David Cameron ridicules EU olive oil jug ban

[Barman]

David Cameron has attacked a proposed Brussels ban on the use of unmarked olive oil jugs in restaurants as "exactly the sort of area that the European Union needs to get right out of".


The Prime Minister criticised the ban as a caricature of unnecessary EU interference and a piece of red tape that should never have been proposed, let alone agreed.

"This is exactly the sort of thing that Europe shouldn't even be discussing. It shouldn't even be on the table, to force a pun - so to speak. So this shouldn't even arise," he said.

"This is exactly the sort of area that the European Union needs to get right out of in my view."

Holland stated its objections to the "bizarre" ban at a Brussels summit on Wednesday. Last week Britain abstained, while the Dutch voted against, in a vote during an obscure EU agriculture management committee opening the door for the European Commission to implement the ban next year.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, told his country's parliament that a blocking minority against the ban was overruled when Britain, along with other countries, abstained or switched their votes to support the ban

So it is a bizarre piece of legislation that the EU should have nothing to do with - did the UK vote against it? Did they fuck! 

So now it is to become UK law...

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that British officials were sympathetic to the measure because it is part of the "benefits of food labelling" and Defra has admitted it will impose the ban.

So who voted for this bizarre piece of legislation which will mean that any olive oil "presented at a restaurant table" must be in pre-packaged bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards? The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls will be outlawed, effectively ending the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business...

And why did the UK not vote against it?

In a press conference at the EU summit, Mr Cameron declined to explain how Britain had ended up giving the green light to the ban.

"Our argument was bound up in a whole set of arguments we were having about rules of origin and all the rest of it and I won't go into the tedious complexities," he said.

What utter, utter arse wibble! 

[apc2010]

I read something about it ...(another place).......I thought it was a wind up......

[boogs]

David Cameron has attacked a proposed Brussels ban on the use of unmarked olive oil jugs in restaurants as "exactly the sort of area that the European Union needs to get right out of".


The Prime Minister criticised the ban as a caricature of unnecessary EU interference and a piece of red tape that should never have been proposed, let alone agreed.

"This is exactly the sort of thing that Europe shouldn't even be discussing. It shouldn't even be on the table, to force a pun - so to speak. So this shouldn't even arise," he said.

"This is exactly the sort of area that the European Union needs to get right out of in my view."

Holland stated its objections to the "bizarre" ban at a Brussels summit on Wednesday. Last week Britain abstained, while the Dutch voted against, in a vote during an obscure EU agriculture management committee opening the door for the European Commission to implement the ban next year.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, told his country's parliament that a blocking minority against the ban was overruled when Britain, along with other countries, abstained or switched their votes to support the ban

So it is a bizarre piece of legislation that the EU should have nothing to do with - did the UK vote against it? Did they fuck! 

So now it is to become UK law...

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that British officials were sympathetic to the measure because it is part of the "benefits of food labelling" and Defra has admitted it will impose the ban.

So who voted for this bizarre piece of legislation which will mean that any olive oil "presented at a restaurant table" must be in pre-packaged bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards? The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls will be outlawed, effectively ending the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business...

And why did the UK not vote against it?

In a press conference at the EU summit, Mr Cameron declined to explain how Britain had ended up giving the green light to the ban.

"Our argument was bound up in a whole set of arguments we were having about rules of origin and all the rest of it and I won't go into the tedious complexities," he said.

What utter, utter arse wibble! 

Couldn't agree more ... they should spend their time looking at the mess we are all in and doing what they are getting paid large salaries for and sort things out .... but what do they spend their time on... crap like this...

[Steve]

well seems it's now all been reversed, a victory for common sense and a defeat for those that think control is the preferred way to manage issues (because leadership has too many syllables?)

[Barman]

well seems it's now all been reversed, a victory for common sense and a defeat for those that think control is the preferred way to manage issues (because leadership has too many syllables?)

Good news!

But the bastards don't give up do they?

Mr Ciolos acknowledged on Thursday that the ban plan had failed to muster sufficient support.

"I have seen and heard strong views expressed by consumers," he told reporters.

"As a consequence I am withdrawing the proposition."

But he continued to defend the idea, saying restaurants were potentially misleading customers by serving cheap or old olive oil in containers presented as new.

He said he would convene producers, traders, restaurateurs and consumers "round the same table" in a bid "to find a better way".

Politician speak for "we are still going to do this... we'll just wait until everybody has forgotten about it"...

[Barman]

There has been a hoo-hah about the proposal to force restauranteurs to sell only factory-produced and approved olive oil. It hasn't quite been described this way rather as a ban on those cute little dipping bowls and in unlabelled bottles. The proposal has been dropped  - a welcome and unusual reaction (I guess that the EU was found out). And this is what the industrial olive oil folk have to say:

    Copa-Cogeca, a farming association that represents industrial olive oil producers who would have benefited from the ban by getting a higher price for factory packaged bottles, attacked the climb down.

    "It is totally ludicrous that the commission just withdraws this measure due to political pressure - it has been discussed for over a year and passed through all the correct legal procedures," said Pekka Pesonen , the general secretary of Copa-Cogeca.

    "Perhaps it wasn't explained well enough. But it was necessary to ban refillable bottles and the traditional aceiteras found on restaurant tables. It is totally unacceptable that the Commission has done a complete U-turn and has succumbed to political pressure like this."

You will notice a couple of things here - these producers "would have benefited from the ban by getting a higher price" and that the proposal has "been discussed for over a year". Moreover the ban, we're told is "necessary" - presumably for the owners of these industrial oil companies.

This is how the EU works. Organised lobbies corral officials and MEPs to browbeat them with proposals to protect their particular interests. We see this with the car industry and OEM parts, with industrial cheese manufacture in Italy and Greece using PDOs and PGIs, and with the pharmaceuticals business over herbal supplements (and more recently e-cigarettes).

All of this is wrapped up in warm words about 'health', 'safety' and 'protecting business' when, in reality, it is simply a ramp for the interests of the lobby. As a European consumer my interests are not served - and I am the poorer for this - by the failure of those who represent me (politicians, ministers and so forth) to do so. Now this is a feature of government everywhere - you only have to peek at the sugar industry in the USA to know that - but the EU has managed to achieve its perfection.

This olive oil ban is overturned (it will be lack, trust me) but ask yourself how many restrictions, bans, privileges and preferences have damaged our interests that haven't made the papers and haven't caused an outcry? The EU may have grown too large for us to take it round the back of the barn and finish it off with an axe but we have to option to leave.

We should take that option.

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