After months of being pilloried by the media for her perceived intransigence towards life in the European Parliament and lack of basic knowledge as to how the EU works, former French Justice Minister Rachida Dati is back with a (carbon neutral) bang.
Keen to rebuild her diminished political standing in advance of an expected run for Mayor of Paris in 2014, EPP MEP Mlle. Dati has brought forward an proposal in the European Parliament calling for the establishment of d'une taxe carbone aux frontières de l'Union européenne - a new carbon tax on all imports into the EU.
Urging her fellow MEPs to back her amendment, Mlle. Dati had the following to say:
"We should establish this tax not only to protect our companies, but also to deliver a strong message to our trading partners, to say that we consider that virtue [in cutting carbon emissions] has a price.... Our trading partners cannot continue to produce without complying with strict environmental norms, such as they exist in Europe. European companies and European citizens expect us to act responsibly to protect them. Protecting them, in this context, has nothing to do with protectionism".
With the European Union's five hundred million citizens being battered by the worst recession in modern history and unemployment standing at more than 10% in several member states, it's alarming that Mlle. Dati finds such a proposal desirable.
Of course, the only practical repercussion of her proposed tax would be to further drive up the cost of living in EU countries; worsening the present economic crisis and further eroding the ability of European citizens to compete in the global marketplace.
Any claims that her move is "not protectionist" in nature are wilfully disingenuous.
The inability of European companies to compete with goods coming from outside the EU has little to do with a lack of environmental regulations in other nations and rather more to do with the European Union's own regulatory regime.
Non-EU firms are not, for example, subjected to the same burdensome social legislation such as the EU's Working Time Directive (EU Directive 2000/34/EC) which limits the ability of workers to go about their jobs for more than 48 hours a week. The banking, insurance and pensions industries of non-EU states are not regulated by Michel Barnier, a man appointed to his job in order to make "French ideas for regulation triumph in Europe". Non-EU firms do not face prosecution and large fines for failing to package their products in pre-determined shapes or sizes (EU Directive 2007/45/EC). I could go on...
Is it any wonder, therefore, that companies based in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries are increasingly more competitive than those based in the EU?
If Mlle. Dati really wants to demonstrate "responsibility" towards the European business sector then reducing - not contributing to - the EU's already-gargantuan regulatory burden might be a good start.
Thank goodness there is a group in the European Parliament dedicated to doing just that.