SINGLE MARKET GOES DOWNHILL, AS EU COMMISSION GOES OFF-PISTE

Major announcement by EU Commission yesterday, missed by MPs

Ski instructors can now cross borders – with or without their skis

A Brussels sketch by Brexit Facts4EU.Org, based on real events yesterday

The Single Market has long been a major preoccupation of MPs in the House of Commons, based on their deep knowledge of it.

Ask Remain MPs to back up their claims about the Single Market’s benefits and they will instantly trot out a stream of essential facts and figures. They live and breathe this stuff. There’s nothing they don’t know about it. (Is our sarcasm showing yet?)

We were therefore surprised that during yesterday’s debates in the Commons not one Remain MP referred to the sensational news about the Single Market, announced by the EU Commission yesterday.

Here is how the EU Commission announced it :-

“Single Market: Commission facilitates mobility of ski instructors across the EU
“Today, the Commission adopted a new common training test for ski instructors (CTT) to facilitate the recognition of their professional qualifications. This forms part of the Commission's constant efforts to exploit the full potential of the Single Market and deepen integration in areas like services and other key areas of our economy”

Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, responsible for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said:

"Ski instructors, as other professionals and service providers, should be able to benefit from the Single Market. The new test adopted today will help to improve the mobility of ski instructors within the Single Market and allow them to further contribute to this important sector of our tourist economy."

The EU Commission goes on to tell us that this is :

“the first successful creation of a common training test, which has been introduced as a novel instrument by the revised Professional Qualifications Directive.”

Who is the Commissioner responsible for ensuring the Single Market works?

The Single Market (which the EU refers to as the ‘Internal Market’) falls under the control of Ms Elżbieta Bieńkowska, from Poland.

She is unelected, so what did she do to qualify for this job?

Ms Bieńkowska was chosen for this role by President Jean-Claude Juncker
He chose her, she has never been elected to an EU position

Given that she has no direct business experience, can anyone imagine why he chose her as his Commissioner for the Single Market, Industry and SMEs?

Ms Bieńkowska's Background:-

Education : Masters in Iranian Studies, Dept of Oriental Languages
Jobs : Previously only employed in Polish local and national government
Job title: EU Commissioner - Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Experience: She has no direct experience working in commerce or industry
Salary: Including allowances she is paid over £290,000 p.a. gross – far more than our Prime Minister – plus her own chauffeur, plus generous pension, plus a very generous package when she leaves office.

EU Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska

In 2016 the operation of the Single Market was panned by the (anti-Brexit) OECD in a major report as “unfinished and stalled”.

The unelected EU Commissioners who direct your life

Paid far more than the Prime Minister, the public have a right to know about the unelected EU Commissioners who hold massive power over us. They affect the daily lives of 510 million people. Would you ever have voted for them?

Readers may find it just a little surprising that they haven't seen the EU's Single Market Commissioner on their TV screens, given all the talk about the Single Market during the Referendum campaign and in the two years since.

She's held the job for 5 years. Can you recall a single BBC interview with her? If any Remain MP were asked, could they name her?

If membership of the Single Market is so important, how come this woman hasn't been visiting the UK on a regular basis, promoting it? After all, the UK is the second-largest economy in the whole of the EU.

Furthermore, given that the Single Market has been panned for its performance in the services sector - where the UK excels - how is it that this woman hasn't been trying to put that right? Or if she's been trying, how is it that we don't know about it and how is it that she's failed?

EU Commissioners have immense power. Some readers might question whether Ms Bieńkowska has the necessary experience and knowledge to wield it effectively and wisely.

The Single Market doesn't work

In 2017 Ms Bieńkowska announced that “the Single Market – this jewel that is all too often taken for granted – does not function properly for services”.

Given that services represents almost 80% of the UK economy, and that the Single Market has been going for over 25 years, this was an extraordinary admission.

Observations

The shenanigans of the anti-democrats in Parliament yesterday may have depressed some readers. We saw no point in depressing you further.

In essence, there is now almost no chance of Brexit being delivered in any form on 29 March, as repeatedly promised by the Prime Minister for the past two years.

Instead we have brought you something a little different. It does have a point, however. The Single Market Commissioner has no experience of business. The Single Market is dysfunctional and much of it focuses on the needs of other EU countries, not the UK’s.

Nevertheless Remain MPs can’t stop talking about its alleged benefits, whilst never being able to quote any real facts about it. There are a large number of factual pieces about it in our Brexit Index – the largest repository of Brexit facts in the World.

This is not fake news

In case any reader wondered if we are making up any of this story about ski instructors, we aren’t. This was announced yesterday by the EU Commission and here is the formal stuff :-

“COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) of 14.3.2019
“Establishing a Common Training Test for ski instructors under Article 49b of Directive 2005/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of the professional qualifications.”

The European Parliament and Council now have two months to scrutinise this ‘Commission Delegated Regulation’, after which the act will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The Delegated Act is available here and the annexes are here.

British sense of humour

Finally, we wonder how long we will be able to publish pieces like the one above.

The EU is busy looking at all manner of means of curtailing what they call ‘fake news’. No doubt our British sense of humour and our country’s tradition of satire and mockery will soon fall foul of regulations which will be introduced.

That said, Brussels must have some kind of sense of humour.

After all, they did give us the unelected EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker….

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 15 Mar 2019

Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments

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Reader Comments 7

1. Patrick F , Friday, March 15, 2019, 07:40:

I've been looking for the one, killer argument for remaining in the EU and this is it!
As a gardener I look forward to crossing borders, with or without my shovel.

2. Mark, Blackpool , Friday, March 15, 2019, 07:44:

I'm very pleased that the EU has finally covered off what in my mind was always a gaping hole in the completeness of the holy Single Market: Skiing Instructors.
I was having night-sweats from the thought of what will happen if any of my children or grandchildren decided to be a ski instructor.
Will they be able to get a unified common training test to facilitate the recognition of their professional qualifications? Will they be allowed to further contribute to this important sector? Now I can put my mind at rest.
This is why we need the EU so much; to tell us in every area of life what we have to do.

3. Concerned Expat , Friday, March 15, 2019, 07:49:

I congratulate Facts4eu for publishing these things every day. There is enough evidence out there to clearly state when history is written, people will look back on Britain and Europe and shake their heads in disgust at the sheer lunacy of the whole EU utopian hogwash.
Open Borders is the madness of the first order, I knew then there is no hope as will be shown in Lauren Southern's 'Borderless' documentary.

4. Jon, Wales , Friday, March 15, 2019, 09:02:

By way of the 2016 referendum and the majority Leave instruction to MPs, the UK electorate corrected the actions of former Prime Minister Edward Heath.
Every UK fisherman and those connected to the industry should remember Heath sold out much of our fishing industry, and they are doubtless VERY annoyed.
Remainers should ask themselves would they go to the polling station and vote to give away what is rightfully ours? That's what Heath did without any consultation with the electorate and he knowingly lied. UK Prime Ministers who followed kept up the deceit by slowly giving away bits of our country and every part of our lives to a foreign power. This was a power grab by the EU and MPs allowed it to happen - MPs could have said "NO" to the EU but chose not too. In brief, MPs kept the electorate in the dark except those fighting with us to get out over the decades.
The majority electorate are now unwilling members of the great EU scam. We have been threatened and abused by the EU, and they treat our Prime Minister with contempt. Think back to the MPs expenses scandal - that was but a drop in the ocean relative to the EU scandal. There was an outcry over those expenses (and some were prosecuted), but when MPs continue pouring £billions into the bottomless pit of the EU, what do we hear? In my opinion, the EU take our country for granted.
So one has to question, of what use are UK members of parliament when a majority of their number attempt to subvert the outcome of [in this case] a referendum by any means possible, just because they didn't like the result?
The above commissioner has no experience as explained in the above article, so imagine for a moment you're a patient about to undergo brain surgery performed by a person with no medical experience - would MPs allow that to happen, of course they wouldn't, and that's the point? The EU are self-serving at the expense all others.

5. James Bertram , Friday, March 15, 2019, 09:32:

OK, the implication is there, and someone has to say it:
Q: 'Given that she has no direct business experience, can anyone imagine why he (Junker) chose her as his Commissioner for the Single Market, Industry and SMEs?'
A: See the photograph.
I wonder if Berlusconi would approve?

6. James Bertram , Friday, March 15, 2019, 10:50:

Dirty Old Man

7. Pud , Friday, March 15, 2019, 13:03:

I remember a few years ago that British ski instructors were finding it very difficult to work in France, despite all of the alleged benefits of EU membership, because the French instructors wanted to keep the jobs for themselves. I believe a qualification was required that had no practical relevance but only the French instructors had it.

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