Against All Advice, EU Now Wants to Control Soil Protection
An incident in the European Parliament last week vividly illustrates the Commission´s arrogant indifference to the consequences of their legislation.
Proposed legislation on soil protection has made many MEPs extremely angry, including some who normally support the EU.
One of the many consequences would be to outlaw the sale of cut turf - a thriving and ancient British trade.
During the debate, speaker after speaker pleaded on behalf of constituents all over Europe that the Commission drop this proposal. Even the chairman of the Parliament´s Agriculture Committee, Neil Parish from Cornwall – himself a farmer - pleaded with the Commission on behalf of the committee.
Another farming MEP from continental Europe claimed that his land had been farmed for many thousands of years. He said it was in the first interest of all farmers to ensure the quality and productivity of the land on which they depended, not only for their living but in the interests of consumers. “No farmer would ever allow his soil to deteriorate.. No-one knows better how to look after it.”
At the end of the debate Commissioner Dimas of Greece, a lawyer with no farming experience, started by saying that the Commission was “totally committed? to this legislation. During his entire response to the debate he made no reference whatsoever to the widespread pleadings for this legislation to be abandoned.
By the way, Greece is one of the worst offenders at regulating EU payments to their own farmers. If Greek figures are to be believed, olives are being farmed in the middle of the Aegean Sea.
This so-called debate last week serves as a vivid demonstration of the expensive charade the European Parliament really is. It is there to provide an illusion of democratic accountability, but it is nothing of the sort.
The debate also illustrated the enormity of the problem we MEPs face when trying to inject some degree of sanity into the bureaucratic lunatic asylum in Brussels. There are times when the Commission’s obsession for interference and control for its own sake, and without discernible benefit to anyone, beggars belief. This was one of them.
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