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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

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.

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.