Natural Products in the EU - Loss of Freedom of Choice

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

If one reads the below as a political statement it means they have not

been keeping up with current events in the EU .. and the relationship of

those events to freedom of choice in use of natural products.

 

The latest edition of the Newsletter http://www.cropwatch.org states:

 

" As EU Directives continue to make life difficult for natural aromatic

ingredient users, and more or less impossible for Natural Perfumers, the

Independent Watchdog Cropwatch considers the option of setting up an

alternative regulatory body ... see attached newsletter. "

 

Folks can join this group .. go to the URL above.

 

There are people in Europe, like Tony Burfield, Martin Watt, and others

who are fighting against exactly what the Czech president is hitting on

below .. this is not just about political/social/economic systems .. its

about the loss of freedom of choice when it comes to natural products.

 

When a government thinks they know all about what is right and wrong for

their citizens .. then freedom of choice is the first thing to go.

 

Seems that the president of an ex Soviet nation is in a pretty good

position to make such an evaluation.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

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Czech President Criticizes European Union at GSB

 

By Andrew Alexander

April 28, 2006 in News

 

In a soft-spoken but forceful speech Wednesday afternoon at the Graduate

School of Business (GSB), Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus warned

that the European Union (E.U.) was bringing " less freedom, less

democracy, less sovereignty, and more government interference " to Europe.

 

The E.U. is " accelerating a drive towards a social democratic––I would

say a more social––European superstate, " said Klaus, whose talk was part

of the GSB’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

 

Best known as the architect of the Czechoslovakian breakup in 1992,

Klaus has been the Czech Republic’s president since 2003 and served as

its Prime Minister from 1992 to 1997.

 

As Finance Minister after the fall of the Soviet Union, Klaus presided

over Czechoslovakia’s transition to capitalism and democracy, a move

that he said was contentious.

 

" For many people, the alternative to communism was not capitalism,

Chicago-style, " he said. " They didn’t trust the market and reiterated

the goals of the communists. "

 

" They opposed political parties because they didn’t want partisanship, "

Klaus added. " In foreign policy they were idealistic, without an

understanding of realpolitik. "

 

But, said Klaus, " there was a small group of people who were not afraid

to say that the goal of our revolution was capitalism and parliamentary

democracy. "

 

Introducing democracy was straightforward enough, he said.

 

Czechoslovakia already had a functioning political system and the only

task was to legalize competing political parties.

 

" The establishment of the market economy was not so easy, " he said.

 

Before privatization, " there was no one private hairdresser, no one

private cafe, no one private car in the entire country, " Klaus said. “We

had to privatize the economy without capitalists. "

 

The Czech Republic had its next major transition in 2004 when it joined

the E.U., Klaus said. But he worried that the E.U. was moving away from

economic liberalism toward " government regulation, standardization, and

homogenization. "

 

A former economics professor, the 64-year-old Klaus praised former U of

C professor Milton Friedman and the " Chicago School " of economics.

 

At one point, he interrupted his speech to draw a graph—a steep upward

slope leading into a flat line—on the whiteboard. He said he had drawn

it on a Czech television program in 1993 to calm public fears about

rising inflation, by explaining that even strong initial inflation will

eventually level out.

 

His graph caused a sensation, he said. " This was discussed among normal

people in the pub! "

 

Klaus remains on the faculty of the Prague School of Economics, where he

teaches a class Monday afternoons.

 

As Director of the school’s Center for Economics and Politics, " he is

the only head of state to run an intellectual enterprise in his spare

time, " said GSB Dean Edward Snyder in his introduction.

 

Klaus’s talk was followed by brief comments from Gary Becker, U of C

professor in the Departments of Economics and Sociology.

 

" Economically, [the E.U.] is a major step backwards, " Becker said.

 

 

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/articles/2006/04/28/czech_president_crit.php