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hasseochtage
Oftast läser jag kommentarerna (britterna har världens bästa humor). Men om det är en artikel som jag finner intressant av intellektuella skäl så läser jag hela, för att ta reda på om den är värdig en FB-tråd eller ej. I det här fallet så fanns det ju dessutom foton som backar upp storyn.
För nyhetsreportage föredrar jag annars Al Jazeera, men de drar sig för att kritisera något läger alltför ingående, så det är svårt att bruka deras artiklar som diskussionsmaterial. Det har hänt max en handfull gånger att jag har länkat till dem här på FB.
Daily Mail är knappast något att läsa av intellektuella skäl, men valet är ju fritt. Här har du bara ett litet smakprov på tidningens lögner och vantolkningar:
"Daily Express’s “11 barmy EU rules” either do not exist or are rather sensible
A pop-up on the Express web site, appearing for some time now via various pages featuring EU “news” and prominent in online searches, is headlined “Brussels’ craziest decisions.”
It cites “the top eleven unusual rules proposed by Brussels that seem too barmy to be true”.
That is because about half of these stories are simply not true. And the others are seriously misleading.
Here’s the Express list:
An EU copyright proposal will make it illegal to post photos of the London Eye and the Angel of the North under infringement law
Not true. In fact, one committee in the European Parliament wanted to end national exemptions from copyright law currently granted for photos of architectural and public art works. They were advocating only that commercial use of such images should be subject to copyright. The full parliament rejected even that idea, the European Commission never proposed it and Member States did not discuss it. Details here.
In an unforgettable ruling, the Brussels bosses were found to have a strange fear of bananas with ‘abnormal curvature’ after they were banned them (sic) until 2009
Not whole truth. There are rules on fruit quality in every developed jurisdiction. If there were not one set of rules for the whole EU, each Member State would have its own, creating havoc for transport and trade. So national agriculture ministers and the industry in the 1990s asked the European Commission to draft common legislation on this. Some rules still exist. But they have been reformed to cut red tape to a minimum.
Water bottles are BANNED from claiming to solve dehydration under an oddball EU rule
True but justified. That is because drinking water, whether from a tap or a bottle, is not enough to treat dehydration. That is why hospitals put dehydrated people on drips. There is an EU system – necessary in a borderless single market – where advertisers have to provide evidence for claims they want to make about the health benefits of products. On an issue like this, decisions are based on scientific advice. Experts – including in the Guardian here – demolished the idea that this ruling was in some way ridiculous. (...)
Brussels bureaucrats are fed up with Europeans confusing turnips and swedes and made sure supermarkets label them both correctly
True only in so far as supermarkets have to put the correct labels on food. Turnips and swedes are different things. But perhaps the Express is thinking here of another story in 2010 claiming that Brussels had interfered in Cornish pasty recipes – in fact the European Commission had merely accepted an application from Cornish pasty producers for an EU quality label.
Is it a jam? Or a fruit spread? Or maybe a conserve? Thanks to the EU a jam cannot be called jam unless it has at least 60 per cent sugar
Not true. National authorities can allow products with less than 60% sugar to be called jam. But there are different national traditions and some national authorities do not want to. Indeed, when the UK – not “Brussels” – issued proposals to allow such flexibility in Britain, the tabloid press, including the Express, objected violently…and blamed the EU for undermining great British jam, which they argued must have at least 60 per cent sugar or it would be “gloop”. Details here.
Vacuum cleaners with powerful motors had to be binned after an EU law to cut energy use
Misleading. The new rules banned energy guzzling vacuum cleaners that waste energy and lead to unnecessarily high electricity bills, not ones with powerful suction. Nothing had to be “binned”. Vacuum cleaners already in the home can continue to be used and those already in shops can still be sold. Full information here.
In 2010 the EU were close to banning up to a million drivers from the road after ‘EU experts’ claimed diabetics were ‘unfit’ to drive
Not true. No-one is banned simply because they are diabetic and no-one ever proposed that they should be. No-one ever claimed that “diabetics were unfit to drive”. There was never any chance of “a million drivers being banned from the road.”
But diabetes or treatment for it can cause or contribute to medical conditions which – depending on the degree – can make driving dangerous. As anyone licenced to drive in one Member State can drive in the rest, there is an obvious need for a consistent EU approach. Three eminent British practitioners were among eleven ‘EU experts’- as the Express calls them, inverted commas included – who advised the European Commission in 2006 on revisions to existing rules. Their report is here. Limited changes were in the end made by a 2009 EU law which the UK implemented in 2011. The Department for Transport estimated that “between 705 and 1 410 drivers might be adversely affected by the changes; while 2 000 or so might wish to take advantage of the relaxed standards for lorry and bus drivers.” The House of Commons Library issued a comprehensive report on the EU and UK rules.
The EU forbid shopkeepers from selling eggs by the dozen – now they have to be sold by weight
Not true. A quick look in any supermarket will show that eggs continue to be sold by the dozen – and by the half-dozen and very often also singly. The Commission and European Parliament denied this daft story already in 2010.
Under 2009 directives, it’s okay to eat a horse – just make sure you don’t own it as a pet. After two million pet horses ended up on the dinner table each year, the EU banned people from eating their pets
Not true. You could eat your own pet horse if you wanted to, though that is not known to be common practice. But it is true that eating horsemeat is popular in some countries, so it is important that people raising and slaughtering horses for meat cannot avoid food safety and traceability rules by passing them off as pets. To give one example, domestic horses are sometimes treated with the drug phenylbutazone but animals treated with it are not considered safe for human consumption. All horses have for many years needed to have a “passport” and since 2009 this specifies among other things whether or not they are destined to enter the commercial food chain. The UK government supports these rules and explains them here.
In another seemingly top EU priority, the meddling European lawmakers made it illegal for prunes to be sold as a superfood that fights bowel problems
Not true. After inconclusive supporting evidence was submitted with a first application – in fact, not every scientific study agrees on the digestive effect of prunes – producers put forward an amended application and the European Food Safety Authority in 2012 recommended that advertisers should be able to claim that “dried plums/prunes can contribute to normal bowel function.” This is another example – like the water issue above – of the EU’s science-based system to authorise wordings when health is at stake, to avoid consumers being misled by advertisers inventing or overstating the benefits of their product. This was not “a top EU priority” and nobody was “meddling”: the producers themselves applied for authorisation.
While we are at it, another widespread “barmy EU” story that we can refute is the idea that the EU has “banned hairdressers from wearing high heels”. In fact, the hairdressing industry – employers and trade unions – asked the European Commission to propose comprehensive health and safety legislation specific to the industry. The Commission declined on the grounds this did not need to be regulated at EU level.
Utdrag ur:
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/...army-eu-rules/
