“Europe” is not considering extending the Solvency II rules for the insurance industry to pension funds in a way that would force the closure of final salary pension schemes.

Articles (14 Feb) in the Daily Express, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent paint an incomplete and sometimes misleading picture

There is a current review of the rules applying to pension funds. But the Commission will not put forward proposals for some months yet.

Those proposals will definitely not “cut and paste” Solvency II provisions into pension rules. They will be based on detailed impact assessments and will be designed to make pensions safer – so that people do not contribute for many years and then lose out – without undermining the supply of occupational pension provision.

Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier has made a comprehensive public statement (10 Feb) on these issues, regrettably not referred to in any of the articles. It is …

Despite numerous news reports in the past 48 hours, there are no EU plans to ban the sale of eggs sold by the dozen, or even by the half-dozen for that matter!

The media frenzy was generated following a vote by MEPs concerning amendments to EU food labelling rules, which are also being examined by member states’ ministers too. The real question being addressed is whether there should be an obligation to include weight measurements on the packs as well. Not instead of.

Read more at the EP in the UK website: http://www.europarl.org.uk/section/2010-archive/eggs-can-be-dozen

Threat to pasta people stirs up lashings of controversy
Millions of Italians awoke yesterday to the terrifying news that their treasured tortellini, tagliolini. trofie and tagliatelle were about to be banned.  “Europe wipes out fresh pasta” screamed one newspaper headline, “Fresh pasta axed by Brussels” trilled another.  It seemed that the faceless bureaucrats had turned their beady eyes from bendy bananas to Italy’s national dish, with murderous intent.  “Within a few days the historic difference between fresh and preserved pasta will be eliminated … the scandal is the fruit of the latest heinous European food standards that set rules for fresh pasta” warned Rome’s la Repubblicca newspaper.
(The Independent, 10 April 2002, page 12)
Here The Independent reports that it is not just the UK press that is capable of working itself up into a europhobe lather. In a style of which the British tabloids would be proud, the Italian press interpreted a …

… the EU … has decreed that condom dimensions should be harmonised across the seamless Continent.
(The Independent on Sunday, page 25, 12 March 2000)
The EU is not involved in setting condom standards. The European Standardisation Committee (CEN) is a voluntary body made up of national standards agencies and affiliated industry/consumer organisations from nineteen European countries. It has nothing to do with the EU.

The British government is powerless to ban the fixture of potentially lethal bull bars to vehicles, because they have been approved by the EU.

Steven Norris MP, House of Commons, 19 April 1995

The Independent, 21 April 1995, p.9

Sunday Telegraph , 21 April 1995, p.17
This is not so, despite there being a number of EU Directives, within the framework for the type approval of motor vehicles (74/483/EEC), which set out the requirements for the external projections of motor vehicles. In fact national governments have three options should they wish to ban or restrict the use of bull bars.
Member States may place a temporary ban on the registration of vehicles that have been type- approved with bull bars. They can withhold consent for such vehicles, on the grounds of public safety, but only for a maximum of six months and both the European Commission and the exporting country must be notified of the …

A Brussels Directive is responsible for making some of Britain’s most challenging rock climbs more dangerous overnight by banning ‘RP nuts’ used to limit falls.
(The Independent on Sunday, p.8, 2 February 1995)
‘Brussels’ should not be held responsible for this, for it was the Member States and not ‘Brussels’ which agreed to the Directive. This is particularly so as the relevant part of the EU Directive involved, in this instance dealing with equipment designed to protect people falling from height, such as Australian-made RP nuts, was agreed by every Member State with the exception of Italy.

Furthermore the Directive does not ban anything, but simply specifies the conditions under which Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) can be put on the market.

The Directive provides for different testing procedures according to the gravity and irreversibility of the health risk. Its objectives are to make life easier for manufacturers by ensuring common certification procedures and safety …