How Much Does the EU Rule YOUR Life?

How Much Does the EU Rule YOUR Life?

(Source thetrumpet.com) Europe has a population of 445 million relatively rich consumers and is one of the biggest, most lucrative markets in the world. It also has some of the world’s toughest regulations. Big businesses follow the EU’s rules so they can sell to EU customers, and they then sell the same goods and services to those in other nations. Big businesses who want access to the European market have to spend millions of extra dollars on lawyers, equipment, fees, taxes and other costs to come into compliance with EU regulations. But these businesses actually love it. Why? Because it is easier to face one tough set of regulations than dozens of differing sets in dozens of European countries. It also means that smaller businesses can’t compete. Once big businesses commit to applying EU regulations, they become, in effect, agents of the EU. A big business’s smaller, domestic competitor in a non-EU country does not have to follow these same rules and is therefore smaller, nimbler and able to peel away some of their market share. So big businesses are motivated to pressure national governments around the world to adopt the

EU’s rules, which helps them squash their competition. The result is some bizarre alliances. You may have thought big corporations and environmentalist charities would be bitter enemies. But the two worked together to pressure the EU to adopt one set of standards for reporting companies’ environmental records. Then they worked together to persuade the International Organization for Standardization to apply the same rules worldwide. Greenpeace and Copa-Cocega—a body representing Europe’s farmers—worked together to push for tough European rules limiting genetically modified crops.

Not that EU bureaucrats need the help. They are quite aggressive themselves in forcing EU rules on other countries around the world. Bradford claims this push began around 2007. That’s when the European Commission saw what it called “a window of opportunity to push global solutions forward. The EU is in a good position to take a lead ….” The same year, another EU paper said that the EU’s efforts to create a single set of internal rules should be “the launch pad of an ambitious global agenda.”

That has now become a worldwide reality.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *