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We're Not Europe ... Yet

By Doug Bandow on 6.28.10 @ 10:12AM

Washington is filled with idiot regulators. But they still don't compare to the morons in Brussels.

Under the draft legislation, to come into force as early as next year, the sale of groceries using the simple measurement of numbers will be replaced by an EU-wide system based on weight.

It would mean an end to packaging descriptions such as eggs by the dozen, four-packs of apples, six bread rolls or boxes of 12 fish fingers.

The Government appeared to have been caught out by the change, but yesterday Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, signalled Britain would now step in to prevent the rule being enforced.

MEPs last week voted against an amendment to new food labelling regulations that would allow individual states to nominate products that can be sold by number rather than by weight.

Individual countries are currently allowed to specify exemptions but the new rules under discussion make no such provisions.

The changes would cost the food and retail industries millions of pounds as items would have to be individually weighed to ensure the accuracy of the label.

Want a dozen eggs? Oops, here come the European Union's food police!

Thankfully we're not there yet. But give this president and Congress a little more time, and we might end up there!

View all comments (2) | Leave a comment

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.28.10 @ 12:38PM

Well, Doug,
.22 cartridges come in boxes of fifty....or one hundred.
.30 caliber cartridges cme in boxes of twenty.
Shotgun shells come in boxes of twenty-five.

I am reflecting of course upon the Supreme Court today (1 vote majority) decision in favor of the 2nd ammendment.
Rush's first words today..."Folks, we are hanging by a thread...hanging by a thread..." (narrow vote to uphold 2nd Ammendment.)

I know very well that Rush knows very well...that he has just yelled "FIRE" in our crowded theatre. He has just yelled "FIRE"...THUS ENDANGERING HIS OWN LIFE AND LIBERTY...AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
God bless you, Rush.

Slartibartfas| 6.30.10 @ 5:29PM

Isn't the author of these lines ashamed of this piece of unchecked copy and past piece of some hilarious EU myth? Just because the Telegraph did so too, does not make it any truer. It just tells us that the Telegraph is not much better than the Daily Mail, at least as soon as it has anything to do with European legislation.

For those who still don't know. The reality check is: The EU never ever considered banning any of that. All the proposed (!), not enacted, legislation does is demanding that information about the weight is given on the package. As eggs are nowadays already graded producers could simply add a translation of the grade into minimum grams of content. All they have to do is changing the label a single time. No one bans the information "6 eggs" and no one ever considered banning that. The daily mail made that up pretty much by itself and everyone copy and pasted it from there.