A sad day for Europe: "We are heading for a dictatorship of bureaucrats"

Warning: You are a criminal if you import one of these to an  European Union  member country!

Yesterday was a sad day for Europe. Since September 1, 2012, it is illegal to manufacture or import traditional incandescent light bulbs in EU member states. The criminalizing of the bulbs in the name of fighting imaginary human caused global warming is of course sheer madness, but the way this insane regulation (European Commission Regulation No. 244/2009) has been forced upon European consumers is also an example of the gradual undemocratic power grab undertaken by the Brussels bureaucracy. "We are heading for a dictatorship of bureaucrats," says German MEP Holger Krahmer, who is to be congratulated for daring to speak out: 

For Holger Krahmer, a member of the European Parliament for Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), the reform is a complete failure.   "We are heading for a dictatorship of bureaucrats,"  he says. Krahmer is on the energy committee, which is using the Ecodesign Directive to make more and more products more energy-efficient.

For example, plans call for mandating that the heating plates of coffee makers are designed to only stay on for a specific amount of time. Vacuum cleaners are supposed to become more efficient with the additional of moveable suction mouths. Laundry detergent could be reformulated so that it dissolves fats at only 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). And laundry itself could soon be cleaned using microwave or vacuum technology.
A debate over the showerhead of the future is also causing a certain amount of stress. Germany opposes water-saving showerheads. The country's sewage pipes already threaten to dry up today because water-saving plumbing devices are making it so that not enough water is being flushed through the system. Everything from stoves to heating systems, ovens, windows and insulation is being tested and made more efficient by the EU.

When a refrigerator makes a beeping noise because the door has been left open too long, it's probably because of the efforts of people working for EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. It might not even be long before bureaucrats will be telling Europeans how brown their toast and how hot their showers can be.
If the European Parliament or the Council of the European Union want to reject a measure, they will have to come up with a majority against it. If no one takes action, the provision automatically takes effect after a predetermined time period. For Krahmer, this presents an insurmountable hurdle. "Neither the Council of the European Union nor the European Parliament has the muscle to oppose the power of the bureaucrats," he says.

Read the entire article here

This madness must be stopped!