eurotrash - the latest from brussels
WORKERS, FEB 2005 ISSUE
More, and more, and more
The European Commission is demanding a 35% increase in the EU budget, already £70 billion a year. Since 1984 Britain has paid 58 billion euros more to the EU than we have received, compared with France's 29 billion and Italy's 17 billion.Compulsory retirement
The government is to implement the EU Equal Treatment Framework Directive as part of legislation intended to end "ageism". The government interprets this as abolition of the compulsory retirement age unless the employer, not the worker, can justify it. This is convenient for a government intent on raising to 65 years the age at which anyone can draw their pension. And women, too, will have to wait until they are 65 - in the name of "equality".
Reaction abroad
EU governments are calling for a military rapid reaction force to use in wars across the world. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said, "Battle groups will be capable of dealing with a range of peace support and humanitarian tasks." This is part of an EU effort to develop an independent "defence" capacity that can be deployed outside US-led NATO missions. Hoon claimed that the battle groups were not a precursor to an EU standing army.
Speaking out
The imposition of English as the lingua franca of the EU has advantages for American companies in Europe, but not necessarily for their workers. French employees of the US multinational General Electric Medical Systems, which makes X-ray equipment, have accused the company in court of discrimination against the large proportion of its staff who speak no English.
Thatchers out
Thatched cottages may reflect nostalgia for a rural Britain long gone. But new EU rules present a threat to Britain's 70,000 thatched properties and sound a death knell for the thatcher's trade. Straw from the type of wheat preferred by the EU cannot be used for thatching. EU directives ban the growing of traditional long-straw wheat, or even buying or donating its seeds.