Undercover Eurocrat: Olive None of That!

This olive oil furore feeds old eurosceptic fires of mistrust in Britain, and does Brussels no favours in presenting its case for the necessity of the EU.

Pitchforks down everyone. Last month, thankfully, the Commission, after recognizing the huge public unpopularity of its proposal to combat counterfeit olive oil, has withdrawn the proposal to ban refillable bottles or bowls of the amber nectar.

This was a storm in a teacup that rose and fell over the space of a week, when news broke that tucked away in a Commission proposal to stop a rise in fake olive oil or oil substitutes being sold to consumers in restaurants as high quality brands, at an equally high price, a blanket ban on refillable bottles was planned.

This was clearly a well-intentioned policy, but dreadfully thought out. The ban would have led to the huge environmental cost of increased plastic and glass waste, and higher costs for businesses, especially those businesses subject to refuse penalties.

This really is an example of a story that is done in a week’s news cycle. And it would really not be thought of again, except that it adds fuel to the eurosceptic fire.

With Cameron’s leadership in Britain increasingly unstable, and pugnacious backbench Tories spoiling for a fight on an EU membership referendum, this story comes at the worst possible time.

The old stories about straight bananas and renaming sausages as high-fat emulsified offal tubes come straight out of Yes, Minister scripts, which has helped contribute so far to the ridiculing of right-wing eurosceptics as “swivel eyed loons”, divorced from reality.

Now they have the real thing to brandish to voters in a referendum campaign. Real proof of an overbearing, intrusive and unnecessary EU.

This comes at absolutely the wrong time for those of us trying to argue that the EU is a necessary and positive organisation to belong to. The storm over this story will die down for now. And you may think it has been forgotten. But it won’t be long before a referendum is called, and all of us already know how well facts and logic fare against this kind of populist swill.