From the plough to the plate
"The next three years will see consumer policy coming of age as consumer interests, together with other issues that directly affect ordinary citizens, become increasingly important."
"The most important aspect ... has been to make the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection responsible for food safety along the entire food chain, from the plough to the plate."
"Consumer policy is not a luxury but an essential element of overall EU policy."
Three quotes, picked from the European Commission's current framework plan for activities in favour of consumers, illustrate the gathering force of EU consumer policy. Brussels has swung very strongly in favour of a highly interventionist approach in order to impress the people of Europe that the EU is about something which touches their everyday lives, and which generates an esprit de corps around the grand concept of an ever closer union.
Our legal columnist, Paul Fogo, has the other side of this spread to explain how enforcement procedures unfold. Here we are looking at the many ways in which the EU will, in future, be minding your life for you. A few choice examples:
" Fire escapes in all hotels. All the new ones comply, but older structures will be spending money. And before long, the country's massive total of towering apartment blocks will be required to comply as well. Time to buy shares in companies specialising in fire escapes.
" Children's toys. One example will do. "A decision prohibiting the placing on the market of toys or childcare articles made of soft PVC containing certain phalates that are intended to be placed in the mouth of a child under three years of age." This is one of a series of initiatives on the safety of toys, either in force or in the lawmaking process. They override national laws and imports, especially from the Far East, which will quickly be affected.
" A set of EU standards on the professional competence of airline cabin crew, especially skills. A useful example of how non-EU airlines are bound by European law simply by flying in the union's airspace.
" Mandates for competent standards bodies to develop new or improved safety standards for a wide range of articles, from childcare equipment to fairground rides to cigarette lighters. The mother and father of such initiatives is the General Product Safety Directive, a catchall that embraces almost everything which is made and sold - a very powerful weapon, as is the famous product liability law, which fixes the blame for any mishaps firmly with manufacturers - and also suppliers of many professional services.
So, is Europe usurping the powers of member states by elbowing aside the rights of national governments to be responsible for the health and welfare of their citizens? To a large extent, the answer is yes. Officially, any member state can make such laws as it likes regarding consumers and their protection, but they must never be weaker than regulations which are made by the union itself, which typically will adapt and improve, so far as possible, the toughest laws it can find currently in force in any member state. But this is still to understate the real source of power, and that is to label something which the Commission (or parliamentarians) feel is too weak, or ineffective, or a blatant attempt to protect a homemade product from competition, a "barrier to trade."
NTB's - non-tariff barriers - are tricks which member states operating in the seamless internal market will quickly resort to under pressure from companies and producers finding foreign competition too hot for comfort. The British once banned French chickens on highly specious health grounds: there was a huge collision between rival German and French producers of a blackcurrant cordial used to flavour kir. The French shut out British lamb imports (and tarred and feathered some who did break the embargo). Trucks carrying French and Spanish fruit and vegetables have been attacked at different times by rival producers in both countries. The Germans shut out steam boilers made in other countries by insisting on impossibly complicated technical standards.
It is invariably consumers who lose out. The French chickens, aside from tasting better, turned up on so many British dinner plates because they were cheaper. The spirit of the internal market, which is now 10 years old, is intended to iron out the competition bumps, and if in many cases that is uncomfortable for some producers on the market - tough luck. Well, as always in EU affairs, not quite, since the CAP (common agricultural policy), that monstrous affront to consumerism, acts as a hidden tax on every family in Europe to the extent of some €35 a week. This is because cheaper, competitive food produced abroad is effectively shut out of the market in favour of EU product preference. Natural cane sugar has fallen almost totally victim to vastly subsidised sugar beet, to the ruin of many Caribbean countries - notably Jamaica, which switched over to growing ganja instead.
So how did the French chickens get away with it? Because they are not policed by the CAP. Looking after Europe's citizens "from the plough to the plate" becomes a less inspiring invocation the moment one reads of perfectly good agricultural produce being either destroyed or piled up in stores for years, simply to maintain an artificially high level of prices paid to consumers. It is in this way that Poles will find some key items in the shopping basket (such as meat) getting steeply dearer.
The contradictions which are inherent in the union can also be expressed in ways of distinct advantage to consumers. The scandalous racket in airfares is set for the chop, bringing to Poland the same bargain flights that people now compelled to trek to Prague find. Nearly all quasi-monopolies, such as LOT, will be compelled to adopt pro-consumer policies or be edged out of business. The ending of all tariffs and quotas at the borders will slash the cost of imports, notably key ones, such as pharmaceuticals, alcohol, lots of things for children and a good many food products.
The EU likes healthy citizens who enjoy living longer, and with one of the lowest ranges of life expectancy in Europe, it will be a reason to cheer accession. The drinking water directives will at last force authorities to clean up their act: anti-pollution laws will be enforced and the tragic despoliation of much of Silesia will finally be tackled. Environmental cleanup is going to be an excellent business to be in.
Even in the closing stages of this week, tying the knots after Copenhagen, matters close to the Polish heart were under the blotting paper in Brussels. The famous herbal vodka from North Podlasie - the one with the added kick of extract of bison grass - is now officially protected from any emulation under the brand name "Żubrówka." And "Polish Wine," made from imported grape juice, got the OK as well - but not a drop of it must ever be sold outside Poland. The qualifications of nurses to work in other countries also made it just as the barrier was coming down, so long as they have been working for five of the last seven years.
Meanwhile, all the shops in the country will be getting ready to see new names on many locally-produced cheeses, which for years have been masquerading as the real thing from elsewhere, such as Gouda and parmigiano. The local imitators are not banned, they must be rechristened because so many food products have a generic right of protection. One which carries on regardless is the tongue-curling goat's milk cheese - oscypek. It's just fine, European Commission officials decided, so long as not a single morsel escapes over the borders.
"The most important aspect ... has been to make the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection responsible for food safety along the entire food chain, from the plough to the plate."
"Consumer policy is not a luxury but an essential element of overall EU policy."
Three quotes, picked from the European Commission's current framework plan for activities in favour of consumers, illustrate the gathering force of EU consumer policy. Brussels has swung very strongly in favour of a highly interventionist approach in order to impress the people of Europe that the EU is about something which touches their everyday lives, and which generates an esprit de corps around the grand concept of an ever closer union.
Our legal columnist, Paul Fogo, has the other side of this spread to explain how enforcement procedures unfold. Here we are looking at the many ways in which the EU will, in future, be minding your life for you. A few choice examples:
" Fire escapes in all hotels. All the new ones comply, but older structures will be spending money. And before long, the country's massive total of towering apartment blocks will be required to comply as well. Time to buy shares in companies specialising in fire escapes.
" Children's toys. One example will do. "A decision prohibiting the placing on the market of toys or childcare articles made of soft PVC containing certain phalates that are intended to be placed in the mouth of a child under three years of age." This is one of a series of initiatives on the safety of toys, either in force or in the lawmaking process. They override national laws and imports, especially from the Far East, which will quickly be affected.
" A set of EU standards on the professional competence of airline cabin crew, especially skills. A useful example of how non-EU airlines are bound by European law simply by flying in the union's airspace.
" Mandates for competent standards bodies to develop new or improved safety standards for a wide range of articles, from childcare equipment to fairground rides to cigarette lighters. The mother and father of such initiatives is the General Product Safety Directive, a catchall that embraces almost everything which is made and sold - a very powerful weapon, as is the famous product liability law, which fixes the blame for any mishaps firmly with manufacturers - and also suppliers of many professional services.
So, is Europe usurping the powers of member states by elbowing aside the rights of national governments to be responsible for the health and welfare of their citizens? To a large extent, the answer is yes. Officially, any member state can make such laws as it likes regarding consumers and their protection, but they must never be weaker than regulations which are made by the union itself, which typically will adapt and improve, so far as possible, the toughest laws it can find currently in force in any member state. But this is still to understate the real source of power, and that is to label something which the Commission (or parliamentarians) feel is too weak, or ineffective, or a blatant attempt to protect a homemade product from competition, a "barrier to trade."
NTB's - non-tariff barriers - are tricks which member states operating in the seamless internal market will quickly resort to under pressure from companies and producers finding foreign competition too hot for comfort. The British once banned French chickens on highly specious health grounds: there was a huge collision between rival German and French producers of a blackcurrant cordial used to flavour kir. The French shut out British lamb imports (and tarred and feathered some who did break the embargo). Trucks carrying French and Spanish fruit and vegetables have been attacked at different times by rival producers in both countries. The Germans shut out steam boilers made in other countries by insisting on impossibly complicated technical standards.
It is invariably consumers who lose out. The French chickens, aside from tasting better, turned up on so many British dinner plates because they were cheaper. The spirit of the internal market, which is now 10 years old, is intended to iron out the competition bumps, and if in many cases that is uncomfortable for some producers on the market - tough luck. Well, as always in EU affairs, not quite, since the CAP (common agricultural policy), that monstrous affront to consumerism, acts as a hidden tax on every family in Europe to the extent of some €35 a week. This is because cheaper, competitive food produced abroad is effectively shut out of the market in favour of EU product preference. Natural cane sugar has fallen almost totally victim to vastly subsidised sugar beet, to the ruin of many Caribbean countries - notably Jamaica, which switched over to growing ganja instead.
So how did the French chickens get away with it? Because they are not policed by the CAP. Looking after Europe's citizens "from the plough to the plate" becomes a less inspiring invocation the moment one reads of perfectly good agricultural produce being either destroyed or piled up in stores for years, simply to maintain an artificially high level of prices paid to consumers. It is in this way that Poles will find some key items in the shopping basket (such as meat) getting steeply dearer.
The contradictions which are inherent in the union can also be expressed in ways of distinct advantage to consumers. The scandalous racket in airfares is set for the chop, bringing to Poland the same bargain flights that people now compelled to trek to Prague find. Nearly all quasi-monopolies, such as LOT, will be compelled to adopt pro-consumer policies or be edged out of business. The ending of all tariffs and quotas at the borders will slash the cost of imports, notably key ones, such as pharmaceuticals, alcohol, lots of things for children and a good many food products.
The EU likes healthy citizens who enjoy living longer, and with one of the lowest ranges of life expectancy in Europe, it will be a reason to cheer accession. The drinking water directives will at last force authorities to clean up their act: anti-pollution laws will be enforced and the tragic despoliation of much of Silesia will finally be tackled. Environmental cleanup is going to be an excellent business to be in.
Even in the closing stages of this week, tying the knots after Copenhagen, matters close to the Polish heart were under the blotting paper in Brussels. The famous herbal vodka from North Podlasie - the one with the added kick of extract of bison grass - is now officially protected from any emulation under the brand name "Żubrówka." And "Polish Wine," made from imported grape juice, got the OK as well - but not a drop of it must ever be sold outside Poland. The qualifications of nurses to work in other countries also made it just as the barrier was coming down, so long as they have been working for five of the last seven years.
Meanwhile, all the shops in the country will be getting ready to see new names on many locally-produced cheeses, which for years have been masquerading as the real thing from elsewhere, such as Gouda and parmigiano. The local imitators are not banned, they must be rechristened because so many food products have a generic right of protection. One which carries on regardless is the tongue-curling goat's milk cheese - oscypek. It's just fine, European Commission officials decided, so long as not a single morsel escapes over the borders.
