THE HANDSTAND

NOVEMBER 2003

.denmark :
23/10/03 - Critique mitigée du Premier ministre danois
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, le Premier ministre danois, a fait des déclarations ambivalentes mardi, à l¹issue d¹une réunion du cabinet, à propos de la détention d¹un citoyen danois de 29 ans à guantanamo. Il a d¹abord déclaré : « Je pense que la détention indéfinie de gens sans clarification de leur situation est intenable. Nous avons souligné au gouvernement américain que c¹est intenable. » Il s¹est dit ³conscient des critiques² émanant de la Croix-rouge internationale et danoise sur le flou juridique dans lequel se trouvent les détenus, mais a ajouté que les autorités danoises avaient été en contact régulier avec le détenu danois : « Nous n¹avons pas de raisons de croire qu¹il n¹a pas été bien traité. Nous sommes pleinement convaincus que les Américains respectent toutes les conventions internationales. » Bref, Rasmussen, dont le gouvernement de droite a pleinement soutenu l¹invasion US de l¹Iraq, essaye de naviguer entre sa loyauté à Washington et les critiques virulentes de l¹opposition socialiste et écologiste.

Global Economic Liberty at the Cato Institute, report
EU Enlargement: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies for Central and Eastern European Countries

by Marian L. Tupy

Marian L. Tupy is assistant director of the Project on Global Economic Liberty at the Cato Institute.

Executive Summary

The accession of eight Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) to the European Union in 2004 will bring some important benefits. The new members will gain from reduced barriers to trade and investment. By 2010, the movement of labor will also be freed. But accession to the EU is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for economic growth. The combined effects of market access and economic liberalization, not EU membership, optimize economic growth.

Unfortunately, the incoming EU members had to choose between the common market on the one hand and economic liberty on the other. Instead of concluding free-trade agreements with the EU, the CEECs were cajoled into an increasingly centralized superstate, in which most of their comparative advantages will be legislated out of existence. As a result, economic growth in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will continue to be suboptimal. The loss of potential future economic growth will be only partly offset by the CEEC's access to the European single market.

Following the collapse of communism, the CEECs searched for a quick way to prosperity, and EU accession seemed like a rational step forward. Unfortunately, the geopolitical aim of the European elites to rival the United States enjoys clear precedence over the developmental needs of the CEECs.

Compliance with centralized EU regulations in three areas—labor, agriculture, and the environment -- will impose the most significant costs on the CEECs. Western European labor regulations will make many workers in the less-productive CEECs less competitive; agricultural subsidies will favor current EU members over future ones; and stringent environmental regulations will impose a cost of up to 120 billion euros on CEECs.

Accession members should be wary of future EU initiatives, such as harmonization of taxes, which will further reduce their competitiveness. Once the CEECs join the EU, they should pursue a strategy that seeks to introduce economic dynamism to the region by forging an alliance with more economically liberal governments to prevent further centralization in Brussels, working to prevent the adoption of costly welfare entitlements in the new EU constitution, guarding the national veto system within the EU, and working to abolish or substantially reform the unfair Common Agricultural Policy. To the extent that the accession countries can continue to unilaterally liberalize, their economic performance could provide a useful example for other EU countries.

EU Vitamin And Mineral
Supplement Update
Institute Of Science In Society
i-sis.org.uk
10-16-3

First 300 key vitamins and minerals axed, now 5 000 supplements banned by "insane" EU Directive. Sam Burcher reports on the right to freedom for the £1.6 billion alternative health industry. The Alliance of Natural Health (ANH) is set to legally challenge the contentious EU Directive on Food Supplements (FSD). The FSD passed into European law in July 2002 and effectively brings about a ban on 300 nutrients included in 5 000 health products, most of which are in dietary supplements closest to food forms.
In July this year, the House of Commons Standing Committee for FSD Regulations met and voted the Food Supplement Directive through into English, Scottish and Welsh law. Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of London-based ANH hopes a successful challenge would result in the FSD being overturned by all EU states. The ANH represent the interests of a number of organisations including the British Association of Complimentary Medicine and the British Society for Allergy Environmental and Nutritional Medicine as well as a number of independent manufactures, suppliers and distributors of vitamins and minerals. Together they suggest the existing Directive be replaced with a revised FSD that allows for high quality, effective supplements across the whole of Europe. This would effectively harmonise to good standards, not bad ones.
.
Two Labour MPs have voiced concerns about the way the Regulations were voted through by the Standing Committee. Kate Hoey MP (Vauxhall) revealed what happened: "I was a member of this committee until I said, very honestly, that I would vote against the regulations." She was, together with five other MPs, "unceremoniously removed" from the committee the night before the vote took place and replaced with MPs who voted in favour of the FSD. According to Kate Hoey, this gives a clear message that the government cares more for the pharmaceutical industry that it does about ordinary people. Her views are shared by Jeremy Corbyn MP (Islington), he said: "The FSD is a
product of ruthless lobbying tactics by the pharmaceutical industry which is not keen on the diversity of supply of vitamin supplements available in health food shops." He backs the ANH move to legally challenge the Directive.
Legal challenges are seldom made to the 40 000 EU Directives implemented since the UK joined the Common Market in 1972, ostensibly to share in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). But Conservative MP Daniel Hannan complained to the Daily Telegraph last September 3, that, "whenever you see an apparently insane Brussels Directive, someone, somewhere stands to gain."
And in his view, the Directives affecting natural remedies resulted because of lobbying by the large pharmaceutical companies.
To simply questioning the validity of food supplementation is no longer enough when it is generally acknowledged that modern food production methods and deterioration of soil due to intensive farming are affecting vitamins and mineral content in food. For example, levels of the mineral selenium (Se) declined 50% between 1974-1991 and the UK population sele ium levels are
lower than many other European countries. Scientific studies show selenium is an essential nutrient associated with the function of major metabolic concern with chronic diseases such as arthritis. But, in essence, the FSD is another blow to the individual's freedom to choose how to look after their health, be it in conjunction with a good diet, or simply as a preventative against developing a chronic
disease. Increasing visits to GPs to obtain the correct supplements, as the Directive would have us do will not suit the overburdened Health Service at all, but it might just serve the big corporations.
Box 1
Some of the 300 vitamins and mineral excluded from the FSD positive list
Substance
Benefit
Boron (All forms) Required for absorption of calcium
Vitamin E (naturally occurring tocopherols and toctotrienols) Antioxidants, which protect against damage by free radicals, associated with cancer and other degenerative diseases.
Calcium (23 food forms) For bones, teeth and cell function
Chromium (17 forms) For balancing blood sugar levels, widely used by diabetics
Magnesium (30 forms) Healthy bones and teeth
Potassium (21 forms) Maintains blood pressure and heart beat rhythm
Silica (All forms) Works in conjunction with boron, calcium, and other minerals to support bones, arteries, connective tissue, hair, skin and nails
Selenium (14 forms) Antioxidant, important for heart function. Contributes to healthy immune response.
The dietary supplement Glucosamine, a combination of minerals,vitamins and fatty acids bought by millions of arthritis suffers to ease their painful symptoms has been banned as a food supplement by the Medicines Agency in Denmark and Sweden. Instead it is has been allowed on to the shelves as an over the counter medicine produced by Recip Glucosine and Pharma Nord - two pharmaceutical companies.
Box 2
The Food Supplements Directive covers two fundamental areas: 1. The types of vitamins and minerals that may be legally sold from mid-2005.
2. The maximum doses at which they may be supplied from 2006.
The EU Commission has designated a list of permissible nutrients called 'The Positive List.' Specialist vitamin manufactures have expressed concern that their products containing organic ingredients, excluded from the 'List', are being compromised by synthetic or inorganic equivalents that are on the 'List.' All attempts to include a number of organic vitamins and minerals have been refused. Not only that, but to register their high quality products for sale could cost up to £250,00 per nutrient plus evidence of their safety. All nutrients must be paid for and registered by August 2005, putting small, large and medium suppliers of food supplements under intense pressure.

Maximum doses or Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamins and minerals will be negotiated over the next 18 months. Levels are to be set by the EU Scientific Committee to Food (SCF), who are not accountable to any government or parliament and have banned 300 nutrients so far (See box 1). Two commonly occurring vitamins, which have a wealth of scientific study to
support their validity, are vitamin C and vitamin B6. The ANH fear RDA doses will be rendered so low that consumers will have to buy much more of the product to receive their current nutritional dose or that they might disappear from the shelves altogether.
Sources:
Legal Bid Challenges EU Food Directive. Health Matters vol 5 No.6
July/August 2003.
Wright O. Johnston C. Bennett R. Clampdown on Alternative Medicines. The
Times. 20th September 2003.
Watts. M. Right to Buy Essential Supplements. The Argus. July 19th 2003
Brown KM. Pickard K. Nicol F. Beckett G.J. Duthie G.G. Arthur J.R. Effects
of organic and inorganic selenium supplementation on selenoenzyme activity
in blood lymphocytes, granulocytes, platelets and erythrocytes. The Rowett
Research Institute Clinical Science 98, 593-599. 2000
Burcher S. Hands off Vitamins and Herbs. Science in Society Issue 17. p19-20
Winter 2003. © Institute of Science in Society
What,s the Future? Linking Bioscience with Nature. © BioCare 2003
Food Supplements Directive 2003. Alliance for Natural Health
www.alliance-natural-health.org
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/vitamins2.php
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