One of my kind commentators on this post linked to his blog, where he talks about various kinds of regulation which are going to hit us in various shapes and sizes. It is quite an interesting viewpoint but I am not going to steal his thunder :), check out his blog.
But that did flash another thought in my mind. My biggest issue with European Regulations is this. Bear with me, I need to take you through some logic. Generally, the United Kingdom has a tradition that whenever a new law is suggested, a cost benefit analysis is carried out. Whether you like it or not, it does provide a good overview of what will happen to the country after the law is passed.
Pretty much common sense, no? SOOOOOOO, as far as Europe is concerned, they come up with a directive, and then every country has to pass that directive into national law. So far so good. So UK does a Cost Benefit Analysis and passes the directive into British Law.
But when was the last time you heard that the European Commission, Parliament and Union have then gone back, collected all the cost benefit analysis, added them together, reviewed the results, and then have KILLED the original directive? Never.
These laws live on, they need modification, amendments, political compromises, blah blah blah, but the impact analysis is never carried out on a post law basis. I might well be wrong, but have you heard about this happening?
This is extremely inefficient public policy making, but would Europe change? Not a sausage. In the immortal words of PG Wodehouse, for Europe to do this "has about as much chance as a one-armed blind man in a dark room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wild cat's left ear with a red-hot needle."
So, how do they know that their laws were good? Of course, they know, they are Gods, they know everything, we are peasants, shut up and grovel! (if we arent, how come we arent getting a referendum on the Reform treaty?)
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