What bollocks Eurosceptics like UKIP come up with to rationalise their xenophobic beliefs. According to a UKIP report, “Brussels [is] making 8 UK laws every day”. Actually, this is based on 2,754 pieces of legislation introduced by “Brussels” in 2009, consisting of directives, regulations, Commission decisions and “legislative instruments”. Most of which will probably never be implemented by the British government, or at most used as the basis for British laws.
Apparently, UKIP members are still fighting the Second World War, and “Brussels” does sound a lot like “Berlin”. However, the European Commission does not make laws for member countries. They report on which policies will best serve the interests of member countries and the EU as a whole, and members of the European Parliament subsequently vote on these to establish directives. Adopted EU directives and guidelines then have to be integrated into national legislation.
Unless Spanish waiters and French bartenders inherently scare the living daylights out of you, the system does make sense. Ambiguous legislation drives up the cost of doing business across European borders, and in many cases will reward as business acumen in one country what might be punishable as fraud in another. National tax breaks and loopholes would result in a race to attract multinational corporations, leaving smaller local enterprises to carry the regional tax burden.
The bean counters at UKIP then shudder at the cost of all of this:
EU Commissioner Gunther Verheugen estimated in 2006 that the cost of EU regulation on economies Europe wide was around £581bn, equal to the total economy of a medium-sized European nation.
What they fail to mention is the benefit of doing business within the EU to the collective economies of all member countries. When a British company supplies products or services in France or Germany, the taxable income flows back to the UK, creating a regional benefit. Unless, of course, the company in question makes use of any of the available offshore investment opportunities to avoid paying tax on its profits. Tax avoidance opportunities created under… British laws.
Oh dear.
