2. I was mainly talking about about (the effect of) overregulation in general, I did not say there is a specific regulation re volunteer firefighters. But if the implied problems become reality, it would be because of interpretation of laws and regulations.
Yes, there was a lawsuit in Belgium. And no, that's not the main issue that was reported here. Lawyers conducted a study of the practice of Dutch firefighting on behalve of the Ministry of Justice and Security, and concluded that the way our system is set up contradicts EU law. The main issue is that volunteer firefighters do almost exactly the same work as paid firefighers.
3. That's point 1.
4. This is exactly my more general concern about the EU: unintended consequences are inevitable when you are centralizing laws and regulations to the most detailed levels for over two dozen countries with very different contexts. There are plenty of EU laws and regulations for which I think the intent is very sensible, but where implementation can be problematic, or problematic for specific subsets of the regulation, or specific countries/regions.
5. I never said they happened, I said "will". Perhaps I should have said "may" since the problem might still be addressed somehow. But even if it is adressed, in the case of the Netherlands a massive change would be necessary. According to lawyers and law professors who have studied the problem in the Dutch context.
So no, not misinformation. I just worded it somewhat imprecise.
> I should have said "impossible" rather than illegal
And that would have been still wrong, though with less hyperbole.
> So no, not misinformation. I just worded it somewhat imprecise.
From: there was an isolated case that, had it been generalisable, had the potential for making some aspects of voluntary fire brigades trickier if not addressed, but that actually wasn't generalisable and there was actually no problem at all to "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters" is not "somewhat imprecise", it is complete misinformation.
Pretty much the definition of misinformation, in fact.
Because this is exactly how a lot of the misinformation regarding the EU works: you take something highly technical, localised and actually benign, then take 2nd hand reports of people who misunderstood the implications/consequences, take those misunderstandings as fact, extrapolate from them and then ratchet up the hyperbole to 11.
And no, the fact that lawyers did a study doesn't really change any of this. The EU is a political body, and the largest member states have large or almost exclusively voluntary fire-departments. So even if the interpretation were correct, which from all I have seen it is absolutely not, it would simply (a) not be applied and/or (b) changed.
In particular: the working time directive is, as the name says, a directive. This means it just specifies some goal(s) to accomplish, and it is up to the member states to implement national legislation to accomplish those goals. So if they need to carve out exceptions for volunteer fire departments, they can do that.
So yes: "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters" is just wrong and not just a slight imprecision, but pure misinformation.
> From: there was an isolated case that, had it been generalisable [...]
I reiterate that the isolated case you're referring to was not the motivation of experts saying the Dutch system will have to be reorganized. Why don't you acknowledge that maybe there is an actual problem here, which perhaps doesn't apply in other contexts? I.e. maybe the German and French volunteer firefighters are organized in such a way that there is no problem?
The original claim was "it will be illegal to have voluntary firefighters."
> maybe the German and French volunteer firefighters are organized in such a way that there is no problem?
I sincerely doubt it. Particularly because those concerns apparently were raised in both France and Germany. Anyway, if you can find some evidence that this is the case, please feel free to share.
2. I was mainly talking about about (the effect of) overregulation in general, I did not say there is a specific regulation re volunteer firefighters. But if the implied problems become reality, it would be because of interpretation of laws and regulations.
Yes, there was a lawsuit in Belgium. And no, that's not the main issue that was reported here. Lawyers conducted a study of the practice of Dutch firefighting on behalve of the Ministry of Justice and Security, and concluded that the way our system is set up contradicts EU law. The main issue is that volunteer firefighters do almost exactly the same work as paid firefighers.
3. That's point 1.
4. This is exactly my more general concern about the EU: unintended consequences are inevitable when you are centralizing laws and regulations to the most detailed levels for over two dozen countries with very different contexts. There are plenty of EU laws and regulations for which I think the intent is very sensible, but where implementation can be problematic, or problematic for specific subsets of the regulation, or specific countries/regions.
5. I never said they happened, I said "will". Perhaps I should have said "may" since the problem might still be addressed somehow. But even if it is adressed, in the case of the Netherlands a massive change would be necessary. According to lawyers and law professors who have studied the problem in the Dutch context.
So no, not misinformation. I just worded it somewhat imprecise.