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Government by Eurocrats: The Olive-Oil Dispenser Debacle
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Like so many debacles in the EU, it started with the unelected European Commission. It’s immune to voters, but not to lobbyists and corporations. Under the guise of “consumer protection” or “food safety” or some other harmless moniker, it generates zany laws that tend to benefit large corporations. But last week, it went too far, even for Europeans – not that they don’t already have enough crises on their hands. It passed a law that banned restaurants from serving olive oil in refillable containers, such as cruets or dipping bowls.
On January 1, 2014, their use would become illegal. Instead, olive oil would have to be served in a one-use-only bottle, labeled in accordance with EU standards, and equipped with a tamper-proof “hygienic” spout. A restaurant owner in Germany, for example, who buys his special olive oil from an artisan producer in Southern France, would be out of luck; that small producer wouldn’t be able to comply with the costly stipulations. The restaurant would have to switch to an industrial supplier that can ship the special restaurant bottles with their tamper-proof spout and EU label. The small producer would be cut out.
The Commission’s decision was made under a Eurocrat procedure, called comitology – though it sounds like it, I’m not making this up! It allows for legislation that is binding for all 27 Member States to be passed into law automatically, without majority support from those Member States.
Exactly! The evil that this new law was supposed to cure: olive oil fraud. Admittedly, it’s a big issue in Europe, in the US, and elsewhere, and some of the largest industrial brands, such as Bertolli, have gotten caught with their pants down. But this law wasn’t going after fraud at the corporate level. On the contrary. It was passed under heavy lobbying from corporate producers.
The law targeted restaurateurs trying to make their own decisions about olive oil. Ostensibly it aimed to protect consumers and their taste buds from cruets or dipping bowls that had been refilled with low-quality or adulterated olive oil ... the kind maybe that big brands like Bertolli and others were sued for selling in California. But when asked if they’d seen any evidence of adulterated olive oil on restaurant tables, an official told the Daily Telegraph, “We don’t have any evidence; it is anecdotal and that was enough for the committee.”
The decision exemplified what’s wrong with EU governance. But there were other issues with the harebrained law. It would create a cesspool of bureaucracy and mountains of additional trash, including the small one-use-only tamper-proof bottles with their spouts, boxes, and containers. And more oil would be wasted as the bottles – much like Ketchup bottles – would be designed to make it impossible to get all the oil out of them.
But this time, the Commission and its process of comitology were greeted with an outburst of loathing and mockery. Criticism was “universal and came from consumers and restaurant owners in all EU countries,” an EU official told the Telegraph. And it came from the very top. “This is exactly the sort of thing that Europe shouldn’t even be discussing,” explained UK Prime Minster David Cameron, with an eye on the real problems that are currently dogging Europe. “It shouldn’t even be on the table, to force a pun – so to speak,” he said. And Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told his parliament, “I think it is too bizarre for words and incomprehensible to come with this sort of proposal at a time like this.”
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, son of a small olive oil producer, apparently intervened, and on Thursday, European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos threw in the towel. The law provoked some “misunderstanding,” though it was “intended to help consumers, to protect and inform them,” he said. But now that it was “clear that it cannot attract consumer support,” he’d withdraw it.
Not everyone jubilated. “It is totally ludicrous that the commission just withdraws this measure due to political pressure,” said Pekka Pesonen, general secretary of COPA-COGECA, a lobbying group representing industrial producers, and one of the forces behind the law. “Perhaps it wasn’t explained well enough. But it was necessary to ban refillable bottles and the traditional aceiteras found on restaurant tables....” etc. etc.
The thing isn’t dead yet. Ciolos said that he’d have a huddle with opponents and critics of the law in order to somehow resuscitate it – because it’s just too good to let die. So this law about olive oil in restaurants has morphed into a symbol of governance by Eurocrats – and their raggedy efforts to manage the economy of the EU.
As bank lending has dried up in Spain, the government has apparently made it its mission to make the working lives of self-employed workers and small enterprises as difficult as possible by ramping up their tax burden to historic highs. Read.... Black Market or Bust: The Stark Choice Facing Many of Spain’s Self-Employed.
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How inmates have taken over the asylum, courtesy of the communists who run it all. In progress here too, Common Core school curricula. Get your kids out of government schools or next generation will be NWO for sure. www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/propagandizing_the_plebs_the_common_core_curriculum_meets_the_ged.html
And I can't buy raw milk from my farmer. For my protection, of course.
The raw milk issue has always fascinated me, not because of the rights and wrongs, but because government sees it as being more important to stop the sale of raw milk as opposed to cigarettes.
It is this hypocrisy that makes you realise that the issue is not about public health.
Finally some good news to report. Against all odds and a judge who was clearly biased, the Wisconsin farmer who was harrassed and raided by food nazis gets an aquittal.
"In these days of creeping tyranny – some would say galloping tyranny – whenever freedom wins a battle, it’s time for a celebration.
So pour yourself a champagne glass full of healthful, delicious, GMO-free raw milk, and raise a toast to Vernon Hershberger, who was just acquitted by a jury on three of four counts of “foodcrime.”
Hershberger can now return to his farm and continue producing healthy food for his neighbors. The jury’s verdict sent an unmistakeable message: When a farmer like Hershberger wants to run a cooperative food club, and provide his neighbors with raw milk and other non-Monsanto, farm-grown foods without a retail license, he is acting within his legitimate rights. In other words, both raw milk and direct-to-consumer food clubs have been effectively legalized in Wisconsin.
Hershberger was only convicted on one of four counts: Violating the holding order placed on his products after he was raided by the food gestapo. Since the jury effectively ruled that the raid itself was unjustified, and since Hershberger is a peaceable man with a reputation for community service, it seems unlikely that Judge Reynolds will impose anything close to the maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $10,000 fine."
http://zen-haven.com/raw-milk-acquittal-a-victory-for-freedom/
Jury Nullification.
"we are doing it for your good health and safety"..when you hear .gov use these words, you are being fucked.
"Cheers!"
Cigarettes are produced by large corporations who employ lobbyists. Raw milk is produced by small farmers without any lobbyists. There, explained it for you. I often joke in my comments but sadly this one is not a joke.
Cigarettes kill people (after huge medical bills drive them into bankruptcy) and raw milk doesn't. Even simpler.
It used to kill people a hundred years ago before antibiotics were discovered. Not so much now, though.
El G, how ya been? I haven't talked to you in a coon's age!
Government sanctioned monopolies are for are own good. Banking, Music and film,Milk production, GMO, pharmaceuticals. Its all there to protect us from competition.
One of the deadly Sins.
Under Globalist Central Planning™, they eventually want to merge ALL small producers into monolithic single source aggregators under direction from the Global Politburo™. Competition is anathema to them - either politically or commercially - because it creates innovation and turf wars ... oh, and unexpected outcomes - a bureaucrat's worst nighmare!
That is why, for example, 50 major media owners became 5 or 6 ... heading for just one in the end. Same with Monsanto attempting to monopolise global seed distribution.
WE HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM THE SCOURGE TYRANNY OF OLIVE OIL IN DIPPING BOWLS
IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE YOU ARE A WHITE AL-QAEDA DOMESTIC EXTREMIST :D
Power corrupts, absolute power absolutely corrupts.
Bertolli produces and exports more olive oil that all the olives of Italy would not be able to make up that much even if they were no olives used to be eaten. You can tell that the EVOO can not be so because it's not green it's most likely blended with oils from all over the world. and they are not the only ones.
The olive oil industry is self regulated as far as grades. Good luck!
I checked another bottle the other day with the Italian flag and in the label small print it said: oil could be from S. Africa, Peru, Australia and something else.
Stay with the Greek and Spanish brands and always check the labels.
Italy sources oilve oil from Greece and sells it as Italian olive oil because suckers pay a premium for Italian over Greek
Exactly - the same with marble, shoes, etc.: the same pair of shoes sells for twice as much if it says italian, than portuguese. Italian=eccellente! - portuguese=not so much... (even though it may be the same product).
as long as an extra Virgin is thrown in
Don't forget Portuguese: there's a big estate here, owned by a Spanish company, which exports it's production to Italy, where it's then bottled and sold internationally as Italian oil.
It's the same scheme, btw, as that other well known industry "secret", which consists in bulk importing (quality) Portuguese marble to Italy, and then sell it as Italian, to the international market.
Same goes for plenty other products, protected, even: some French cheese are known to be produced with milk from as far as Turkey and elsewhere, to keep up with demand.
escargots from calf lung...
calamari from sheep and goat sphincter
Freedom from government
Bon mot, Sir.
Oxy from Morons
...
If this comitteenism thing is really a 'thing', then the small peripheral countries like Greece and Finland should be able to form a committee to repeal all the bad regulations, and that should apply uniformly including to Belgium and France and Germany. Otherwise, I'd call it bullshit.
Just stick with the Greek brands ... any of them ... far superior to Spanish and Italian ... and on a par with premium 'gournet' brands from small estates in other parts.
Una faccia, una razza
Greeks, Italians, Spainards...its all the same, even the olive oil. This story points to the ultimate farcical nature of our present condition: a thoroughly corrupt system that employs technocrats to feret out "fraud", but only at the local level since to peel back the curtain any further would mean, well exposing, the true fraudulant nature of what controls us.
Another example of the fascism of the unelected Eurogovernments. Historically, never addressing Natural Laws but decreeing that all freedoms are dispensed by unelected governments... kings, queens, popes...
Ah, Tradition
The very same path the organized political spheres here in the States wish us to follow....
Rancid oil is a better name for what is sold in the US as "European" olive oil.