PLANE SCARE BOARDING ON THE LUDICROUS

Flight refund rule may cost us dear
In a recent [weblog, Commission vice president Margot Wallstöm] boasts of visiting two airports to hand out leaflets on the EC’s new “denied boarding regulation”, 261/2004, which this month gave passengers the right to compensation if flights are delayed or overbooked. On Friday it was reported how, three days after the regulation came into force, the pilot of a British Airways 747 jumbo jet discovered on leaving Los Angeles for London that an engine was on fire. He could have aborted the flight but, thanks to the EU’s new law, this would have landed BA with an automatic £100,000 compensation bill. When the pilot contacted London, he was told to carry on.
(Christopher Booker’s notebook, The Sunday Telegraph 27 February 2005)
Mr Booker’s imagination has really taken off with this latest offering. That new rights for air passengers will somehow force …

Who called up 118?
Six weeks ago, amid the shambles over the new 118 directory enquiry services, I asked why no one had pointed out that this was brought about under an EU directive.  Sir Richard Storey, who has occupied many senior positions in newspaper publishing, sent a copy of my article to the relevant minister, Stephen Timms, asking for his comments. As is the way with modern ministers, Mr Timms sent it on to the telecoms regulator, Oftel, for a reply.  The response from Rachel Francis of Oftel said that my article had been “factually inaccurate”.
(Sunday Telegraph, 16 November 2003, page 14, Christopher Booker’s Notebook)

We chose 118
The decision to use the prefix 118 for directory enquiries was taken by the Government.  No directive or regulation at EU level demands Britain adopt 118.(Sunday Telegraph, 23 November 2003, letters page – letter from Jim Dougal, head of European Commission Representation in the …

“Doorstep pintas may be broken by Brussels” (Daily Mail, 31 July 2001, page 33)
The glass milk bottle…faces oblivion from a new EU directive.

“EU threat to British pinta” (The Sun, 1 August 2001, page 2)
The traditional British milk bottle is under threat from a new EU directive. Brussels chiefs are looking at replacing the pinta with plastic cartons to cut down on waste. 

“Newsrounds caught in red tape tangle” (The Sunday Telegraph, 26 August 2001, page 13)
So along with doorstep delivery of milk bottles, soon to be outlawed under a new EU packaging waste directive, which regards re-usable milk bottles as environmentally undesirable (plastic containers are preferred),…, another sliver of the British way of life bites the dust.
The glass milk bottle does not face oblivion from a new EU directive. A study was recently carried out for the European Commission into recycling of different forms of packaging. It concluded that for some …

The 250 members of the Border Stick Dressers’ Association…are baffled as to why David Byrne, the EU Commissioner for food safety, should now be proposing … that all sheep’s horns must be classified as “specified risk material” and incinerated.
(The Sunday Telegraph, p24, 2 April 2000, Christopher Booker)
Removal of Specified Risk Materials (SRMs) is the best protection against the transmission of BSE and this has been the Commission’s overriding concern. However, the use of carved horns poses no such health risk and is excluded from the Commission’s proposal.

 …under the EU’s animal waste directive … it is legal to bury…dead pets only after “pressure cooking them at 130 degrees centigrade for half an hour”…
(The Sunday Telegraph, p20, 26 March 2000, Christopher Booker)
This is rubbish. The animal waste Directive, in force since 1992, merely stipulates that “high-risk” material – such as BSE infected cows – be disposed of in an approved processing plant. There is nothing in the Directive to prevent dead pets, which do not present a serious risk of spreading communicable diseases, being disposed of through burning or burial.

Europe wants tax on taping TV at home
Families face paying a levy to video their favourite television programmes under a new European directive…
(The Sunday Telegraph, page 10, 19 March 2000)

Euro-prats want a tax on TV tapes
Meddling Eurocrats want to tax TV addicts who tape their favourite shows…
(Sunday People, page 35, 19 March 2000)

Euro tax wind-up on vids
The proposal was sneaked into the latest EU copyright directive…
(The Star, page 7, 20 March 2000)
So-called “Euro-prats” have not “sneaked” anything into the amended proposal for a Copyright Directive.  In fact, the proposal explicitly states that compensation due to rightholders as a result of private copying of this kind would be “up to the Member States to decide in accordance with their legal traditions and practices”.  The UK would therefore be perfectly entitled to continue its practice of not imposing any such levies.

Euro-prats want a tax on TV tapes
Families face paying a levy to video their favourite television programmes under a new European directive…
(The Sunday Telegraph, page 10, 19 March 2000)

Euro tax wind-up on vids
The proposal was sneaked into the latest EU copyright directive…
(Daily Star, page 7, 20 March 2000)
Meddling Eurocrats want to tax TV addicts who tape their favourite shows…
(Sunday People, page 35, 19 March 2000)
So-called “Euro-prats” have not “sneaked” anything into the amended proposal for a Copyright Directive.  In fact, the proposal explicitly states that compensation due to rightholders as a result of private copying of this kind would be “up to the Member States to decide in accordance with their legal traditions and practices”.  The UK would therefore be perfectly entitled to continue its practice of not imposing any such levies.

Eurocrats want to slap VAT on kiddies’ clothes
VAT will be slapped on the price of baby clothes, newspapers, books and some foods under plans unveiled by Brussels last night.  EU chiefs want all member states to have the same tax levels for everything…And they plan to scrap Britain’s right to vary it.  That means EU laws could be foisted on us if a majority of countries backed them.
(The Sun, page 2, 15 March 2000)

Blair faces EU ambush over tax harmonisation
Tony Blair has become the victim of a political ambush on the eve of a European Union summit…by moves to abolish Britain’s national veto in key areas of taxation, VAT and social security policy.
(The Sunday Telegraph, page 2, 19 March 2000)
Despite the obvious delight of the sceptic press, there was no “ambush” and there is no proposal to “slap” the same tax levels on everything.  A contribution from the Commission to …