Well done Open Europe.

They have established that the EU’s law codes amount to 170,000 pages of live commands, double the usually cited figure. That’s a pile of paper that would stretch for 31 miles.

Industry Commissioner Verheugen told the FT last year that EU legislation now costs business?? ??400 billion a year, or 5.5% of income! As Open Europe put it, it’s the equivalent of losing all the output of Holland every year.

??All those politicians and governments who say they cannot cut taxes could at least do the next best thing - cut regulation. All this regulation is just a backdoor tax rise. The regulators do the government’s bidding, and people and businesses have to pay for it all.

When will these regulators and legislators realise that there are limits to how much of this people can take, and limits on how much well intentioned law abiding people can be expected to absorb and comply with? No wonder there is so much unemployment in the EU, and so many people are put off running their own business. The fear is that small entrepreneurs end up quite quickly as law breakers because they physically cannot absord all of the requirements, some??of which are a nonsense and some contradictory. Thye havce long since given up arguing this regulation does us any good. They do it because they are desperate to extend their own power. It means?? employing more staff, and levying more fees, charges and fines on the subject population.

The EU says it is now feeling deregualtory, yet the Directives still pour out. The City is currently being overwhelmed by EU regulation, which we need as much as the US needed Sarbannes Oxley.

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