“You Mean I Still Won’t Be Able To Off-Load All This Wonky Veg?”
Illustration by Steve Spencer
As the EU referendum rumbles towards its final destination on June 23rd it seems that the news would have us believe that everyone is totally consumed by the prospect. There are those who look for the facts, but there are many who don’t seem too bothered about how we will fair outside of the EU if the masses choose to leave.
I did overhear someone bemoaning how ‘Europe’ had imposed all kinds of stupid rules on us and that’s why we can’t sell ‘wonky veg’ in the shops anymore! This obviously alludes to things like only straight cucumbers can be sold as opposed to curved and such like?
In creating a single market across so many countries it became clear that there would have to be rules that each member country would have to adhere to and so the EU had to introduce regulations that would guarantee the same quality standards from one country to the next.
The impact of European standards is now felt on a global scale to the point where anyone wishing to trade with the EU single market, whether they are from the EU or outside of it, must abide by the standards set out in these regulations or the EU will simply refuse to trade with them. So the idea that by leaving the EU we wouldn’t have to put up with Brussel telling us what to do isn’t entirely true. The goods we produce would still have to meet all the criteria set out in the standards regulations otherwise they simply will not trade with us.
One Response
Robert Collins
You have rules of trading with any country & organisations, the problem with EU rules is we as a country do not make the rules that we HAVE to abide by , plus our trading would not be restricted to the EU or the expense of supporting the FAT Cats in it that have NO accountablity