From The Telegraph:
David Cameron has attacked a Brussels ban on the use of olive oil jugs in restaurants as "exactly the sort of area that the European Union needs to get right out of".So, this is something the EU shouldn't be doing it, but we're utterly powerless to change it. We can't get something as silly as olive oil in bottles overturned, but we're expected to believe that this man can renegotiate Britain's position in Europe?
The Prime Minister criticised the ban as a caricature of unnecessary EU interference and a piece of red tape that should never have been proposed, let alone agreed. In a press conference at the EU summit, Mr Cameron declined to explain how Britain had ended up giving the green light to the ban.
"Our argument was bound up in a whole set of arguments we were having about rules of origin and all the rest of it and I won't go into the tedious complexities," he said.
7 comments:
From the article: "The traditional use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls will be outlawed, effectively ending the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business."
The large producers of olive oil who got the ban proposed presumably have friends in the UK who have the ear of DEFRA.
Put "Our argument was bound up in a whole set of arguments we were having about rules of origin and all the rest of it and I won't go into the tedious complexities," into Google translate, Pol => English and you get "we have to keep our friends in Big Food happy".
AS B says, this is what I hate most about the EU, it's not just that the rules are silly (our national sport is cricket) but that they always seem to benefit the large corporates and disadvantage the little guy.
"We can't get something as silly as olive oil in bottles overturned, but we're expected to believe that this man can renegotiate Britain's position in Europe?"
No, we aren't. He just says that without even believing it himself.
MW/B,
The big guys have the lobbying power.
Look at all the crap in employment law, and you never hear a peep out of the supermarkets about them. And that's because they can absorb a couple of staff in a store going on maternity leave.
The socialists look to France and Sweden, but it's hard to find many big new companies coming out of either. They hit the 20 staff limit and stop growing, as you then have a whole new pile of staff laws to deal with. Once you reach a few hundred, you're fine again, but it's what keeps businesses down, and it's what big business likes.
TS: "that's because [supermarkets] can absorb a couple of staff in a store going on maternity leave"
Supermarkets actually like having people on maternity leave, working short hours when kids are small etc, it gives them a large pool of potential part-timers or emergency cover etc.
Any business with 50 employees on average has a natural turnover of 5 or 10 people a year anyway.
So 1 or 2 go on maternity leave each year (out of 5 or 10 people who leave anyway) and 1 or 2 come back (who don't need to be trained up like new staff, they just slot straight back in), or they just come back during Xmas and other busy periods. From ther supermarket's point of view, that's a really good thing.
And AFAIAA, most of the large French businesses are state-owned anyway.
Mark,
Yup, or pally with government (like EADS and Alstom).
The exceptions are companies like LVMH, Michelin and Renault. But they ain't exactly very new.
TS, aha, I have googled it and Renault was largely privatised again in 1996, the French government only owns 15% (I thought it was much more).
"No, we aren't. He just says that without even believing it himself."
Isn't everything Dave C says given to him on a piece of paper first for him to memorise, or read off an autocue? He has certainly always given that impression to me.
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