5 ms·

It's because there is a strong tendency for EU overregulation. This one sounds good to me in principle (I don't know about the implementation). Recent examples

by ar-jan 7y ago

It's because there is a strong tendency for EU overregulation. This one sounds good to me in principle (I don't know about the implementation). Recent examples: it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters. In the Netherlands, 80% of firefighers are volunteers. The current system works very well, and this is new regulation is likely to cause massive problems. It will be impossible the maintain current quality, because it is impossible to maintain a huge paid workforce just for occasional large incidents. For example, in a recent large fire there were over a hundred firefighters active, most of them volunteers. Moreover many volunteers do it for fun, or to contribute something to society, and do not want to be a paid firefighter, or would not be able to because of their main job. Thanks, EU. Another one: EU wants to register every single chicken. Not just commercial chicken farms, every single chicken would have to be registered, even for hobbyists having a few chickens running around in their back yard.

Retric 7y ago
The chicken thing can be a large human health issue. It might not seem like they are a heath hazard, but many extremely deadly flu viruses make the chicken human jump.
- ar-jan 7y ago
  But small numbers are judged to be low risk, the main health problems have to do with concentrated commercial chicken farming.
looki 7y ago
A quick Google search tells me that the "new regulation" re firefighters you're talking about is a recent court ruling about the working time directive from 2003. Volunteer firefighters are a huge part of the firefighter workforce in many EU countries including Germany (97%) and France (78%) so I highly doubt what you're insinuating will happen.
- ar-jan 7y ago
  I read about it in Dutch news, which also mentioned that other countries also have volunteer firefighting forces, but I didn't look up their numbers. Various officials here said it would have big implications and keeping the system as it is would be impossible. So some law or regulation would have to change. Incidentally this is a good example of why EU regulations can be so problematic: if this example is fixed, it will be because many countries have large volunteer forces so the problem cannot be ignored. But if the regulation happens to affect just one or a few smaller countries you might be out of luck. Not everything can be regulated centrally without unintended consequences.
  - the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
    It’s not even a regulation. It was a court that decided on this matter.
    - ar-jan 7y ago
      Yes it's due to laws and regulations. It's all part of EU labour law. See my other comment.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Courts don't decide policy, they interpret the law.
  - daleharvey 7y ago
    Speaking as a Brit Read the replies to your original post, there was no new regulation, whatever you read in the news was made up. In the british press there is a constant stream of fabricated stories about EU "regulations" that take a cursory google to disprove.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      It's so bad in the UK that some years ago the EU set up a "British Euromyths" blog, to highlight all the Daily Mail type "EU about to ban breathing!" stories. The pieces are mainly from the expected suspects. https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ No idea if there is a Netherlands equivalent.
mpweiher 7y ago
> EU overregulation Most of that tends to be misinformation. For example: > it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters Nope. Not even close. A firefighter in Belgium sued because he said that on-call time is work, and the court decided in his favour. This caused concern that generalising this could cause problems. However, the EU was aware of these concerns and apparently this case cannot be generalised in this way: https://www.ctif.org/news/die-eu-arbeitszeitrichtlinie-informationsnotiz https://www.ctif.org/news/die-eu-arbeitszeitrichtlinie-infor... I don't know how it works in Belgium, but in Germany, the voluntary firefighters (which is almost all of them), simply continue to be paid by their main employers when active. The employer can then recover this from the responsible government organisation. For this, the application of the working time directive changes...nothing. Also for standby times during working hours, for which the employee is working for his main employer, so again no change. I am guessing (but not sure) that the issue is on-call time when the employee is not working for his main employer. People have raised concerns that this might have the potential to negatively affect volunteer firefighting. But as far as I know, nothing has actually happened, and apparently nothing will. So as so often, almost complete misinformation: 1. The EU will not make it "illegal" to have volunteer firefighters. 2. It was actually a lawsuit, not a regulation. 3. It was about working time, not about making volunteer firefighters illegal. 4. So at most it would have been an unintended consequence of a good and necessary regulation. 5. However, these unintended consequences were only imaginary, they never happened. 6. The EU bodies were fully aware of the importance of volunteer firefighters. 7. Had there been unintended consequences, they would have mostly been of the formal variety that affect local authorities. > every single chicken [..] registered, even for hobbyists having a few chickens Also nope, only if you have 50 chickens or more. https://www.tsk-bw.de/Melde_Beitragspflicht/Wer_muss_melden.php https://www.tsk-bw.de/Melde_Beitragspflicht/Wer_muss_melden....
- ar-jan 7y ago
  Thanks for the background regarding the firefighters. As for the chickens: you are linking to what look like current regulations in Germany. At issue is the Animal Health Regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:2016:084:TOC https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:201...) which will be in effect from 21 April 2021. There is a statement that there should be exceptions for pet animals, but these exceptions did not make it into the regulation for chickens. The Netherlands argued for this but did not find support, and is currently trying to arrange for exceptions. It is not fake news.
Vinnl 7y ago
Those criticisms are really only informative if you'd also give the purported reasons for implementing those regulations, otherwise we can't weigh them. (General principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence)
zmk_ 7y ago
According to [1], what happened was that volunteers were recognised as workers by ECJ and as such their time on call at home can count towards their weekly worked time. An older directive (2003) sets out a maximum working time which I am sure nobody is complaining about, and if anything in many member states people claim to be working to many hours. Individuals can and could previously opt-out of these limits. Nothing new under the sun here. It is also clear that no "regultation" is being planned. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000201-ASW_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-00020...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 7y ago
The chicken thing sounds like over-regulation, but it's already reality for ungulates, and I suspect it's tied into disease control. We really don't want a situation where the national chicken industry is wrecked by an outbreak of bird flu that can't be controlled because we don't know where the chickens are. On the other hand, one thing the EU is genuinely bad at is the "small operator" exemptions which UK law is generally good at. They very rarely exist in EU law.

by ar-jan 7y ago

Retric 7y ago

The chicken thing can be a large human health issue. It might not seem like they are a heath hazard, but many extremely deadly flu viruses make the chicken human jump.

ar-jan 7y ago
But small numbers are judged to be low risk, the main health problems have to do with concentrated commercial chicken farming.

looki 7y ago

A quick Google search tells me that the "new regulation" re firefighters you're talking about is a recent court ruling about the working time directive from 2003. Volunteer firefighters are a huge part of the firefighter workforce in many EU countries including Germany (97%) and France (78%) so I highly doubt what you're insinuating will happen.

ar-jan 7y ago
I read about it in Dutch news, which also mentioned that other countries also have volunteer firefighting forces, but I didn't look up their numbers. Various officials here said it would have big implications and keeping the system as it is would be impossible. So some law or regulation would have to change. Incidentally this is a good example of why EU regulations can be so problematic: if this example is fixed, it will be because many countries have large volunteer forces so the problem cannot be ignored. But if the regulation happens to affect just one or a few smaller countries you might be out of luck. Not everything can be regulated centrally without unintended consequences.
- the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
  It’s not even a regulation. It was a court that decided on this matter.
  - ar-jan 7y ago
    Yes it's due to laws and regulations. It's all part of EU labour law. See my other comment.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Courts don't decide policy, they interpret the law.
- daleharvey 7y ago
  Speaking as a Brit Read the replies to your original post, there was no new regulation, whatever you read in the news was made up. In the british press there is a constant stream of fabricated stories about EU "regulations" that take a cursory google to disprove.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    It's so bad in the UK that some years ago the EU set up a "British Euromyths" blog, to highlight all the Daily Mail type "EU about to ban breathing!" stories. The pieces are mainly from the expected suspects. https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ No idea if there is a Netherlands equivalent.

mpweiher 7y ago

> EU overregulation Most of that tends to be misinformation. For example: > it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters Nope. Not even close. A firefighter in Belgium sued because he said that on-call time is work, and the court decided in his favour. This caused concern that generalising this could cause problems. However, the EU was aware of these concerns and apparently this case cannot be generalised in this way: https://www.ctif.org/news/die-eu-arbeitszeitrichtlinie-informationsnotiz https://www.ctif.org/news/die-eu-arbeitszeitrichtlinie-infor... I don't know how it works in Belgium, but in Germany, the voluntary firefighters (which is almost all of them), simply continue to be paid by their main employers when active. The employer can then recover this from the responsible government organisation. For this, the application of the working time directive changes...nothing. Also for standby times during working hours, for which the employee is working for his main employer, so again no change. I am guessing (but not sure) that the issue is on-call time when the employee is not working for his main employer. People have raised concerns that this might have the potential to negatively affect volunteer firefighting. But as far as I know, nothing has actually happened, and apparently nothing will. So as so often, almost complete misinformation: 1. The EU will not make it "illegal" to have volunteer firefighters. 2. It was actually a lawsuit, not a regulation. 3. It was about working time, not about making volunteer firefighters illegal. 4. So at most it would have been an unintended consequence of a good and necessary regulation. 5. However, these unintended consequences were only imaginary, they never happened. 6. The EU bodies were fully aware of the importance of volunteer firefighters. 7. Had there been unintended consequences, they would have mostly been of the formal variety that affect local authorities. > every single chicken [..] registered, even for hobbyists having a few chickens Also nope, only if you have 50 chickens or more. https://www.tsk-bw.de/Melde_Beitragspflicht/Wer_muss_melden.php https://www.tsk-bw.de/Melde_Beitragspflicht/Wer_muss_melden....

ar-jan 7y ago
Thanks for the background regarding the firefighters. As for the chickens: you are linking to what look like current regulations in Germany. At issue is the Animal Health Regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:2016:084:TOC https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:201...) which will be in effect from 21 April 2021. There is a statement that there should be exceptions for pet animals, but these exceptions did not make it into the regulation for chickens. The Netherlands argued for this but did not find support, and is currently trying to arrange for exceptions. It is not fake news.

Vinnl 7y ago

Those criticisms are really only informative if you'd also give the purported reasons for implementing those regulations, otherwise we can't weigh them. (General principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence)

zmk_ 7y ago

According to [1], what happened was that volunteers were recognised as workers by ECJ and as such their time on call at home can count towards their weekly worked time. An older directive (2003) sets out a maximum working time which I am sure nobody is complaining about, and if anything in many member states people claim to be working to many hours. Individuals can and could previously opt-out of these limits. Nothing new under the sun here. It is also clear that no "regultation" is being planned. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000201-ASW_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-00020...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 7y ago

The chicken thing sounds like over-regulation, but it's already reality for ungulates, and I suspect it's tied into disease control. We really don't want a situation where the national chicken industry is wrecked by an outbreak of bird flu that can't be controlled because we don't know where the chickens are. On the other hand, one thing the EU is genuinely bad at is the "small operator" exemptions which UK law is generally good at. They very rarely exist in EU law.