trouble ahead?

[stickandrudderman]

Oh Dear, looks like those unelected Eurocrats are going to cause us classic car lovers a lot of problems in the near future:

http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/news/general/800023407/eu-proposes-chrome-plating-ban/

[Flyair]

All the will achieve is to move the business to countries outside EU. China cannot but welcome things like that

[Shvegel]

The plating business is going the way of the tanning business.  US tanneries are few and far between.

[alchemist]

It is getting hard to find in the US, particularly, in the northeast. However, it is available with modest cost in the Southern States.

[GGR]

Well, "The EU’s standard decision-making procedure is known as 'Ordinary Legislative Procedure’ (ex "codecision"). This means that the directly elected European Parliament has to approve EU legislation together with the Council (the governments of the 28 EU countries). The Commission drafts and implements EU legislation", here: http://europa.eu/eu-law/index_en.htm

So it is the representative you elected to the European Parliament, and your National Government which you also elected which approve these regulations. As per the drafting, it is indeed done by the Eurocrats, but often on the impulsion of the EU Parliament or the Council.

The problem is that national politicians claim all the good as their own doing, and all the unpopular stuff on Brussels, forgetting to mention their role in it. This, together with a very poor communication, is in part how the EU got more and more hated.

We need to pay the taxes used to finance the EU budget directly, instead of having them retroceded by the national governments. This way people would take much more interest in the EU parliament elections and would got much more involved in the EU construction, instead of letting themselves being manipulated by their national politicians.

[Flyair]

Chroming will probably go the CO2 route in EU. Off course everybody wants to live in a clean and healthy environment and there is nothing wrong (on the surface) with the effort to limit CO2 emissions.

The trouble is that while some strong lobbies push to achieve very stringent standards by all the 28 national governments forming EU, China, USA, Japan, etc. have a much more relaxed approach that is not impairing their economies. As the result, the "dirty" businesses have to go outside EU to survive.

The irony is that EU is happy to accept things, the production of which  is banned here, but happily accepts imports provided those items were produced outside, even if it is just on the other side of the border. That's why things with for ex. heavy lead content can still make it, as long as they are made elsewhere.