European Legislation
Laws, remember,
are made in the European Union jointly by the European
Parliament and Council
(concilium or Council of Ministers), on both of which Britain is
represented in an appropriate manner.
Someone has said that 60% of laws that
apply to us in Britain were made in the European Union; are in effect European
Laws. Well, the number might be 58% according to FullFact.org;
but never mind the exact proportion, it still makes my friend Peter feel bossed
around by strangers, deprived of his sovereignty.
However, it does not have that effect on
me. I surf my way to eur-lex.europa.eu
and in less than a minute I find I have access to the entire legislative
process of the EU cataloged by year back to the beginning; brilliantly
transparent, brilliantly lucid. I find that the products of the EU legislature
are of 3 types:
[1] Regulations; which apply in a binding way across all
members states of the Union.
[2] Directives; which only become binding in any
particular country if that country adopts and enacts their own law to that
effect.
[3] Decisions; which relate to individual cases, as
between two competing slaughterhouses in Cyprus.
My friend Peter is therefore concerned only about
the Regulations, of which some 1500 were passed by the EU in 2014 and again in
2015. Let us take at random Regulation (EU) 2015/2284 of the ‘European
Parliament and Council’ of 25 Nov 2015 repealing Council Directive 76/621/EEC
relating to the fixing of the maximum level of erucic acid in oils and fats.
Does Peter object to that being repealed, purely (we are told) for tidiness and
clarity? I think not. Or Regulation
(EU) 2015/2421 amending Regulation 861/2007 establishing a European Small
Claims Procedure. No problem, surely? The Laws passed by Europe seem timely,
well drafted, fair; in short competently done. If they were not passed in
Brussels they would have to be passed anyway
in London.
What might make anyone a trifle uneasy is
the thought of that team of 23,000
civil servants beavering away in their clever, methodical, way. Why not
25,000? Or 30,000? Parkinson’s Law applies in Britain; so I suppose it might
apply also in Europe. We should look next at the Court
of Auditors, to see if they are doing their job.
If there is any serious criticism of the
European Union -- we should fix
it.
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