Euromyths

Banana

In a week where the papers are full of columns warning that the EU is out to pilfer everyone’s bank accounts, I thought it topical to look at the world of straight bananas and Sun Newspaper headlines. Turns out there’s a word for such Brussels-based brouhaha…

A euromyth is the word that the European Commision uses to call media stories about its policies which it claims are untrue. Such claims are usually seen as disparaging of the European Commission and its supposed bureaucratic absurdity. The European Commission often claims such stories are invented by the media, while Eurosceptics argue such stories are often true, and that hostile media reaction has caused an unpopular policy to be abandoned. Some Eurosceptics now use the term “Euromyth” to describe inflated claims made about the achievements of the EU.

Sometimes debate as to whether a particular claim is true or not continues long after the original story appeared. On occasions, Euromyths may arise when the actions of a different European organisation, such as the Council of Europe are erroneously attributed to the EU.

The European Union has introduced a policy of publicly rebutting negative coverage that it regards as unfair or distorted. You can see their own page set up to combat euromyths here.

Accusations of distorted or untruthful reporting are most commonly directed at conservative and Eurosceptic sections of the British media. Stories often present the European civil service as drafting rules that “defy common sense”. Examples cited as Euromyths include stories about rules banning mince-pies, curved bananas and mushy peas. Others include a story that English fish and chip shops would be forced to use Latin names for their fish (Sun, 5 September 2001), that double-decker buses would be banned (The Times, 9 April 1998), that British rhubarb must be straight, and that barmaids would have to cover up their cleavage.

In some cases Euromyth-type stories have been traced to deliberate attempts by lobbyists to influence actions by the European bureaucracy, for instance the imposition of customs duties. EU officials have also claimed that many such stories result from unclear or misunderstood information on complicated policies, and are claimed to have seized on minor errors in stories as evidence that they are entirely fictional.

The alleged ban on curved bananas is a long-standing, famous, and stereotypical claim that is used in headlines to typify the euromyth. Amongst other issues of acceptable quality and standards, the regulation does actually specify minimum dimensions. It also states that bananas shall be free from deformation or abnormal curvature. However the provisions relating to shape apply fully only to bananas sold as Extra class; some defects of shape (but not size) are permitted in Class I and Class II bananas.

On 29 July 2008, the European Commission held a preliminary vote towards repealing certain regulations relating to other fruit and vegetables (but not bananas). According to the Commission’s press release, “In this era of high prices and growing demand, it makes no sense to throw these products away or destroy them […] It shouldn’t be the EU’s job to regulate these things. It is far better to leave it to market operators.” Some Eurosceptic sources have claimed this to be an admission that the original regulations did indeed ban under-sized or misshapen fruit and vegetables.

On 25 March 2010, a BBC article noted that there are EU shape standardisation regulations in force on: “apples, citrus fruit, kiwi fruit, lettuces, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, table grapes and tomatoes,” (but not bananas), and “Marketing standards for 26 types of produce were scrapped by MEPs in November 2008, in a drive to cut EU bureaucracy, with misshapen fruit and vegetables coming back on sale in the UK last summer. This happened after it was revealed a fifth of produce had been rejected by shops across the EU because it failed to meet the requirements.”

 

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About Author Profile: Worm

In between dealing with all things technological in the Dabbler engine room, Worm writes the weekly Wikiworm column every Saturday and our monthly Book Club newsletters.

8 thoughts on “Euromyths

  1. peter.burnet@hotmail.com'
    Peter
    March 23, 2013 at 12:11

    The defensiveness of that EU site is a telling indicator of how the “unstoppable dream” has gone off the rails. Standardized bananas or elections or social assistance benefits? Perish the thought. I wonder whether we’ll see a denial there is such a thing as a standardized euro in the not-too-distant future.

    • Wormstir@gmail.com'
      Worm
      March 23, 2013 at 16:19

      The existence of the site at all is rather telling I think

  2. joerees08@gmail.com'
    Joey Joe Joe Jr.
    March 23, 2013 at 12:23

    Interesting stuff worm. I especially enjoy the sentences that end with (but not bananas), which are best read to the tune of Let’s All Go Down The Strand (Have a Banana). I always assumed that the EU’s regulations concerning misshapen fruit and vegetables, rather than being a myth, were part of an eminently sensible plan to put an end to antics of the likes of Esther Rantzen’s on That’s Life. I for one thank Brussels bureaucracy – I haven’t had any ‘humorous’ vegetables pointed out to me for years.

    • Wormstir@gmail.com'
      Worm
      March 23, 2013 at 16:22

      …it’s only a matter of time before crudely shaped veg become a hit on facebook

  3. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    March 23, 2013 at 13:25

    When Henry the fifth ascended the throne, aged 17, his tutor John Skelton wrote…..

    The rose both white and red
    In one rose now doth grow

    Henry, part Lancastrian, part Yorkist was neither red nor white, he was pinkish.

    Europink I love you, how can I count the ways? Designed in the cellars of ruined buildings as a foil against enmity, oil and water shall mix, from ruination to gilded cage the journey has ground inevitably ever sideways. A Luxembourger I knew, let’s call him Marcel, born in Vianden, as a five year old he stood beside his mother and brother as Sepp Dietrich’s lads rolled out of the Rhine, across the Hunsrück, through the Eifel and over the Our river, straight through the family home and onwards to Bastogne. Fast forward to 1997, Marcel, now a director of a Vianden company employing hundreds, this is the era of the high D-Mark, one third of the workforce was German, employment west of Trier was not Germany’s finest, unless you worked up the road in the Bitburg brewery. Petrol, fags, everything was significantly less in Luxembourg, the Krauts were shopping there in droves, from Echternach to Vianden, many of the filling stations on the German side of the river simply closed.

    Fascinated by the heady mixer of former conqueror and conquered, enmity free at last, united under one roof I asked “well?” Marcel chuckled, “these Germans you know, my brother is an official at a European agency, the one that doles out agencies, recently there were two up for grabs, one a high profile ‘we are in charge’ set up, the other more mundane except, it would employ ten times as many people. The Germans and the Luxembourgers were through to the final. My brother played the Germans like a fisherman catching a trout, they were desperate for the glory stuff, after a while his agency backed down, allowing the Germans the glory, the Luxembourgers got the money.”

    It was the way he said “these Germans you know”, we are all now pinkish, or are we.

    Here’s reality click on the charts.

  4. johngjobling@googlemail.com'
    malty
    March 23, 2013 at 15:13

    Add three, five plus three equals eight, Henry the eighth.

  5. Wormstir@gmail.com'
    Worm
    March 23, 2013 at 16:20

    Malty, yet again your comment far outclasses the post above!!

  6. davidanddonnacohen@gmail.com'
    David Cohen
    March 23, 2013 at 20:51

    If you lot can’t keep track of your cultural heritage, I’m not sure why I bother.

    As for the European Coal and Steel Community, it’s greatest contribution to mankind is as proof (if any more proof were needed) that the only true prognosticators are to be found on the reactionary fringe, their every slippery slope argument rounded ridiculed right up until the day it comes to pass.

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