fed up with Germans using towels to bag all the best sun loungers at European resorts.

"A British tourist would be quite within their legal rights to ignore the reservation implied by the towels if there is nobody there," Ralf Hocker, 34, told Monday's The Guardian newspaper.

In a book titled "The New Dictionary of Popular Legal Errors" -- based on a study of laws in Spain and Germany -- Hocker also says that bar-goers who leave coats on chairs, and pedestrians who try to claim parking spots for yet-to-arrive cars, are also on shaky legal ground.

"The towel things is not such a big deal in Germany, but I have to say that the stereotype is true -- German people do reserve all the loungers," Hocker said, upholding a timeless bit of British holiday folklore.

"It's also worth saying that it also infuriates some German people."