Are We Simply In Europe; Or Governed By It?

There appears to be a common perception, especially amongst those who hate the whole EU project with a passion, that as a nation, Britain is now essentially ruled by an avalanche of unannounced and unwelcome diktats and regulations, all of which originate from the un-elected and unaccountable EU representatives based in Brussels and Strasbourg. But is that true? Are our daily lives in the UK being dictated to by a deluge of foreign rules, regulations and statutes drawn up by an army of faceless European bureaucrats, who hold no democratic mandate in our country and whose interference is unwarranted?

 

The truth of the matter, is that nobody really knows. Although several half-hearted attempts have been made to try and find out just how much the continental European Union influences our daily lives, national laws, business communities and our native industries through the imposition of and insistence upon a set of common European laws, regulations, tariffs, etc. in reality it serves no mainstream British party's political agenda to specifically highlight EU regulations from any that are UK only, as this would only serve to identify and confirm the enormous level of European involvement in what might be regarded by some as wholly sovereign competencies, ie: British only issues. By way of example, in December 2002, the then Labour Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, said it would “entail disproportionate cost to research and compile the number of legislative measures enacted each year in the UK directly implementing EC legislation”. In other words, the ruling Labour Party of the time either didn't know, or didn't want the British people to know, the level of European legislative involvement in the UK's affairs; and so their spokesman hid behind the excuse of the likely costs involved in carrying out such research.

 

Because successive British governments, Conservative, Labour and then Conservative-Lib Dem have often chosen to amalgamate both national and European legislation, or hide their implementation through the use of Statutory Instruments, this has simply served to complicate the issue for those political representatives who have tried to publicly highlight the impact that EU legislation can have, or actually does have, on our everyday lives. Part of the problem for those individuals attempting to isolate specifically European generated legal instruments is that not every piece of legislation raised by the EU is relevant to each and every country; and in some cases, particularly in the UK, governing parties are often minded to simply incorporate new European legislation surreptitiously, adding them in during an overhaul or as part of a complete rewriting of the broader rules and regulations.

 

To further illustrate the point, on the BBC's "Question Time" program broadcast on 28 May 2009, differing percentage figures were offered by Labour's Caroline Flint, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Jo Swinson, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and UKIP Leader Nigel Farage. Mr Farage referred to a figure of 75%, which had been previously flagged up by the European Parliament President, Hans Gert Pöttering, as the percentage of EU legislation in which the European Parliament had a say, although Mr Farage mistook it for an estimate of EU-based national legislation. The Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan mentioned the 84% conclusion of a German Federal Government study, which was later revised down, while Caroline Flint referred to the House of Commons Library Note figure, which was thought to be in the low to mid teens; and certainly nothing like the figures being quoted by Mr Farage and Mr Hannan.

 

Even in our own Upper Legislature, the House of Lords, enlightenment is no closer on the subject of European legislation within the UK, than it is in the House of Commons, as was proved by the response by Lord Triesmann in that un-elected chamber. Responding to a question from one of his fellow peers, Lord Triesman, replied: "Many EU regulations have a purely technical or temporary effect. We estimate that around 50 per cent of UK legislation with a significant economic impact has its origins in EU legislation." In other words, he didn't know for sure, but this was his best informed guess!.

 

An OECD analysis of regulation in Europe yielded similar results. In 2002, they estimated that 40 per cent of all new UK regulations with a significant impact on business were derived from Community legislation. And despite reports that some 80 per cent of German regulation emanated from the EU, the German Government later estimated that the actual proportion is more likely to be about 50 per cent, around the same sort of level as in the UK, which is probably what one would expect, given the similarities between the two nation states.

 

According to one House of Commons Library report on the subject, between 1958 and 2010 the range of areas in which there has been a European Union role has inevitably increased, as successive Treaty amendments have introduced new areas of European competency to the Union, thereby giving rise to even more EU measures. The actual number of EU laws was reported to have reached its peak of over 14,000 instruments in the early 1980s and there was a lower peak in the mid-1990s. As a result of these changes the British Government estimates that around 50% of all UK legislation, with a significant economic impact, originated from EU legislation, presumably the source for Lord Triesman's answer in the House of Lords.

 

Under Article 3 of the original European Community Treaty, the EU has a principal role to play in the following areas of competencies{

 

a) Eliminating customs duties and quantitative restrictions on imports and exports between Member States, including establishing a common customs tariff and common commercial policy.

 

b) Abolishing obstacles to freedom of movement for persons, services and capital.

 

c) Adopting common policies in agriculture and transport.

 

d) Making sure competition in the common market is not distorted.

 

e) Ensuring the economic policies of the Member States can be coordinated and balance of payment issues remedied.

 

f) Approximating laws to ensure functioning of the common market.

 

g) Creating the European Social Fund to improve employment situation and raise standards of living.

 

h) Establishing the European Investment Bank for the EC’s economic expansion and associating overseas countries and territories to increase trade and promote development.

 

As one would expect, because the 28 countries that make up the European Union are very different in terms of national customs, cultures, economies, laws, etc. so the same pieces of European legislation can have very different effects on the country in question. In a study in 2009 Yves Bertoncini used EUR-lex data for EU acts in force on 1 July 2008, to compare the EU’s legislative activity in different sectors, which found that the Agricultural sector accounted for the largest proportion of EU law, at 42.6%, while Internal Market legislation was just under 10%, although when it included all legislation relating to the “four freedoms” (free movement of goods, capital, services and persons), it subsequently rose to 20%; and External Relations (technical, economic and financial) accounted for around 10% of the EU total. Fisheries related legislation was reported to account for some 6% of the European Acts in force, perhaps illustrating best of all that not all EU states are automatically affected by all EU regulations. It would seem to follow therefore that the more developed a member state happens to be in terms of its economy, industry, trade, society and laws then the more likely it is that it will feel the effects of European Union involvement, as established laws, rules and regulations are amended and adapted to suit the agreed "standard" of the group.

 

The acquis communautaire, the sum total of the European Community's Agreements, Acts, Statutes, assorted Legislation and Memorandums of Understandings is often used to illustrate the excessive and intrusive nature of the EU on the sovereignty of the various member states. In one particular case, Open Europe, an independent think tank calling for the reform of the European Union, was minded to point out that between 1957 and 2005, the EU had passed a staggering 667,000 pages of new European laws, apparently overlooking the fairly obvious fact that most pieces of legislation are often accompanied by lengthy preambles, explaining the actual need and purpose of the specific piece of legislation, by way of explanation and perhaps even justification in some cases. However, that particular point aside, Open Europe also pointed out that an estimated 170,000 pages of these European laws still  related to active legislation, in force at the time, while the European Union itself believed a figure of 80,000 pages to be more accurate. All that being said though, the EU was forced to admit that the 80,000, or even the 170,000, whichever of the two figures was correct, it was still a staggering increase on the mere 2500 pages that were said to have existed in 1973, some thirty two years earlier. In commenting on the issue, Open Europe calculated that if the European Union were to continue adding to the acquis commaunitaire at the same rate as before, by 2020 the acquis document itself will comprise some 351,000 pages of laws and agreements, depending on which European language it is translated into.

 

As an addendum to those facts, a report by Open Europe in 2010 found that since 1998, regulation introduced in the UK was thought to have cost the British economy £176 billion. Of this, £124 billion, or 71 percent, was thought to have had its origin in the EU. In practical terms very few businessmen ever have time to read even a fraction of the laws passed by Brussels that impact upon their business; a job they leave to lawyers, lobbyists and compliance teams instead, who, accordingly, put up administrative costs. More recently an investigation earlier this year by Conservative MP Priti Patel found that new laws, regulations and rules from Europe were thought to have cost over £5 billion (or the equivalent of £9,500 every minute) since the start of 2011/12.

 

In another Open Europe paper called “Out of Control? Measuring a decade of EU regulation”, from February 2009, Mats Persson, Stephen Booth and Sarah Gaskell looked at the amount of EU legislation with an economic impact on business, the public sector or the “third sector”. Their assessment concluded that: The average annual proportion of the absolute number of regulations coming from the EU is 50.4 percent, with a range of 63.2 percent in 1998, to 38.3 percent in 2002. In this measure, we have only included regulations which, according to the corresponding IA, have any economic impact on business, the public sector or the third sector. We have therefore avoided the fallacy of comparing regulations of economic significance to those with a minor or merely administrative function.

 

Of course for most people, the most obvious way that the European Union impinges into their daily lives is through the news, whether that's in print, through the television, radio or online, announcing that British laws, rules or commonly accepted norms are suddenly incompatible with the EU's own regulations, as in the case of prisoner votes, the Human Rights Act, or whatever other subject happens to crop up. The truth of the matter of course, is that the European Court of Human Rights is an entirely separate legal entity to the European Union, although membership of the EU is entirely dependent on acceptance of and adherence to the ECHR. However, Court of Justice decisions cannot overturn national laws, although they may oblige the State concerned to amend or withdraw a domestic law that is found to be incompatible with EU law, and in such instances the European Union’s impact is felt more strongly than in the routine adoption of other everyday EU laws.

 

From the EU's perspective, their lawmaking ability also discourages other member states from enacting any new laws that might conflict with a Court ruling. In the UK one of the most significant examples of an acute impact was the Factortame case, which tested the constitutional basis of parliamentary sovereignty. The case concerned the UK’s obligation under EC law and the terms of Spain’s 1985 Act of Accession, to allow Spanish fishermen to fish in UK waters within the prescribed EC quotas. Following a ruling by the European Courts of Justice the House of Lords ‘disapplied’ the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 in so far as it conflicted with the later EU obligations and based on the assumption that Parliament had not deliberately contravened EU law.

 

In terms of a ballpark figure, in this current Parliament alone, it is estimated that a total of 3,500 new regulations and directives have been passed by the European Union that directly affect British businesses; and the total word count of all 3,500 regulations is just over 13 million words. It would take a UK business person, working an average 40 hours a week and reading at the average reading speed of 300 words per minute, an estimated 92 days to read all the EU red-tape enacted since the present government came to power.

 

Also, it has been estimated that it would take a business person 55 minutes every Monday to catch up with all the EU laws that have been introduced in the past week. Or they would have to spend eleven minutes every evening catching up with the laws that have been introduced since that day began. If they only looked at these new laws once a month they would have to take a morning off to catch up (and spend 3 hours 42 minutes reading solidly to complete them)

 

So as to the initial question, are we simply of Europe, or governed by it? Well, it obviously depends on who you ask, especially if you hold the view that successive governments have clearly attempted to obscure any sort of straightforward answer to that particular question. If it was purely based on numbers of new regulations raised, pages produced or individual words written, then one could probably come to the conclusion that not only are we governed by Europe, but have also been swamped by its manifestly out-of-control bureaucracy. From headline grabbing bananas, plant seeds, mobile phones, economy airfares, to more important issues, like working hours and pay, the European Union has somehow managed to bog itself down in a nightmare pursuit of European standardisation, often against the wishes of the culturally different indigenous populations. Clearly forgetting the lesson that one size doesn't necessarily fit all, the European's Union's almost instinctive habit of legislating to achieve conformity, or uniformity, can only ever be a recipe for disaster, something that the members of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council all seem quite happy to ignore at their peril.

 

Speaking for myself; and as has previously been noted on this blog, I do now; and will always consider myself to be British, not so much English, not French, not German, not Spanish; and certainly not European. No matter how much the EU tinkers, regulates, legislates, agitates, or interferes in our Parliament, our courts, our businesses, our schools, or any other sector of our country, ultimately we will remain British, English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish; and no amount of European inspired law, whether its 50% or more, will ever change that.