Patrick MORRISS wrote:
>
> The impending problems for BW are not primarily those presented by
> DEFRA themselves - or even the UK government. The problem is the
> *fine* that has come from the EU. What was the intention behind this?
> To harm BW and all the other DEFRA 'subsidiaries'? No, I am sure it
> was intended to punish the UK government/DEFRA itself. I doubt the EU
> realise what actual effect this fine is likely to have - and no one
> seems to be telling them.
>
> Can't fault the above argument, but surely the interpretation of who
> actually pays the "fine" and the proportions of "suffering" are UK
> government policy and decisions? Have the EU any powers to direct the UK
> government as to who and how it should be paid?
>
There is a similar thread on uk.rec.waterways and I replied like this:
I think you have a very good point here. I spent day yesterday (12th
Oct)in Birmingham at and around the BW AGM and I spoke to lots of
activists about strategies we could use. And as an absolute minimum
I have concluded that we should add MEPs to our letter writing campaign.
One interesting idea is related to the point you make is that the EU
probably don't realise what impact the mysterious fines are (or would)
have in the UK. If the fines have, or are going to be made, can you
imagine the EU being happy that the net effect of them has been to
reduce funding to a national resource enjoyed by millions of people in
the UK and lose 180 jobs. Its seems a strange policy to impose a fine
that is related to mismanagement of farming subsidies and the waterways
suffer. Of course what is really happening is that the fine is imposed
on the nation large because it ultimately comes out of our pockets. The
only way that we can express our disaproval is to use the ballot box.
After the BW AGM I had an opportunity to talk to Robert Lowson, the
Defra representative at the AGM. I asked him directly about these fines.
I told him I had heard they were in the order of £1 million for each day
that Defra delays the payment of the farm subsidies to our farmers. He
gave me an indirect answer saying that the level of fines hadn't been
set yet. What I half expected him to say was that £1 million/day was
out of line, he didn't. So, just for the moment let us assume the figure
is accurate and that, at a guess, Defra farm payments are late by two
weeks, that's £16 million which is remarkable similar to the amount cut
from BW's budget. So what if part of our campaign was to point out BW's
plight and lobby the EU to refund that money? This is, of course, a
totally simplistic approach and one that probably is unlikely to succeed
but it at least has an appealing ring to it and may get a few headlines
and lead to something else. At the very least I think this is something
that we should look at very closely and develop a clear strategy that we
can use in our campaign.
Do you Chris, or anyone else have the time to research this? How much is
this fine, is it really going to be imposed, when? Is the fine levied on
Defra or Government itself. Is the rumour true that Gordon Brown has
told Defra that they must absorb any fine out of their own budget? I
sense a good story in all of this.
By the way. I've a simple campaign formula. We need to take arguments
like this to the public; they have a ring that will make sense to the
average bloke down the pub; and that will persuade them to at least sign
our petition and consider writing to their MP. And if the volume of
protest is enough, our MP's will start to translate our discontent into
lost votes. Thats how we can make democracy work in or favour.
Cheers
Will Chapman
Save Our Waterways
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