These two items are typical of the insidious way our government in
Brussels first tightens its grip and then ties us in knots with a
stifling miasma of sheer incomprehensible verbiage. But no party
ever admits to the origins of so much that exasperates us and riles
us in our daily lives. It all comes from the EU and is gleefully
administered by our own civil service.
xxxxxxxxxx cs
===================
PRIVATE EYE 1220 3-16/10/08
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
The EU has always been obsessed with the collection and exchange of
data. However, while Labour's surveillance measures in the UK can at
least be scrutinised in public and in parliament, EU decisions are
often made in secret.
A visible result of one such measure will be coming soon to a
passport office near you: collection of fingerprints as a "biometric
identifier" in travel documents. Need;es to say the data swill b e
held on a database and shared with other EU (and possibly non-EU)
states.
Now the European Commission is preparing plans that will see Brussels
extend its reach over personal data still further. The proposals
will take as their inspiration a report by the Future Group, a
shadowy collection of interior ministers not even representing all EU
countries. A new analysis by voluntary watchdog Statewatch shows how
far the amassing and tracking of data could go.
Thanks to technology "public security organisations will have access
to almost limitless amounts of potentially useful information" the
Future Group gleefully notes. The report gives us types of
information that could be 'managed' to begin with: DNA, fingerprints,
ballistics, car registrations, phone numbers, and civil registry
entries. But this is just the start - the Future Group says a
further 43 types of information could be shared and tracked. You
have been warned !
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Down on the Farm
As readers may recall, one of the greatest cock-ups for which even
this government has been responsible was the chaos it made of handing
out EU farm subsidies under the single farm payment (SFP) scheme.
Only because it related to boring old farming was this disaster not
more widely highlighted by the media.
Sometimes it is the big picture which conveys how far government
madness has gone, but sometimes just the tiniest detail will do. In
this case, it is the recent experience of David Stevenson who owns 10
acres of fields in North Yorkshire , on which he keeps 5 horses for fun.
Because he owns "farmland", without being a farmer, he every year
receives a tiny cheque as his single farm payment , followed by
sheaves of glossy bumf telling him all about the SFP in
incomprehensible bureaucratic prose, at a cost, he estimates must be
greater than the payment he receives.
Last month he received a letter from "Andy" the "2007 Modulation
Manager" of the RPA [? Rural Payments Agency ??? -cs] telling him
that, when he received his 2007 payment a sum had been deducted for
"EU modulation" But after a review , it had been decided he was due
a refund based on "5 percent of the first 5,000 euros" of his
claim. "Under the scheme rules", Andy went on, "there is a
national limit on the amount of modulation refunds we can make. This
is known as the national ceiling. If the ceiling is reached, a
reduction (scale back) applies to all SPS and related scheme payments
(related schemes are Area Payments for Nuts, Protein crop premium
and aid for energy crops")
Then came the exciting bit where Mr Stevenson anticipated learning
what bonanza he could expect. "If the payment you received for your
2007 claim was below 5,000 euros," he read, "the refund will be the
value of your claim x 5 percent, less 7.34 percent scaleback. The
amount of modulation refund will be shown on the remittance advice
sent to you separately. The amount you actually receive may be
different from the modulation refund as a result of claim adjustment."
Despite all this giving him the idea that he might look forward to a
cheque for as much as 45p, Mr Stevenson waited in vain. He therefore
wrote back to "Andy" saying that he could well understand how all
this talk of the Area Payments for Nuts, the national ceiling and so
forth might leave anyone bemused and he had every sympathy. He did
want to thank "Andy" for his "lovely letter" and for "all those
lovely brochures I get from you, so thick and beautifully printed
(what a good job our local council collects recycling from the
house). But actually", he confessed, "I don't understand a chuffing
word of it".
Muckspreader
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