[mpweiher]

> EU overregulation

Most of that tends to be misinformation.

For example:

> it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters

Nope. Not even close. A firefighter in Belgium sued because he said that on-call time is work, and the court decided in his favour. This caused concern that generalising this could cause problems. However, the EU was aware of these concerns and apparently this case cannot be generalised in this way:

https://www.ctif.org/news/die-eu-arbeitszeitrichtlinie-infor...

I don't know how it works in Belgium, but in Germany, the voluntary firefighters (which is almost all of them), simply continue to be paid by their main employers when active. The employer can then recover this from the responsible government organisation.

For this, the application of the working time directive changes...nothing. Also for standby times during working hours, for which the employee is working for his main employer, so again no change. I am guessing (but not sure) that the issue is on-call time when the employee is not working for his main employer.

People have raised concerns that this might have the potential to negatively affect volunteer firefighting. But as far as I know, nothing has actually happened, and apparently nothing will.

So as so often, almost complete misinformation:

1. The EU will not make it "illegal" to have volunteer firefighters.

2. It was actually a lawsuit, not a regulation.

3. It was about working time, not about making volunteer firefighters illegal.

4. So at most it would have been an unintended consequence of a good and necessary regulation.

5. However, these unintended consequences were only imaginary, they never happened.

6. The EU bodies were fully aware of the importance of volunteer firefighters.

7. Had there been unintended consequences, they would have mostly been of the formal variety that affect local authorities.

> every single chicken [..] registered, even for hobbyists having a few chickens

Also nope, only if you have 50 chickens or more.

https://www.tsk-bw.de/Melde_Beitragspflicht/Wer_muss_melden....

[ar-jan]

Thanks for the background regarding the firefighters.

As for the chickens: you are linking to what look like current regulations in Germany. At issue is the Animal Health Regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L:201...) which will be in effect from 21 April 2021.

There is a statement that there should be exceptions for pet animals, but these exceptions did not make it into the regulation for chickens. The Netherlands argued for this but did not find support, and is currently trying to arrange for exceptions. It is not fake news.

[shawabawa3]

There's nothing in this that requires pet keepers to register their animals. There's no specific mention of chickens (a few mention of "chicks or hatchlings of other species")

If for some reason you believe "obligation of operators to register establishments" would apply to individual pet owners (I don't believe it does, as earlier in the document "pet keepers" are separate from "operators") - there's a clause to allow exceptions: "Member States may exempt from the registration requirement certain categories of establishments posing an insignificant risk"

The only thing in the entire document that applies to "pet keepers" is ... [to] be responsible for:

(i) the health of kept animals;

(ii) prudent and responsible use of veterinary medicines, without prejudice to the role and responsibility of veterinarians,

(iii) minimising the risk of the spread of diseases;

(iv) good animal husbandry;

There are some further restrictions to do with moving pet animals between member states

[ar-jan]

I will admit I did not read all 212 pages of the regulation. I doubt you did.

I'm trusting here that the Dutch minister of agriculture is being accurate in her letter to parliament describing ongoing issues [0].

0: https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-28286-1062.html

[shawabawa3]

(using google translate)

"For example, holders who only have a few pieces of poultry must also comply with requirements for I&R and there will also be obligations for holders of animal species for which no requirements currently exist, such as bees, bumble bees and camel-like animals. The Netherlands has argued against these requirements when drafting these new regulations, but received little support from other member states and the EC. The EC indicated that it can allow Member States to grant exceptions to these obligations."

So it's up to member states if they want to require owners of pet chickens to register them

[ar-jan]

That's exactly what I was saying with "and is currently trying to arrange for exceptions." The EC could allow exceptions, but they haven't yet actually allowed for them.

[mpweiher]

Possibly they haven't "yet" actually allowed for them because the regulation isn't "yet" actually in force?

[mpweiher]

> there should be exceptions for pet animals

OK, so what's the problem? After all, this won't come into effect until about a year and a half from now and it seems that there is agreement that there should be exceptions.

Given that, what makes you certain that there won't be exceptions?

> is currently trying to arrange for exceptions

You seem to be certain that this will not succeed. Why?

> It is not fake news.

Hmm...it's not in effect, there seems to be some agreement that there should be exceptions and exceptions are being worked on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ar-jan]

The problem is that this exception is not currently in place, and that it is still uncertain if it will be possible to implement. The fact that the European Commission has previously disregarded this specific concern despite attempts to have it addressed does not inspire confidence.

I don't know what will happen, but this situation is concerning to many people. Also consider that the news plays a role in policy making (for better or worse), i.e. some added pressure from advocates may help to get the needed exceptions in place.

[mpweiher]

> this exception is not currently in place

And neither is the regulation.

> this situation is concerning to many people.

That's not the same thing as there being an actual problem.

[ar-jan]

1. I should have said "impossible" rather than illegal (although the consequence is still that it would be, well, illegal under EU law). That's the implication of what was reported in the Netherlands. For those who read Dutch, see e.g. https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/brandweer-dreigt-vrijwilligers-... and https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/vrijwilligers-b....

2. I was mainly talking about about (the effect of) overregulation in general, I did not say there is a specific regulation re volunteer firefighters. But if the implied problems become reality, it would be because of interpretation of laws and regulations.

Yes, there was a lawsuit in Belgium. And no, that's not the main issue that was reported here. Lawyers conducted a study of the practice of Dutch firefighting on behalve of the Ministry of Justice and Security, and concluded that the way our system is set up contradicts EU law. The main issue is that volunteer firefighters do almost exactly the same work as paid firefighers.

3. That's point 1.

4. This is exactly my more general concern about the EU: unintended consequences are inevitable when you are centralizing laws and regulations to the most detailed levels for over two dozen countries with very different contexts. There are plenty of EU laws and regulations for which I think the intent is very sensible, but where implementation can be problematic, or problematic for specific subsets of the regulation, or specific countries/regions.

5. I never said they happened, I said "will". Perhaps I should have said "may" since the problem might still be addressed somehow. But even if it is adressed, in the case of the Netherlands a massive change would be necessary. According to lawyers and law professors who have studied the problem in the Dutch context.

So no, not misinformation. I just worded it somewhat imprecise.

[mpweiher]

> I should have said "impossible" rather than illegal

And that would have been still wrong, though with less hyperbole.

> So no, not misinformation. I just worded it somewhat imprecise.

From: there was an isolated case that, had it been generalisable, had the potential for making some aspects of voluntary fire brigades trickier if not addressed, but that actually wasn't generalisable and there was actually no problem at all to "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters" is not "somewhat imprecise", it is complete misinformation.

Pretty much the definition of misinformation, in fact.

Because this is exactly how a lot of the misinformation regarding the EU works: you take something highly technical, localised and actually benign, then take 2nd hand reports of people who misunderstood the implications/consequences, take those misunderstandings as fact, extrapolate from them and then ratchet up the hyperbole to 11.

And no, the fact that lawyers did a study doesn't really change any of this. The EU is a political body, and the largest member states have large or almost exclusively voluntary fire-departments. So even if the interpretation were correct, which from all I have seen it is absolutely not, it would simply (a) not be applied and/or (b) changed.

In particular: the working time directive is, as the name says, a directive. This means it just specifies some goal(s) to accomplish, and it is up to the member states to implement national legislation to accomplish those goals. So if they need to carve out exceptions for volunteer fire departments, they can do that.

So yes: "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters" is just wrong and not just a slight imprecision, but pure misinformation.

[ar-jan]

> From: there was an isolated case that, had it been generalisable [...]

I reiterate that the isolated case you're referring to was not the motivation of experts saying the Dutch system will have to be reorganized. Why don't you acknowledge that maybe there is an actual problem here, which perhaps doesn't apply in other contexts? I.e. maybe the German and French volunteer firefighters are organized in such a way that there is no problem?

[mpweiher]

> ... German and French vs. Dutch

The original claim was "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters."

> maybe the German and French volunteer firefighters are organized in such a way that there is no problem?

I sincerely doubt it. Particularly because those concerns apparently were raised in both France and Germany. Anyway, if you can find some evidence that this is the case, please feel free to share.