How The European Union Kills Business In The United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom joined what was portrayed as a European Free Trade organisation on 1 January 1973; this was called the Common Market

. Thereafter the organisation was generally referred to its more European name the European Economic Community (EEC). Almost immediately the UK sampled examples of incredible bureaucracy such as the Common Agricultural Policy which appeared to reward inefficiency and a glut of overproduction which lead to the infamous butter mountains and wine lakes. What was sold to the general UK public was a free trade organisation not a political union, but already maverick voices in the UK were warning of an ulterior motive of creating a United States of Europe. Indeed, over the subsequent years the EEC has evolved into ever closer political union and increasing bureaucratic interference into everyday and business life in the UK. The Common Market was re-named European Union (EU) in 1993 following the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992; this in effect took more rights from member nations over matters relating to foreign policy, military, criminal justice, and judicial cooperation to the central bureaucracy of the EU. The treaty saw European democracy in force, Denmark were asked to vote again as the people had not provided the correct affirmative answer in their referendum at the first attempt. The UKs acceptance of this treaty was controversial, to say the least, and in true EU fashion the public were not asked for their views. The Maastricht Treaty led to the creation of the common currency the Euro just over ten years ago which was adopted by many, but not all member states. Significantly the UK with a British public opinion largely against joining the Euro negotiated an opt-out from this part of the treaty. It is also to former Financial Chancellor and Prime Minister Gordon Browns credit that he resisted attempts for the UK to adopt the Euro currency. It is generally accepted that the UK would be in an extremely precarious position, given the current Euro-zone crisis had it joined the Euro. The continuing trend within Europe has been ever closer union whether the people like it or not. The European Union behaves like any other bureaucracy, with its prime function to grow and become more powerful, which is not the same as being more efficient or even wanted. This was classically shown by the disgraceful Lisbon Treaty. This started life as the EU Constitution Treaty which in short grabbed significantly more rights from member nations. This was put to a referendum in France and Holland, and was decisively rejected by the people of these countries. The EU simply rebranded the rejected Treaty as the Lisbon Treaty and bullied nations into not having a referendum on it - Republic of Ireland was an exception due to its inherent constitution. The Irish people rejected the treaty by referendum - not the right answer for the EU so they were bullied and bribed to vote again. All these shenanigans by the EU demonstrates this is not a political democracy in any shape or form, but more akin to a bureaucratic dictatorship - hence the nickname EUSSR given by some to the EU! Without going into fantastic detail, the Euro as predicted by a former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and many others, is doomed and will more than likely falter the near future possibly this year (2012), with at least Greece - possibly others leaving the Euro. In the absence of complete political, taxation, banking unity the single currency is doomed to fail. Very simply the European Union has collectively spent/wasted far too much money and the markets have cottoned on that some countries have borrowed more than they can afford to pay back. The countries in the Euro zone cannot independently devalue their currency or change interest rates. The UK Prime Minister David Cameron in a recent European summit in December 2011 to try and save the Euro (again), resisted the bullying tactics designed to extract more rights and money from the UK by unilaterally exercising a veto to their latest treaty amendment, effectively taking yet more powers away from member countries. This was certainly a popular stance with the people of the UK, and may well catalyse a detachment of the UK away from the ideological facet of the European Union, to concentrate purely on trading links. Albeit much of this strong stance; appears to have been subsequently watered down, in the light of the usual Euro pressure. As the author runs a business, he finds it rather ironic some of the rubbish that comes out of the mouths of various European Leaders concerning trade. It is clear that most of these people do not have that slightest idea of what business is about or indeed of working in a business environment. What is often muted as that the UK needs the European Union to promote trade, and hence jobs. Utter tosh, the EU in common with other bureaucracies actually hinders business efficiency - often to the total destruction of companies. This article will cite a number of examples from the personal authors business of how the EU actively hinders enterprise, but first an analogy. Imagine a school playground where the boys (and to be a bit PC a few girls as well) are trading Football Cards. This is all quite simple, any duplicates are swopped for the players they are seeking - no doubt with players from Charlton Athletic Football Club being particularly popular. In other words trading is going on, no rules - no bureaucracy - all very simple. Until the staff of the school get involved to regulate the trade. It is decided that cards should only be traded at certain times, and that there should be an equal gender and ethnic mix of pupils trading, the cards are vetted and any the teachers dont like are banned. This is all getting a bit complicated, so they introduced forms to be signed by everyone, and an inventory of everyones cards need to be kept. The governing body decides that each pupil now needs to submit a monthly return of the cards traded. In the end the pupils find all this too much, and just give up trading cards. These is an extreme example, but replace pupils with traders and the school staff with the European Union - and this is effectively the scenario imposed on traders within Europe. In the same way the bureaucracy, time wasted, and cost of the EU actively hinders trade not encourages it. To be frank the author as a business owner that exports goods, finds it far easier dealing with countries outside the EU. Overall businesses gain precious little from EU regulations, and these are more than offset by a downside of significant bureaucracy and to be frank often bonkers anti-businesses over regulation. It also must be said that an organisation that has not had its own accounts signed off by auditors for 17 consecutive years, and has financially defaulted (known in euro double-speak language as a haircut) on debts by virtue of Euro zone and in particular Greece - is in absolutely no position to lecture anyone about running a business! The EU Working Time Directive was introduced in 1993. A little later than planned - this appeared to have been deliberately delayed to be pushed through when majority voting was allowed rather than the former unanimous voting. This became law in the United Kingdom 2009, the maximum 16 years transition time was utilised, which gives a fair idea of how popular this diktat was. In short the EU laid down a maximum of 48 hours in a working week, and a raft of other definitions. This has a profound adverse effect on working practices, and it is worth reiterating at this point that such rights actually takes away rights for both employers and employees. In the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK the Working Time Directive has effected the time doctors can be on call - as even sleeping time at employers premises counts within the 48 hours. It is ironic that the self employed, particularly when starting up can have work directly imposed by EU/government at no pay which can push them in to working well beyond 48 hours a week! However, the employer has to provide a plethora of rights to employees, which the EU/government does not accommodate to the provider! The EU is in essence a bureaucracy, and its behaviour is akin to a living organism to basically grow and survive. To grow, the organisation needs lots of money, and where else to turn but to the virtually religious ideology of Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, terminology apparently dismissed due to 15 years of continual cooling if anything). The author has consistently argued that pollution in a general sense is not good, and much of this is driven by over population. However the thing with carbon emissions (specifically CO2 - Carbon Dioxide) it can be measured - and hence taxed! The ideology of Climate Change has proved a goldmine for the European Union. The popular incandescent light bulbs have effectively been banned, notwithstanding that the low energy bulbs are not really that efficient when considering that heat emitted by incandescent lighting (and hence heating savings) were not taken into comparison account, produce a poor and harsh light. Furthermore energy saving dimmer switches are unusable at a sensible price, and the low energy light bulbs invariably use the poison Mercury which requires evacuation should a breakage occur. From a business perspective, the market would really go for a true low energy light bulb that quickly produces a pleasant light - the current low energy replacement does not offer this. Therefore Supply and Demand has to be manipulated by EU law to force consumers to use an inferior product. The EUs Landfill Directive is a classic example of demonic bureaucracy in action. Rubbish EU LandfillThis directive came into force in 1999, with an implementation of 2001. Basically the result for the United Kingdom is that the EU dictates how much land fill of biodegradable waste goes into landfill, with virtually impossible to meet reduction targets, with of course large fines for the UK amounting to billions of pounds for failing to meet these ridiculous targets. The author does not remember anyone voting for this, and it begs the question of why politicians signed over sovereign powers to the EU to do this, when a reverse Winston Churchill two finger salute would have been a more appropriate response. The Net result of the landfill tax, as in many EU directives is that the over burgeoning EU Super state gains more money to waste. This has adversely affected businesses and the general population alike. The old chestnut of reducing CO2 climate change has been cited as a reason, and to encourage recycling. On examining the USAs experience of such matters, it appears that all the extra lorries and extra resources utilised for recycling circumvents any supposed savings. Basic rubbish collections in most of the UK is now fortnightly, but with additional collections for such items as food waste and recyclables - with twice the lorries used for effectively half the service. All for recycling materials that often are at maximum required supply capacity anyway. To use the newspaper columnist Richard Littlejohns words You couldnt make it up. Incidentally the authors company Datalite UK Ltd does recycle card and paper as packing materials - but this has been a business reason, not the result of some European diktat. Another area, well beyond the scope of the original Common Market concept is how the EU infringes into matters of Equality. It is a truism that inequality exists from the moment of birth, and ultimately equality can only be achieved by treating everyone equally bad! The nearest to an equality environment is a prison! Equality of opportunity is in the authors view a desirable concept, but equality of outcome can never be achieved. This makes Equality a bureaucratic organisations dream - there will always be conflict and hence an excuse for the organisation such as the European Union to increase their influence, size, and ultimately income in dealing with matters of Equality. The mass of EU inspired legislation adversely affects business, and lets face it businesses are largely driven by profit - they would employ green with pink polka dot Martians if this resulted in a 5 of EU websites need to have an opt in for collecting information or the web owner will face a fine of up to 500,000. This will greatly detract from the user experience, and will directly affect an organisations ability to monitor performance of commerce websites. If fully complied with, web users will avoid EU websites like the plague - who wants to be bothered with continual nag boxes as they surf. Like so much rubbish that comes from the EU, this has not been thought through, ironically the majority of government websites are currently non compliant. I expect the EU wishes to take pot-shots at Google who provide Analytics will technically be illegal or useless if the diktat is followed. This seems similar to the European Union attack on Microsoft - the EU (unelected) leaders seem to be adverse to efficient companies. Top of the list of bonkers concepts is the European currency. It is difficult to know where to start with this. The Euro has been instigated purely for political ideology, pure financial considerations appears to have been poorly regarded. The idea that such diverse countries as Germany and Greece could share the same exchange rate and interest rate is deluded beyond belief. A staggering amount of countless billions of Euros has been wasted on trying to keep the Euro together, but to be frank the game is up. Nobody in their right mind would invest in a currency, where the European (unelected) leaders have already reneged on their commitments (Greece bond haircuts, actuates to a default). Greece will be out of the Euro soon, and no doubt the rest of the PIIGS will follow suit - this needs to happen so that some sort of sanity and sensible economics resumes within the Euro zone. Much of what the European Union has undertaken appears crazy, but the EU behaves as any large bureaucracy behaves. The organisation has a vested interest in becoming ever larger and more encompassing, whether efficient or not. This provides greater employment and promotion prospects for those within the bureaucracy - because the organisation is funded by taxpayers, money is seen as virtually unlimited. Certainly financial effects of bad decisions are not as rapidly apparent, but eventually economical reality can catch up. This has happened in spectacular fashion within the European Union - which is on the point of financial meltdown. The adage goes that Turkeys Do Not Vote Christmas; this does not mean that Christmas wont come anyway for the EU Turkeys!

by: John Henry BA BSc

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