MEPs yesterday voted on a new safety regime for offshore oil and gas platforms. And what do you know, it appears that the UK has managed to come up with an acceptable solution.
Fears that the Commission's original plan to push its plans via a regulation (which have direct effect) have not materialised and it is now to be done via a directive, giving states some leeway, and through careful negotiation the final outcome is similar to the existing UK rules.
This is interesting on a number levels. Firstly it is a good example of the UK successfully pushing its case in the EU. It is also a good example of how the UK can use its weight to influence MEPs and the Council of Ministers - and for the benefit of an industry based primarily in Scotland.
One interesting question is whether an independent Scotland within the EU would have the same potential to succeed (This is of course if they were in the EU at all.)
So: safety was watered down! Hooray!
ReplyDeleteUK and Norway.
ReplyDeleteNorway being outside the EU having a say on EU regulations.... Gasp!
Fabulous: They just tell us what the rule is that we have to obey, instead of a regulation ordering us to obey! Only a true quisling organisation could consider this a triumph.
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous, as the UK already has some of the highest standards it is more a matter of avoiding lowering standards and the additional costs and straightjacket of harmonised EU regulation.
ReplyDeleteThe vineyards of France, Italy and Spain do not belong to us (via the EU of course) so why on earth is our oil and fish being mis-managed from Brussels?
ReplyDeleteWe should be happy that the UK gets a little control over its own resources?
ReplyDeleteOpen Europe is obscene in its Eurofascist propagandistic toadie-like dissembling on behalf of the EUSSR.
I'm not really interested in the UK having mere "influence" in these EU discussions, I insist that it must once again always have "power", the POWER OF VETO over any EU decision.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1975 referendum the government explicitly promised in its official pamphlet:
"The Minister representing Britain can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax if he considers it to be against British interests."
We have never been asked since then whether we would agree to give up the power of veto and instead submit to transnational majority voting; I do not and never will agree to that.
Which of course is also the view of the SNP, that Scotland should not be governed by what they see as transnational majority voting within the UK; although most of their leaders have no problem about accepting it within the EU.