EU 'making 230 new laws a day'
news.scotsman.com . . .
The European Commission has been responsible for an average of about 230 pieces of new legislation a day since the start of July, it has been claimed.
The figure was exposed by the UK Independence Party in response to a Commission pledge on Wednesday to curb red tape and ditch dozens of outdated or pointless laws.
Commission President Jose Manuel Manuel Barroso said he would stop the EU becoming a "bureaucratic monster", scrapping 69 pending laws and taking the axe to many more "obsolete or absurd" rules already in place.
The promise cut little ice with UKIP (UK Independence Party) which described the plan as a "drop in the ocean" compared with the rate at which the Brussels machinery in currently delivering new rules and regulations.
UKIP Leader, Roger Knapman MEP, said he was "completely underwhelmed" by Mr Barroso's determination to deliver "better regulation" - a public relations plan hatched at a brainstorming session of all 25 EU Commissioners at a countryside seminar in Belgium earlier this week.
Mr Knapman said: "While scrapping any unnecessary legislation is definitely a positive sign, this is a Commission that since July has implemented 1,843 directives, regulations and legislative instruments.
"Mr Barroso's promise to scrap these pieces of red tape are merely drops in the ocean, and do not qualify as a fresh start."
Mr Knapman said Prime Minister Tony Blair had called for an end to needless EU regulation in a speech to Euro-MPs just before the start of the UK's six-month EU presidency on July 1.
The UKIP leader went on: "Clearly the Commission weren't listening. "The Commission believe that this sop will satisfy grumbling voices from the electorates of Europe. I am convinced they will not be so easily fooled"