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> Other stories include speculation that curved bananas are to be banned It’s acting not so far fetched as there was an actual regulation for this: > https://

• kjakm 6y ago
  It’s misrepresented. The regulation unified laws across countries to enable trade. It actually cut down on laws by creating one to cover all countries. Countries already had their own differing laws on food standards before making trade difficult.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • jdasdf 6y ago
    Except you could enable trade without banning curvy bananas. All they had to do was standardize a rating system for bananas, and then countries could chose to ban whichever ratings they liked. Its a clear system that allows and enables trade, while letting countries have their own regulation.
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      I don't think they were ever 'banned' in any sensible meaning of that word though - you could always sell them as a different class of banana. (But I don't understand what anyone in industry or government has got against the curative of fruit in the first place - what a pointless thing to classify by.)
      • rbanffy 6y ago
        If you and your competitors have exclusive suppliers, you’ll want your competition to have their suppliers banned while your suppliers are favored.
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          Well that sounds like a bad reason not a good one!
          • rbanffy 6y ago
            Why do you think companies spend millions with candidate donations and lobbyists?
    • jonathanstrange 6y ago
      It's not that simple. You're falling prey to a common misrepresentation of EU regulations. They were all initially very complex, sometimes looking almost absurd, because they were comprised and based on the bilaterial treaties and regulations of 28 member states. The EU then gradually simplified the regulation over the years. You'd think that simple combinatorics would make people understand the benefits of this procedure, but unfortunately journalists always picked on the initial complexity of the rules. Especially during the 80s this was a "low hanging fruit" for writing another fun article. In other words, pick any 28 random countries from the world and write an article that explains all of their import & export regulations, food safety standards, etc. You'll see what you get...
      • jdasdf 6y ago
        Except i'm not. I'm stating that whatever regulations the EU could have made didn't have to involve banning anything, or indeed taking any power whatsoever from the national governments. If the purpose was to facilitate trade, the way to do it is by providing information to those who want to trade, not by banning them from doing so.
        • jonathanstrange 6y ago
          You still don't understand. The initial regulations were almost always directly derived from the individual regulations of the member countries and bilateral treaties from them. If they banned e.g. a certain form of trade, then that's because some member countries vigorously opposed to these kind of trades and e.g. block with a veto. Of course, you can always lament that certain countries blocked certain trades - acting on their national interests instead of the interests of the trade union as a whole. What you cannot claim is that a system with bilateral treaties between 28 would in any way offer an advantage in terms of the complexity of the regulations. This claim is just nonsense. You can look almost anywhere you like and will find that the EU regulations have simplified trade tremendously over the years. Unfortunately, writing articles about how simpler trade among member states has become is less popular than writing another article about the ridiculous initial regulations which were derived from the existing trade regulations of the member countries.
• La1n 6y ago
  It doesn't seem that weird to have a regulation for having the same classes of quality across the union. Not every banana sold has to fall into the "extra" class.
• smcl 6y ago
  Not really - there's a difference between stipulating that one class of banana be "free from deformation or abnormal curvature[1]" (if it weren't said banana would be Class II and still legal) and declaring the EU is banning curved bananas. It's just as dishonest as when someone like Andy Ngo sees "Alcohol Restricted Zone" signs in an area of the UK that had a substantial muslim minority population, then reporting that the UK has areas governed by sharia law. Both are examples of extremely deliberately dishonest retelling of something that originated in something true (that there exist both quality control regulations for fruit, and signs reminding you that street drinking is not permitted) which were blown up into something ridiculous for attention and to stoke mistrust and hatred of something each journalist disliked personally. [1] - Also as an aside I am sure that while "abnormally curved" is a term that seems vague to us, those who actually deal with importing and selling bananas will have a good understanding what would fall under this.
  • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Literally the only things the Tory Party are good at is misrepresenting the truth for PR purposes, and using the misrepresentation to promote a toxic self-harming bubble of nationalism which they can ride to power. Like most nationalists, they need three things - a flag, an enemy, and a compliant media machine. Given those they can keep themselves in power almost indefinitely, while providing nothing of real national value. Which is unfortunate, because the UK has a very strong talent base - which it's currently squandering in favour of corruption and nationalist authoritarian nonsense.