Every year, the European Union adopts around 2000 standards, all intended to protect and inform consumers. Most of the time these initiatives start from a good intention, but they sometimes border on the ridiculous.
A regulation, which in fact, looks more like an “organized racket of France,” says Pierre-Luc Daubigney, general secretary of the Organization of Fishmongers. According to OPEF, several checks per year or even per month take place, generating considerable “pressure” “It’s doing checks for bullshit. There is excessive punishment from intransigent agents, he is indignant,’ he says. “We want a Europe refocused on the essentials. We must therefore refuse useless texts through which the European EU drifts towards a bureaucratic temptation,“ says Senator Jean Bizet, who warned in 2017 that EU legislation must respond to real needs. The surprise was total. Annoyance too. The fact remains that since the adoption, in December 2013, a binding legal act, fishmongers are now supposed to know all the Latin names of their merchandise like the back of their hand.