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A shock-horror report in last week's Sunday Times, based on the latest annual "barometer" from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), showed that the cost of new regulations to UK businesses, according to Government figures, had soared last year by a record £10 billion. Read the article.
A recent report shows the soaring costs to the UK from over-regulation, with 2/3rds of it imposed or driven by the EU. In the last year alone, the cost of complying with new regulations rose an additional £10 billion ($20 billion). And the EU is just getting started.
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I blogged here of the tremendous costs that EU membership is imposing on the people of Britain. One portion of that bill is the direct and indirect cost of EU regulaitons.
The technocrats in Brussels are hardly evil people. But they suffer under the leftist's delusion that the answer to problems is ever more government regulation. Nirvana is possible with just that next bit of legislation. And to call some of it simply over-regulation would be too kind, such as the recent passage of legislation that will reduce Britain's carbon footprint by less than two hundreths of one percent, but will cost UK businesses £250 million pounds in lost business.
Combine that mindset with an EU government where democracy is minimized in a government form that provides no checks and balances, no way for any party to review the impact of new regulations once they are imposed by the technocracy, and you have a recipe for catastrophic over-regulation. As Der Spiegel put it, the EU is attempting to "perfect a system of total control."
This from Christopher Booker at the Telegraph:
Their total cost since 1998 is a staggering £66 billion. . . .
. . . [T]he origin of these regulations were clearly apportioned between the EU and our own Government. And by far the most costly examples, such as the regulations on working time (£16 billion), vehicle emissions (£9 billion) and data protection (£7 billion), all originated from Brussels.
Of the top 10, eight were based on EU directives and the remaining two both had a strong EU dimension. These 10 alone imposed a total cost of £43 billion. . . .
The EU is not completely out of touch. They have, of late, decided to withhold imposing some of the more economy busting and questionable regulations, even after they have been rubber-stamped by the European Parliament. That said, but for a few such acts, the regulatory burden combines with mismanagement and grows largely unabated. One wonders which EU member state will be crushed under the burden first. I don't know, but I do know that in the UK, the pinch is just really starting to be felt.
Showing posts with label European Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European Union. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2008
The EU Regulatory Burden
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A Textbook Example Of EU Overregulation
A move to do away with outdoor heaters to combat climate change poses tremendous costs to Britain. In light of what it will accomplish, this is a textbook example of EU overregulation.
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A few weeks ago, I blogged about a long article in Der Spiegel describing how the EU is involved in a "tireless effort to regulate everything" - apparently oblivious to the tremendous economic costs and the impact on quality of life of such regulations. And today, the Daily Mail provides a textbook example of the EU in action.
The latest regulatory idea to come out of Brussels is to ban outdoor heaters "in order to tackle climate change." The fact that the carbon released by such heaters is so infitesimal - a total of .002 of one percent of Britain's total carbon emissions - as to have "no impact" on global warming is apparently besides the point. And apparently so is the economic impact of such regulations on the UK, where the cost to pubs, cafes and caterers of this regulation is estimated at a staggering £250 million a year in lost business. And since Britain has transferred to the EU the right to pass binding laws to combat global warming, Britain will have no choice but to comply with this new regulation once passed. The fact that the regulation makes no economic sense and will only detract from the quality of life in Britian matters not.
Read the article. As I noted here, the impact of the EU on Britan, of which overregulation is one aspect, portends to be economically opressive indeed.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Senate Minority Report On Global Warming
On December 20, 2007 the minority members of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a report, "U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007; Senate Report Debunks "Consensus." Or as I like to think of it, Senator Inhofe's version of "Satanic Verses." As the report states in the introduction:
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.
Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears "bite the dust." In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement.
This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new "consensus busters" report is poised to redefine the debate.
Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated. . .
Do read the entire report.
On a personal note, I fully support actions that combine economic sense and environmentalism. The environmental movement has been grossly ill-served by those, such as the Goracle, who have hijacked the movement and turned it into a doomsday religion and those, such as the EU, who are using it as a vehicle for furthering socialism.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Impact of the "Reform Treaty" of Lisbon
Christopher Booker at the Daily Mail takes a look at the practical effects of Gordon Brown's signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, surrendering British sovereignty in a few strokes of the pen. As Booker notes, "the fact that we have been denied the right to pronounce on whether we want it or not makes this arguably the most shameful betrayal in our island history." As to the practical effects of the betrayal:
1. For a start, the treaty will make us more formally than before "citizens of the European Union". . . . we are to become citizens of this "Union" before anything else - just as the inhabitants of Texas are above all American citizens - with rights and duties overriding those attaching to our subordinate role as citizens of Britain.
2. One of the most conspicuous ways in which this "country called Europe" will project itself on the world stage, and to us as its citizens, is that it will for the first time have a permanent President, a powerful figurehead in office for up to five years.
We shall not yet be allowed to choose that President ourselves - he or she will be chosen for us by the "heads of government", the 27 prime ministers making up the European Council - but there will soon be pressure for "our" new President to be elected by all the "Union's" 490million "citizens".
3. Alongside him will be the EU's foreign-minister - the so-called "High Representative" - parading on the world stage as the 'Union's' chief international spokesman.
He will have his own diplomatic corps and worldwide embassies, intended gradually to replace those of individual countries such as Britain - and he will be able to exercise the further new right given by the treaty empowering the Union to make any kind of international treaty in our name.
4. The "Cabinet" of this new government will be the European Council - which is given a wholly new status by the treaty, with its members placed under a wholly new obligation - to put the objectives of the Union above those of their own country.
So when Gordon Brown or his successors attend future Council meetings, they will not do so representing Britain's interests but as servants of the "Union"
5. Remembering that power to propose-EU laws is already exercised solely by the unelected European Commission, another innovation is that for the first time each country will no longer have the right to be represented by its own Commissioner.
That means that, on occasions, laws affecting all our lives will be put forward entirely by officials from other countries.
6. The new treaty greatly extends the powers of the unelected Brussels government to dictate laws and policies overriding the wishes of elected national parliaments - although in some cases it has already been exercising those powers even before the treaty is signed.
7. The treaty will, for example, give a huge boost to setting up a "Common Defence Policy", based on interlocking all our armed forces and defence industries so that it becomes impossible for any country to act independently.
8. The EU-wide police forces will not be far behind.
This week our Foreign Secretary was unable to deny that we might one day see armed Romanian or Latvian policemen of the EU Gendarmerie Force, already taking shape, operating on the streets of Britain.
9. The treaty will set up a "Common Energy Policy", making it impossible-for Britain to act independently in looking after its own national needs, just when this is becoming more critical than ever before.
10. Another very serious threat to Britain's interests - as yet another City think-tank was warning this week - lies in the new opportunities the treaty will give our "partners" to introduce intrusive and politicallymotivated financial regulations which would undermine the one area of economic strength in which we still reign supreme: All those banking and financial services centred on the City on which all our national prosperity ultimately depends.
Read the entire article. No good can come of this vast, left wing socialist construct for Britain. And just to add, as to the note about energy, the UK is the only European country with any oil rigs. The manner in which the new Constitution is written is general enough to allow the EU to take over those rigs should an "energy emergency" arise.
There Is Something Elegant In This
All of Crown's loyal subjects should be marching on the House of Parliament for that one, I would think.
It is posted here that Gordon Brown has surrendered Britain's sovereignty by affixing his signiture set upon the Treaty of Lisbon - the EU Constitution by any other name. The Treaty will bind upon Britain if it is not defeated in Parliament. And it appears now that a true anachronism, the knighted class of England sitting in the House of Lords, may prove the last best line of defense against Brown's perfidy. There is bit of lyrical and ancient poetry in that, really. This today from Brits At Their Best: There will be a battle in the House of Lords
We wrote to Lord Stoddart of Swindon to thank him for his stand in the House of Lords against the EU Treaty that will destroy British freedom. He replied Dear Mr. Abbott,
It would be a good thing to show public support for the Lords when they attempt to stop the Treaty. Ideas?
Thank you for including details of our battle to defend Britain on your website. There will be many more to come when the Bill comes before The House of Lords.
Yours sincerely,
David Stoddart
Things Heat Up In The Anti-Capitalist Church Of Global Warming But Cool Down Everywhere Else
There’s an economy buster for you - not to mention an invitation to fraud and graft on an unheard of scale. Yet High Priest Goracle has given such taxes his personal blessing. And lest you think this anything other than an anti-capitalist, socialist movement . . . And here . . . One can almost hear their slogans now. No doubt it would be a mixing a bit of the Goracle with classical Karl Marx - say . . . "Global Warming Victims of the World Unite." But while there are a lot of things heating up inside the Church of Global Warming, one of them is not the temperature. "The latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level. . . [Further] the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934." Indeed, these and a host of similar facts led a lot of heretical scientists who dissent from the global warming orthodoxy to attend the service at Bali where, in the spirit science, they were welcomed into the nave and asked to air their disagreements to the participants so that a searching discussion could ensue, all in the names of scientific advancement and intellectual honesty. And there is more. A group of 100 scientists sent the following letter to the UN Secretary General yesterday, raising concerns both about the faulty "science" underlying global warming and the manner in which it is politicized and edited by the IPCC: Do read the entire letter. The High Church of Global Warming is the penultimate socialist scam. While it is very wise to conserve energy and to look for cheaper and replenishable fuel sources, that is not what is driving the socialists of global warming. We have to keep a close eye on this religion. They are passing the collection plate and demanding far more than a tithe. But, then again, what’s a little questionable science when there is world socialism, the destruction of capitalism and the redistribution of American wealth to be had. Let us all bow our heads and regulate.
Science is only tangential to the orthodoxy of the Church Global Warming, the new religion of modern socialists and communists who have as their holy Trinity High Priest Goracle, the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the European Union. Its interesting to note that the real religions are not too happy with this increasingly apocalyptic secular one. The Pope weighed in the other day "on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology."
But that will not stop the socialist acolytes of the Goracle. The new religion is beloved by socialists because they can use it to justify those things they hold most precious - centralizing power, regulating people's lives, redistributing wealth - and lastly because its a very rich gravy train for its clerics.
Indeed, the EU has now gone so far as to make global warming a part of their new Constitution created by the Treaty of Lisbon yesterday. By Article 4 of the new Constitution, the EU takes primacy to pass laws on the "environment." The Constitution amends Article 179 to explicitly recognize the problem of "climate change" as an "environmental" problem and provides the EU with a constitutional mandate to take appropriate measures to "deal with" it. What mischief can the EU do with this new constitutional mandate? Europeans are already choking from massive over-regulation by the EU as described in this article by Der Spiegel. Something tells me they haven't seen anything yet.
And now, the holy trinity is holding their Holy Mass in Bali. And its no surprise that the homily at the Bali Conference was a call for a massive transfer of wealth from the US and rich capitalist nations to the UN for redistribution: A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent "a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations." "Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs," Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled "A Global CO2 Tax."
Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm Schwank said at least "$10-$40 billion dollars per year" could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the "polluters pay principle." The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to "contribute significantly more to this global fund," Schwank explained. He also added, "It is very essential to tax coal."
The UN was presented with a new report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled "Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation." The report stated there was an "urgent need" for a global tax in order for "damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world." The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would "flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund" to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.A common theme [at the Bali Conference] was that the "solutions" to climate change that are being posed by many governments, such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and biofuels are false and are not rooted in justice. Another point was that as this current economic system got us here in the first place, a climate change response must . . . [provide for] a redistribution of wealth and resources.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday. "A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources," said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.
And remember the melting of the Greenland Ice Cap. That has long been a centerpiece of the "proof" of global warming. Yet now, it seems the problem is not CO2 from above causing the problem, it magma seeping up through the earth’s crust underneath Greenland.
To believe in global warming, one has to accept the climate models used to predict the coming catastrophe as accurate. But it appears that might be a bit of a problem.. . . [R]esearchers compared predictions of 22 widely used climate "models" — elaborate schematics that try to forecast how the global weather system will behave — with actual readings gathered by surface stations, weather balloons and orbiting satellites over the past three decades.
The study, published online this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that while most of the models predicted that the middle and upper parts of the troposphere —1 to 6 miles above the Earth’s surface — would have warmed drastically over the past 30 years, actual observations showed only a little warming, especially over tropical regions. . .
HAH
These scientists were less welcome at the IPCC's Bali Conference than an infestation of crab lice. The IPCC censored all "dissenting voices at Bali," preventing dissenting scientists from addressing the press and "from participating in panel discussions, side events, and exhibits." This from the (Senator) Inhofe EPW Press Blog (a font of global warming heresty):An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to "have the courage to do nothing" in response to UN demands.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday.
"Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants.
"The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added.
Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.
"UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings," Monckton explained.
"It is a circus here," agreed Australian scientist Dr. David Evans. . .
Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies.
"We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said in an interview with the Inhofe EPW Press Blog.
Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming." . . .
"Most of the people here [at the UN conference] have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction," Evans explained.Dec. 13, 2007
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon Secretary-General,
United Nations
New York, N.Y.
Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, . . .
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts. . . .
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The EU - Europe’s Grand Experiment In Socialism
One of the defining characteristics of today’s left is a belief in the power of the central government to cure all ills of society. The left of today does not trust the individual to exercise responsibility nor to govern themselves at the local level. Power is collected in the central government and ever more control is taken over the daily lives of citizens through regulation and statute. Democracy is minimized. Free speech is manipulated through government investment in, if not ownership of, the media and through government use of its masses of taxpayer funds to manipulate national discourse. Further, in the world of the left, free speech bows to multi-culturalism.
The ultimate manifestation of this philosophy today is the grand socialist experiment that is the European Union. And as the EU grows in power, its omnipresent influence is felt ever more in European society.
This from an article in Der Spiegel:
PERFECTING A SYSTEM OF TOTAL CONTROL
How Brussels Regulates our Daily Lives
. . . The European Commission in Brussels wants to protect European citizens even more effectively against danger and disease. Soon there will be a well-intended -- but mostly completely unnecessary -- regulation for every aspect of life.
One-year-old Diego didn't have a chance. Try as he would, he simply couldn't get the old "Made in China" lighter or the new "child-safe" version from France to light. Older children like Tessa, who is almost five, managed to coax a flame from the Chinese model after only three minutes. It didn't take her much longer to light the French version.
From a bureaucratic standpoint, the pre-pubescent subjects' efforts to play with fire -- all in the name of scientific research, of course -- were a complete success. Under an European Union regulation that goes by the code K (2007) 1567, as of March 11, 2008 only "child-safe" disposable lighters will be approved for sale in the EU. But first the lighters' "child safety" must be demonstrated in a test laboratory. Under the regulation, a lighter is deemed acceptable (that is, child-safe), if no more than 15 of 100 kids aged less than 51 months manage to light it.
There are exceptions, of course. For one thing, the regulation does not apply to higher-priced lighters. That's because the bureaucrats in Brussels are convinced no one would allow children to gain access to expensive lighters. But even the bureaucrats sometimes have their doubts about their own basis research. Now they warn that even a lighter labeled as "child-safe" in the future is "not necessarily safe for children," adding that lighters should continue to "be kept out of reach of young children."
In all seriousness, the EU's inspectors are keeping themselves busy coming up with more and more regulations to govern even the most hidden corners of human existence, and that will cover the length and breadth of the EU -- from Inari in northern Finland to Limassol on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
Current regulations already run the gamut from protections against fine dust and noise to soil conservation to protections for workers against solar radiation and protections for non-smokers. A green paper for a "smoke-free Europe" is currently under discussion. The German state of Hesse recently opposed EU bureaucrats' efforts to redefine the term "wine" so that it would exclude non-grape-derived products like its traditional Äppelwoi ("apple wine," a local take on cider). The Hessians were successful -- for now.
EU Commission President José Manual Barroso and his 26 commissioners have nothing but good intentions. Anxious to dispel their image of bureaucrats well removed from the realities of daily life, they seek to portray themselves as the guardian angels of Europe's citizens, the protectors of the old and the young, and the guarantors of a life free of danger.
According to the EU Commission's new "Consumer Protection Strategy Paper," the EU must demonstrate to Europe's 493 million consumers that it has their best interests in mind. This new zeal has led to many a bizarre or even completely nonsensical EU directive, even though many of the new regulations are fundamentally justified. But when taken together, they create new control mechanisms on top of old ones already notorious for their intrusiveness and inefficiency.
Measuring the Obvious
For example, many European cities and regions, at Brussels' behest, are now developing so-called noise maps. To produce the maps, precise noise readings must be taken on every street, whether in downtown areas, in industrial zones, along railway lines or in expensive and leafy residential neighborhoods.
Some communities have already completed the mammoth project, while others are dragging their feet. All are furious about the new requirement.
"We are drowning in a sea of data," complains Munich Mayor Christian Ude. And in the end, no matter how costly the measuring process is, the results reveal what everyone has known all along: that it's louder on busy, high-traffic streets than in exclusive, villa-filled residential neighborhoods with maximum speed limits of 30 kilometers per hour.
Like Munich, many cities developed noise maps years ago. But now Brussels is dictating a new set of criteria, which means that the entire process has to be repeated from scratch. It's "a lot of bureaucracy" and "completely useless," says Ude.
The EU's self-proclaimed protectors of the general health and well-being are especially interested in food hygiene regulations. Their goal is to fully regulate the production, transport and sale of food products from the producer to the consumer's plate. Once again, the underlying concept makes perfect sense, and yet the new rules, while failing to prevent spoiled meat scandals or the excessive use of pesticides, have in fact served up all kinds of new absurdities. A Westphalian pig farmer who fattens his animals in his own forest, just as his grandfather did, runs afoul of the law if he allows the pigs' liquid manure to seep straight into the forest soil instead of draining it through standardized concrete pipes.
In some cases the Brussels bureaucrats' zealous rush to implement new standards has cost ordinary citizens their livelihoods. For instance, a regulation that requires all legal cheese production facilities to have running water and electricity spells the end of many Alpine cheeses. The small dairies that traditionally make these cheeses simply cannot afford the investments needed to satisfy the Brussels requirements.
Europe's "Specific Hygiene Regulations" cover every product and every producer, from "meat from hoofed animals kept as pets" to "frogs' legs and snails" and "animal fats and cracklings."
Anyone who, milk pail in hand, hopes to find fresh milk from the farm these days will have a lot of searching to do. Under Paragraph 17, Section 1 of the Animal Food Hygiene Regulation, "the sale of raw milk or cream to consumers is prohibited."
Only in exceptional cases are dairy farmers permitted to sell untreated milk to customers, and only when they are in compliance with a long list of detailed requirements regulating everything from the condition of the floors in the farmer's milking room to the material used to make his doors.
Of course, the dairy farmer mustn't forget to post a warning sign that reads "Raw milk -- Boil before consuming" in a "visible and legible manner at the selling location."
Part 2: Are Europeans Dim-Witted and Unable to Cope with Life?
There is only one thing the Brussels bureaucrats have forgotten in their zeal to slap regulations on just about everything: the often-evoked "responsible citizen." The Europeans of the 21st century appear to be dim-witted and unable to cope with life -- and wholly dependent on the dictates of Big Brother in Brussels. When it comes to protecting the population from its own supposed lack of common sense, Big Brother is enthusiastic.
For example, in the past, a German who wanted to build a small vacation house on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca ran the risk of building on top of a toxic waste site. In response to such hazards, the EU commissioners submitted a draft guideline for "soil protection" which is currently being debated in the European Parliament. Under the guideline, government agencies throughout Europe would be required to test the condition of the soil on every piece of property, from the Arctic Circle to Sicily, and identify "contaminated" sites.
The authors of the draft guideline say that its purpose is to protect the environment. Europe's soil faces all kinds of threats to its purity, from industrial chemical residues to agricultural pesticides, erosion, salt-water intrusion and the adverse effects of rapid development.
But because the EU has only partial jurisdiction in this area, it is essentially left up to the member states to decide what to do with the results of the soil tests.
Moreover, because the EU is so good at imposing regulations, non-profit organizations, businesses and citizens are demanding increasingly comprehensive protections for both the working and private spheres. "Bureaucracy is in demand," says Volker Hoff, a Christian Democrat and the minister for European affairs in the German state of Hesse.
A Tireless Effort to Regulate Everything
Advocates for the protection of consumers, children, animals, patients and practically everything else are tirelessly proposing new things that they are convinced require regulation or, in some cases, ought to be banned outright. The EU administrators in Brussels are only too pleased to comply, while the representatives of the member states are quick to give the go-ahead.
. . . In truth, even legal experts find the well-intentioned flood of regulatory fervor overwhelming. Last year the president of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, warned "against the constantly increasing regulation of virtually all areas of society and the economy, as well as large segments of private life."
The "expanded apparatus of the Brussels EU Commission" contributes to the fact "that there is now a layer of overregulation that exceeds the reasonable scope of the law," says Papier, the chief justice of Germany's highest court. For this reason, says Papier, the legal system runs the risk "of suffocating the individual responsibility and self-determination it is in fact intended to guarantee." Torsten Stein, a European legal expert at Saarland University, warns that one day EU citizens will become aware "that, long after the end of absolute rulers, a new authority has established itself that once again claims the authority to decide what is good and what is bad for subjects."
Undeterred by such doubts, officials in Brussels continue to perfect a system of total control. . .
Read the entire article. Several months ago, I read a critique by one of our leftist pundits of Fred Thompson, a conservative one-time Senator who was then considering a bid for the Presidency. A significant criticism was that Mr. Thompson had not initiated any new laws or regulatory efforts during his time in the Senate. And therein lies the difference between today's neo-liberal left and the conservatives. The left considers Mr. Thompson a failure for his restraint. A conservative would consider that a great accomplishment. At any rate, if the axiom is true that you get the government you deserve, Europe is in sad straits indeed.
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