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RULED
BY THE EU
Plans to build 1.4 million extra homes
in Britain have been DUMPED on by the EU. New
rules in 2004 by Brussels over landfill sites
means there could be nowhere to dispose of
hazardous rubble. Britain may end up with only 14
sites out of today's 182 - with NONE in the South
East where Deputy Premier John Prescott wants
300,000 new homes by 2016.
Critics fear that will mean the South's waste
being dumped in the North's remaining sites. The
Commons Environmental Audit Committee said
Britain needs to build one 40,000 ton processing
plant a WEEK for the next 14 years to cope. No
chance of that. |
EU INTERFERENCE
Rocking horses could be banned if new EU
safety laws are introduced in the UK. The laws,
which are currently being discussed by the
European Committee for Standardisation, insist
that the height of seats on children's toys must
not exceed 600mm (2ft). Rocking horse
manufacturers have claimed that all but the
smallest toys are above this specified maximum.
Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said. "Only
the EU could turn horseplay into foul play.
Parents do not need Brussels bureaucrats to
dictate what is and is not safe for their
children to play on. Kids have played on rocking
horses for hundreds of years quite happily
without the EU intervening to protect them." |
MADE IN BRITAIN
Brussels penpushers are plotting to ban
Made in Britain labels and are
secretly bidding to replace them with Made
in the EU stamps. Rolls-Royce cars, Scotch
whisky, Kendal mintcake and Savile Row suits
would all carry EU labels under the plan. |
TOXIC
Thermometers used safely for centuries
to check kids' temperatures could be banned by EU
bureaucrats because the mercury in them is toxic. |
ROAD TAX RISE
Motorists face a road tax rise of at least £40
under new EU proposals. Drivers already pay tax
on a sliding scaled linked to carbon emissions
but they could be hit again as the EU adds a
basic "green levy" of £40 a year.
EU Tax Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs wants to
standardise road tax to the higher levels in
other European countries. At the moment we pay
£110 a year for smaller cars built before March
2001 and £175 for cars over 1549cc.
Newer cars pay from £40 to £210 depending on
carbon emissions but in Ireland car tax is
already £287 and in Denmark it's £233. Mr
Kovacs wants half the tax on each car to be based
on emissions by 2010 and, if approved, his plans
could be in place within five years. (Source: Sunday People, Jul/06) |
REGULATIONS
Defence chiefs are fighting to prevent
the Army's tanks being stopped in their tracks by
the introduction of a European directive on
vibration and noise at work.
The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations and
the Control of Noise at Work Regulations have
left officers scrambling to discover if the
military's armoured vehicles break the rules.
But with a slim chance of reducing vibrations in
a Challenger 2 tank and the Warrior armoured
vehicles, the Ministry of Defence will be seeking
an exemption from the rules by invoking an
"opt-out" clause.
Soldiers who travel in the back of tanks and are
subjected to substantial jolts and constant noise
will have to suffer the discomforts until at
least 2010 when the regulations become law.
(Source: Daily Telegraph) |
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THE EUROPEAN UNION
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EU bureaucrats want
to end the right of shoppers to get their money back for
shoddy goods. For more than a century, shops have offered
refunds to people who return unwanted or faulty goods.
Plans by the European Union to harmonise
consumer law will short-change them by removing that
right and weakening safeguards. Ministers have vowed to
fight the Consumer Rights Directive but the UK Government
has no power to stop the change if it is backed by the
majority of European Union states.
Worse still, if the law is passed retailers will be
banned from gold-plating the legislation by
continuing to offer money-back guarantees. Lola Bello,
senior policy advocate for Consumer Focus, said,
Our right to return shoddy goods helps keep
industry on its toes. It drives up product standards and
is a cheap way of resolving disputes quickly. It is a
vital element in our consumer protection regime and not
one wed be prepared to lose or see watered
down.
The legislation, which would also cover goods bought over
the phone or the internet, is designed to ensure the same
level of consumer protection if shoppers buy goods in any
EU member state. However, a report by the House of Lords
EU Committee is critical of the move, saying British
shoppers will be at a disadvantage if they are buying
goods elsewhere in Europe. Lord Borrie, honorary
vice-president of the Trading Standards Institute, said
the directive was an unrealistic ambition.
Instead of money-back guarantees, the directive would
allow traders to offer only the repair or replacement of
faulty goods. The liability for replacement or repair
would also be cut from six years to two, even though such
products as cars, boilers and double glazing should
reasonably be expected to last longer. The EU Committee
said this raised fears of a spawning new culture of
disposable goods as the incentive to
manufacture hard-wearing products would be removed.
It is the loss of the right to refund which has prompted
the biggest backlash against the directive however. Mats
Persson, research director of the think-tank Open Europe,
said, The directive will sweep away the age-old
right of Britons to get their money back for returned
goods." The Government has vowed to fight Brussels
to retain this right but they have no power to stop it
from becoming law if it wins the backing of the majority
of other member states. (Source: Sunday Express, Nov/09)
If the UK were to leave the EU, there would
be no net loss of jobs or trade. In addition, we would be
between £17 billion and £40 billion per year better
off, possibly more. These are the findings of A Cost Too
Far?, published by Civitas. Ex Prime Minister Blair often
claimed that 60% of the UKs trade and three million
jobs depend on our EU membership. Closer
analysis reveals this to be a highly misleading claim.
Three Million Jobs Would Go? Another of Blairs
mistakes was to believe that the jobs currently resulting
from trade with the EU would be lost if we left. However,
a number of authoritative studies have found that leaving
the EU would have little impact on jobs, including a
report by the National Institute for Economic and Social
Research, and a report for the US Congress by the US
International Trade Commission. In particular, if the UK
left the EU, it is unlikely that UK companies would be
denied access to other EU markets. (Source: Civitas, Sep/07)
East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer has vowed to
fight a plan to be put before the European Parliament
which would require British drivers to apply for an EU
licence. The Grosch Report calls for national driving
licences to be replaced by an EU-wide scheme, removing
control of driver registration from national governments.
As might be expected with an EU scheme, the new
Euro-licences would also impose added interferences on
the British motorist. Most significantly, all drivers
over the age of 45 would be required to have a medical
examination as could disabled people before being
considered for a licence The driving age would also be
decided by Europe rather than by the UK government. There
would be hugely increased numbers of classification of
vehicle types for which separate tests would be required.
The proposal, which was debated at first reading in the
Transport Committee, would have a major impact on all of
Britain's motorists.
Speaking from the European Parliament, East Midlands
Conservative Euro-MP Roger Helmer, commented, "This
is a perfect example of the EU needlessly trying to
interfere in an area which is already working perfectly
well and in which there is no need to take away power
from member states. The UK has already made sacrifices in
this area by adopting a standard EU-pattern driving
licence with a photo ID, now we're being told we should
go further and just let Brussels take over the whole
thing. The idea that everyone over 45 or who is disabled
should take a medical before they can be given a licence
is intrusive and absurd and will lead to vast expense and
inconvenience for motorists. Our current system is
efficient, and there is no reason to change what is a
widely respected system internationally. I intend to
fight this all the way."
More than 80 garden sprays and weedkillers
were banned from sale because of stricter regulations on
potentially harmful chemicals. The new European rules
primarily ban lawn treatments which kill dandelions,
nettles and brambles. They include some own-brand
products from Asda, Homebase and B&Q. Stores face
fines of up to £5,000 if they sell the offending goods,
but gardeners can continue to use them until the end of
the year 2003. They will not be allowed to store any of
them after the end of March. Environmentalists warned
that local authorities would struggle to collect and
dispose of the unwanted pesticides. Friends of the Earth
said many local authorities, which are responsible for
the clear up, were ill equipped to dispose of toxic
pesticide waste. It is illegal to get rid of the garden
chemicals down drains, sinks or toilets.
"If pesticides are simply thrown in bins they will
end up in landfill sites and will end up contaminating
our environment," FoE said. The group said some
products were not covered by the ban despite being proven
to damage human health, and it criticised the Government
for not putting money into projects to find safer
alternatives. "Many risky pesticides have been given
the green light, and safer alternatives have not been
found for those products being banned," the group
said. The Crop Protection Association (CPA), which
represents the pesticide industry, said it had sent
letters to 200 local authorities to brief them on the new
regulations. "We have given them sufficient
warnings," said the chief executive, Peter
Sanguinetti. "Some authorities are already very
advanced with their plans and some are not."
The organic movement said the ban on some pesticides
marked a great opportunity to promote chemical-free
gardening. Maggi Brown, head of education at Europe's
largest organic gardening association, HDRA, said:
"There has been reliance on chemicals as a quick fix
... Those people who say you can't possibly grow
vegetables, or fruit or flowers, without pesticide should
look at the hundreds of thousands of organic gardeners up
and down the country and the rest of the world." The
move, led by the European Union, is part of a process to
regulate the pesticide industry, which in Britain is
worth £416m a year. The makers of the pesticides that
were banned from sale yesterday were unwilling to put
them through new stringent safety tests.
The industry said the products were mainly older versions
of pesticides that had been superseded or were for niche
markets and were not worth the estimated £1m cost of
putting them through the tests. The Department of
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the ban came
into force because the safety of the products could no
longer be guaranteed. Most contained dichlorprop, which
the industry said had been rendered obsolete by a more
environmentally friendly version of the chemical. David
Bowe, a Labour MEP and a spokesman on the environment,
said about 10% of garden pesticide products sold in the
UK have had to be withdrawn from the shelves.
Brussels has fined Britain more than
£150million for failing to display the EU flag on a
string of projects part-funded by Europe. Several schemes
were also penalised for failing to use the flag on their
letterheads. The fines relate to £3.8billion given to
the UK by the European Regional Development Fund over a
seven-year period. The fund has contributed to dozens of
projects including the Eden Project, in Cornwall, the
Millennium Bridge, in Gateshead, and the redevelopment of
Liverpools Kings Dock. Funding from the ERDF
usually has to be matched pound for pound by Government
cash. Britain is a net contributor to the EU budget and
critics have long complained that ERDF funding is
essentially recycled taxpayers money. This year the
UK will contribute £6.4billion more to Brussels than it
receives back. (Source: Daily Mail, Jul/10)
Euro MPs squander millions of pounds of
British taxpayers money every year on cosmetic
perks including anti-ageing therapy and facial hair
removal. In yet another scandalous example of the
European gravy train, MEPs can also have IVF treatments.
They can stay at thermal health spas, have breast
reductions and buy slimming products and Viagra pills.
All are funded by the public as part of their
controversial medical cover. This years £3million
budget for Euro MPs medical expenses also covers
alternative therapies like lymphatic drainage, a delicate
massage that helps the body eliminate toxins.
The taxpayer funds at least two-thirds of the cost of all
treatments, and many are 100% covered. Details of the
appalling waste on personal vanity indicates the
juggernaut of EU excess shows no signs of slowing and
comes as Britons brace themselves for a year of soaring
food and fuel bills, wage freezes and cuts in council
services. And it is certain to add to the momentum behind
the Daily Expresss crusade for the UK to withdraw
from the EU. An MEP and staff cost an average of
£370,000, made up of salaries, gold-plated pensions and
expenses.
Details of the expenses are revealed in a leaked copy of
the Practical Guide to the Reimbursement of Medical
Expenses. It shows MEPs are reimbursed not only for
conventional treatments for conditions like cancer,
diabetes and emergencies such as fractures, but also
elective treatments. The generosity for
cosmetic treatments has led to claims it is a
perk rather than essential. Other courses on offer to
MEPs include extended IVF treatments and drug
rehabilitation.
Male MEPs and the husbands of female MEPs can also claim
for private treatment to resolve problems with impotence.
Viagra is available if the condition stems from serious
illness. The guide also reveals MEPs and their families
can stay up to 21 days at thermal health spas. The budget
this year for MEPs sickness and accident insurance
represents a 36 per cent increase on the £2.2million in
2009. (Source: Daily Express, Mar/11)
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