Dishonest Taxpayers' Alliance again miss the point

Another week, and another dishonest and misleading ‘report’ about the costs of the EU by a right-wing pressure group. This time the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance has published a book in which they claim that EU membership costs every citizen £2000 a year. Typically, it bases its figures on papers written by Patrick Minford and Ian Milne – both supporters of the Bruges group and both in favour of Britain withdrawing from the EU. Unsurprisingly, given the sources, the figures they claim are rather high. The frustrating thing is that these ‘studies’ are a complete waste of time – they are not designed to find the truth about the cost of regulation, but about feeding eye-catching figures to eurosceptic tabloids (as I pointed out in my reply to another such "study" last week by Open Europe.

Back the real world, the European Parliament yesterday voted to adopt legislation on type approval requirements for motor vehicles. This legislation includes a number of measures that will make cars and roads safer, including tyre pressure monitoring systems, wet-grip requirements for tyres and standards for tyres that will reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Costs will be outweighed by the benefits. Moreover, in this case (and many others), EU regulation means cutting red-tape for business by replacing the 50 or so existing type-approval certificates with just one.

So, will the Taxpayers’ Alliance or Open Europe report this example of ‘good regulation’? Yes, and pigs might fly.

It is ridiculous to rubbish all regulation

Following in Open Europe’s footsteps, their fellow bastion of right-wingery the Institute of Directors (IoD) has brought out a paper claiming that Britain’s labour market is becoming much less flexible as a result of regulation at national and EU level.

The IoD cites 10 major employment regulations which have been introduced by Labour since 1997. No doubt they would like to repeal them all. These include the minimum wage, rules on maternity and paternity pay, rights for part-time and fixed-term workers, increased employee involvement under the EU Works Council Directive and anti-discrimination legislation.

But these rules prevent exploitation at work and ensure some level of work/life balance. Put bluntly, they should exist in any society worth the name.

However, the IoD's claims about the damage such rules are causing to our economy are somewhat undermined by the tables they publish which reveal that the British labour market has a far higher score on the Indicator of Labour Market Adaptability (ILMA) than it did in 1997 and three times higher than 1992 when the Tories were in power. Meanwhile, there is a corresponding increase in the flexibility of the supply of labour.

The IoD, of course, revels in its role as an 'unacceptable face of capitalism', but they share the same blinkered attitude as Open Europe: regulation = bad, deregulation = good. But objectively, regulation is not a zero-sum game. It is about finding a balance between work-place rights and social protection and flexibility for businesses and employees. And regulations don't always cost money and can sometimes even save money. Unintentionally, the IoD research indicates that this balance, with the odd exception, has been found.

Some much needed balance to Open Europe's claims on regulation

Further to my post yesterday on dubious stories about the EU, Open Europe has recently launched a paper called 'Out Of Control' which focuses on the costs of EU regulation.

It of course produces some juicy statistics which they know the right-wing papers will eat up, but much of their research is flawed.

The European Movement has published my own briefing on regulation and Open Europe's claims, which you can read here.

Following this month’s earlier story concerning the plight of Scarborough’s MV Coronia – the passenger vessel docked due to new UK maritime legislation – I have been made aware of another Yorkshire passenger vessel facing similar problems. Bridlington’s Yorkshire Belle has been told by the MCA that due to new "EU legislation" it is no longer able to make its traditional voyage between Bridlington and Scarborough.

As I revealed last month, these restrictions are not EU laws – they are existing British maritime laws that the MCA now want to enforce with no exceptions. These British regulations mean that vessels such as the MV Coroniaand the Yorkshire Belle can sail no further than 15 miles from their departure point, but the rules contained in the EU directive on maritime safety restrict vessels from sailing no more than 15 miles from the nearest harbour, meaning that should the MCA apply these rules that the British government agreed at European level, both the MV Coronia and the Yorkshire Belle would be able to continue to make their traditional voyages along the Yorkshire coats with no restrictions.

I have already written to the MCA to request they apply the EU rules that will save these two pleasure boat companies from going out of business, and am awaiting their reply.

To show your support for these vessels, and similar vessels around the country facing the same problems, please sign the petition urging the MCA to apply the restrictions contained in the EU directive on maritime safety.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/pleasureboats/

Euromyths are not always a media invention – they are sometimes made up by those who have a vested interest in shifting the blame away from themselves. Such is the case with the current controversy over the MV Coronia – the ship that defied the Nazis during World War II to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk, which has now been told it can no longer make the 17 mile journey from Scarborough to Whitby because of “new EU restrictions” limiting the distance a vessel like the MV Coronia can travel to just 15 miles.

Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has championed the cause, writing a letter to Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, demanding to know “why British laws are being cast aside in favour of an EU directive.” But perhaps Mr McMillan-Scott should have checked his facts first and then he wouldn’t be left with egg on his face.

It turns out that the restrictions preventing the MV Coronia from making its traditional voyage are not EU laws, but in fact UK laws. Not only that, should the UK simply implement the European directive on maritime safety without adding its own restrictions, the MV Coronia would be able to make its traditional voyage.

The Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA), the organisation tasked with implementing British maritime policy, has deviously suggested that new restrictions placed on passenger vessels have been imposed by the EU because the MCA adopted new EU classifications of vessels in order to apply their existing regulations more stringently than before.

But as well as containing new classifications of vessels, the EU directive also contained new more appropriate restrictions for these classes – but these restrictions have been ignored by the MCA. According to British regulations, the MV Coronia may not travel more than 15 miles from its point of origin, but under the new EU regulations, the MV Coronia may travel within 15 miles of the nearest harbour. This means that should the MCA simply implement the EU maritime safety directive, the MV Coronia would be able to make its traditional voyage with no restrictions.

But Tory MEPs and the anti-EU media don’t care about the facts. All they care about is spreading lies and false fear about the EU. In this case, their desire to criticise the EU has ruined any chance of gaining support for the very thing that would prevent the MV Coronia from going out of business – the rules we jointly agreed with other EU countries.

So, the Tories seem to have abandoned their short-lived, "moderate" strategy and taken a turn to the right and deeper into anti-European territory.

The move comes in a desperate attempt by Cameron to boost his lagging popularity. It might help him placate the right wing of his party, and save him from attempts by them to oust him, but it will not help with the wider public.

The manoevre comes via a report drawn up by former cabinet minister John Redwood who claims his “war on red tape” will cut £14 billion, in what he described as “a tax cut by any other name”. But this money isn’t going to magically appear out of thin air. It will come at a cost: less safety protection at work, no statutary paid holidays for employees, no guaranteed maternity or paternity leave, lower standards of consumer protection and more damage to the environment.

Such ‘magic money’ is guesswork as to how much it will really save companies, but it is extraordinary to focus on cutting health and safety legislation where any short term saving will be outweighed by long term costs to the Health service.

Will they spell out to people that "we’ll give you tax cuts, but by the way you might not be able to have any paid holidays any more at work"? A strange way to win hearts and minds!

As to the promise to opt-out of European legislation, they have (of course) totally ignored the point that many of these rules are intended to cut red tape. The fact that a small firm can now register a trademark once and it is valid across 27 European countries, instead of having to go through 27 different national procedures each with their own forms, fees and hassle, is a benefit from EU legislation. So is the ability of British lorries to take our exports to, say, Milan, showing only a single administrative document at frointiers instead of the dozen or so at each frontier that used to be necessary.

And unilaterally opting out of the common rules for the common market that we have agreed with our European partners is not so easy. Do the Tories really think that they will say "yes, by all means, play to a different set of rules from the rest of us, we don't mind"? Would they let British companies alone not abide by minimum standards for environmental protection, consumer protection, workplace safety, decent treatment of staff and so on?

Of course they wouldn't. It would mean the end of the common market. The Tory Eurosceptics know this. They see it as part of their strategy for leaving the EU, by making demands they know cannot be met, but they prefer not to spell that out openly.

All this is further evidence of a clear lurch to the right, even beyond traditional Tory values, to a new hard line approach that even traditional tories should find difficult to swallow.

How to switch sides when the facts don't match your line: The traditional Eurosceptic story is about small businesses being burdened by red tape from Brussels. Yet, when the Commission proposes to exempt small businesses from some of the regulations on food hygiene, the refrain switches to "an EU initiative that risks a dramatic rise in food poisoning". Instead of sticking to their usual line that it 'should be up to your own government to decide on how small cafes are run', the Times goes with the 'bash the EU' brigade for, this time, not being prescriptive enough!

So the EU is criticised for over-regulation and criticised when it exempts businesses from regulation!

Open Europe, the eurosceptic think-tank, has re-used the old gimmick of calculating the total volume of EU legislation by pages, pointing out that it would stretch 31.7 miles. This illustrates, they say, that "the growing burden of EU over-regulation is a serious problem for businesses and even voluntary groups".

Sounds fine, but they do not mention that a large proportion of this EU regulation is designed precisely to cut bureaucracy and red-tape for businesses by setting a common EU norm to replace 27 divergent national standards in the EU's single market. In calling for regulations to be repealed, "Open Europe" is rarely specific. For instance, do they want to repeal legislation that allows a company to register a trademark once, to be valid throughout Europe? Without that legislation, companies would have to register their trademarks 27 times over, going through different hoops and bureaucracies in 27 different countries, filling in 27 different forms etc.

No EU legislation can possibly be adopted without the agreement of a very large majority (and often unanimity) of the member states themselves, so the very idea that the EU has "imposed" unwanted and unnecessary legislation on member states is somewhat simplistic. Yet the eurosceptics go on trying to portray the EU as an all-powerful bureaucracy spewing out unwanted legislation that member states have no choice but to accept. Any attempts to counter this myth and to explain how the system actually works are denounced by them as "EU propaganda". Their lies and hypocrisy make you sick.

There is, however, one thing the EU can do - and is now beginning to do - to reduce the number of pages of EU legislation. This relates to when it adopts legislation amending pre-existing EU legislation (and the bulk of single market legislation nowadays is precisely that: an update or review of existing EU law, rather than new EU law). Rather than adopting countless directives amending another directive, it should recast the original directive, keeping a single text rather than a string of them on any one subject.

The Constitutional Committee of the European Parliament is at this very moment preparing a change to the Parliament's Rule of Procedure to facilitate the adoption of consolidated legislation of this kind. At least this will lessen the ability of eurosceptics to exaggerate the volume of legislation that emanates from the European Union.