How Does Regulating Plastic Bags Stop Germany From Invading France?
IT was Sr. Barroso who told us, in a piece in The Times, that the aim and purpose of the European Union was to stop Germany from invading France. Again. So, every action of that European Union needs to be looked at in this light. Will it aid in preventing Germany from invading France? At which point we get the EU trying to legislate on the use of plastic bags:
Europe’s Committee of the Regions, a consultative body to the European Commission and Council, has suggested outlawing the free distribution of plastic bags at retail stores by 2020 or—even better—banning them entirely. The committee, comprised of 353 local representatives from across the EU, also wants mandatory targets for reducing per-capita plastic-bag use to 35 per person per year, from an estimated EU average of 198 per person per year currently.
Quite how this deals with Hun militarism isn’t certain.
But worse than this, it’s also against the EU’s own rules. Which are that everything should be dealt with at the appropriate level of governance. Only those matters where whatever is done in one place will affect people in another should be bumped up to the next level. Therefore, to give an example, it’s right that the rules about cap and trade, about climate change, are made at EU level because climate change affects us all. But clearly and obviously, the use of plastic bags is something that can only have an effect at town or village level. The laws therefore should be made at that level according to the EU’s own rules.
Plastic bag use ain’t about Germany invading France and it ain’t being dealt with according to the EU’s own rules either. Sod’em say I and let Berlin march on Paris any time they like.
Posted: 16th, April 2014 | In: Money, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
