International

From 2008 vans used by painting firms to ferry personnel and materials to the worksite will be required, as is already the case for buses and lorries, to be fitted with a tachograph, an instrument for monitoring driving times. Some small firms are currently exempt from such an obligation, and exemption will continue to apply to certain sectors, such as garden maintenance. Painting firms will, however, come under the new regulation, and this European Union-imposed obligation will cost small companies dear, creating both additional expense and additional paperwork. Commenting on the new law, SP Euro-MP Erik Meijer, spokesman on transport affairs for the United Left Group in the European Parliament, sympathised with the arguments of the employers’ organisation for the sector when he said that while “protection of drivers against being forced to drive too many hours and consequent fatigue is excellent, unnecessary burdens imposed by carelessly drafted EU legislation are certainly not.”

The European Parliament yesterday debated the way in which vast sums of money are wasted in the European Union. The occasion was the inclusion on the agenda of the Parliament's Strasbourg plenary session of the Annual Report of the European Court of Auditors, the official EU financial watchdog which, year after year, reports the disappearance of enormous amounts of taxpayers' money. Taking just one example, SP Euro-MP Kartika Liotard noted that "Europe subsidises 200,000 cows that don't exist!"