Another EU Rip-Off Exposed

Tuesday October 17, 2006 01:49

by Bertie D. Wolf

EU Commissioner admits EU regulation costs businesses €600 billion a year; warns that powerful EU civil servants have blocked attempts to reduce regulation

The EU's Enterprise Commissioner Gunther Verheugen said in an interview with the FT this week that EU legislation now costs European business €600 billon (£405 billion) a year, on the basis of a new evaluation of the administrative costs of red tape.

This figure is almost twice the previous estimate of €320bn, and represents 5.5% of total EU GDP. This is the equivalent of the EU losing the entire output of a medium-sized country like Holland every year.

Oh Bertie - What big Eyes you have...

This is a further indication that the benefits of the Single Market are being outweighed by the costs of the extra regulation intended to create it. The Commission's own estimate of the benefit of the Single Market is that between 1986 and 2002 it increased EU GDP by €165 billion. So potentially the costs of the extra EU regulation are now more than thee times the benefits.

Back in 2004 Peter Mandelson told the CBI conference that the cost of regulation amounted to about 4% of Europe's GDP, or around double the benefit from the Single Market.

Since the instalment of the new Commission team brought in under Jose Barroso in November 2004, there has been a lot of hype about 'better regulation' and a more business-friendly atmosphere.

But in reality, the cost of regulation has continued to increase. In his interview Verhuegen admitted that there was "considerable resistance" from Commission officials to any attempt to deregulate. He said, "There is a view that the more regulations you have, the more rules you have, the more Europe you have. I don't share that view." He said, "We must combat the perception among citizens that Brussels is a bureaucratic monster, [but] not everyone in the Commission has the same commitment to this objective. We have a problem of democracy, and not only within the Commission, but also in the member states: the administration has more and more powers."
In a separate interview Verhuegen told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that "the whole development in the last ten years has brought the civil servants such power that in the meantime the most important political task of the 25 commissioners is controlling this apparatus. There is a permanent power struggle between commissioners and high ranking bureaucrats."

He said things were so bad that "The commissioners have to take extreme care that important questions are decided in their weekly meeting, and not decided by the civil servants among themselves. Unfortunately it sometimes happens in the communication with member states or parliament that civil servants put their own personal perspective across as the view of the commission". He concluded that "too much is decided by civil servants".

Verheugen also admitted that even a promise he had made to "simplify" 54 laws this year will not be achieved, saying, "By the end of the year we might have 30". But even this may well be optimistic: according to a letter this week in the FT by Dutch Minister of Finance Gerrit Zalm and Danish Minister for Economic and Business Affairs Bendt Bendtsen, "The Commission's plan was to simplify 54 laws this year, but only five have been tackled. That is alarming." (9 October)

See even more at
http://www.kc3.co.uk/~dt/eu_fraud.htm

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Comments (1 of 1)

Talking about the pot calling the kettle 'Black-ass'

by Legal Eagle

Tue Oct 17, 2006 22:53

High level EU corruption right. Who are we to talk? Talk about black-assed kettles slagging off the pots. The state here is twisted to the core but our biggest problem is that there seems to no other possible applicants to take the place of the creeps in place.

If we were to expose the list according to 'dogs on the street knowledge' and sort them out with the offences taken from the PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2001 we would have to not just import half of the population of Poland but also the entire Polish parliament (presuming that they are not corrupt) and their entire state service as well to make up the deficit.

Just think about what you know for a fact about the goings on here in Ireland, then look at the list below and imagine that if you are just one of thousands who could put one of them away…the mind boggles.

PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2001

2.—The Act of 1906 is hereby amended by the substitution of the following section for section 1:

"1. (1) An agent or any other person who—

. (a) corruptly accepts or obtains, or

. (b) corruptly agrees to accept or attempts to obtain,

for himself or herself, or for any other person, any gift, consideration or advantage as an inducement to, or reward for, or otherwise on account of, the agent doing any act or making any omission in relation to his or her office or position or his or her principal's affairs or business shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) A person who—

. (a) corruptly gives or agrees to give, or

. (b) corruptly offers,

any gift or consideration to an agent or any other person, whether for the benefit of that agent, person or another person, as an inducement to, or reward for, or otherwise on account of, the agent doing any act or making any omission in relation to his or her office or position or his or her principal's affairs or business shall be guilty of an offence.

(3) A person who knowingly gives to any agent, or an agent who knowingly uses with intent to deceive his or her principal, any receipt, account or other document in respect of which the principal is interested, and which contains any statement which is false or erroneous or defective in any material particular, and which to his or her knowledge is intended to mislead the principal shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £2,362.69 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to both, or

(b) on conviction on indictment to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to both.

(5) In this Act— 'agent' includes—

(a) any person employed by or acting for another,

(b)(i) an office holder or director (within the meaning, in each case, of the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act, 1889, as amended) of, and a person occupying a position of employment in, a public body (within the meaning aforesaid) and a special adviser (within the meaning aforesaid),

(ii) a member of Dáil Éireann or Seanad Éireann,

(iii) a person who is a member of the European Parliament by virtue of the European Parliament Elections Act, 1997,

(iv) an Attorney General (who is not a member of Dáil Éireann or Seanad Éireann),

(v) the Comptroller and Auditor General,

(vi) the Director of Public Prosecutions,

(vii) a judge of a court in the State,

(viii) any other person employed by or acting on behalf of the public administration of the State,

and

(c)(i) a member of the government of any other state,

(ii) a member of a parliament, regional or national, of any other state,

(iii) a member of the European Parliament (other than a person who is a member by virtue of the European Parliament Elections Act, 1997),

(iv) a member of the Court of Auditors of the European Communities,

(v) a member of the Commission of the European Communities,

(vi) a public prosecutor in any other state,

(vii) a judge of a court in any other state,

(viii) a judge of any court established under an international agreement to which the State is a party,

(ix) a member of, or any other person employed by or acting for or on behalf of, any body established under an international agreement to which the State is a party, and

(x) any other person employed by or acting on behalf of the public administration of any other state;
'consideration' includes valuable consideration of any kind;
'principal' includes an employer.".

There would'nt be too many left would there?

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Another EU Rip-Off Exposed

Comments (1 of 1)