Harmonized quality standards, business regulations and copyright laws needed says James Mizrachi Roscoes
James Mizrachi-Roscoe has today said that Europe needs to harmonise its business laws on quality, copy right and trade. He said in a public meeting "Today Roscoes and many other businesses have to navigate over 20 different quality and safety standard laws, copyright systems and administration systems to trade throughout Europe with exports and imports hard because of this process. Roscoes size businesses find it inconvenient to meet 20 plus different standards but if its hard for bigger businesses and organisations like Roscoes and Siemens imagine how hard it is for a SME without the dedicated international trade teams large businesses have. Many businesses face significant barriers to growth or in procuring imported goods because of the multiple different standards. Exporters have to treat each country or trade bloc as an entirely different project making one off consignments hard to fulfill meanwhile getting imported parts or goods is harder as they have to be certified as safe in Duchies because there is no garuntee it meets standards domestic firms meet. The result is less international trade and specialisation than would otherwise be the case. That is why I am running on the business harmonisation platform so SME's and big business has equal footing in the market which is not the case at present."
His proposals include setting a common copyright system for the whole of the EU with opt outs available for nations and also doing the same for a common minimum product safety and quality scheme and mark. He has acknowledged some product standard minimums may need to be lowered to meet a new European standard but argues this is adressed by other quality marks that most Duchian products are aligning to anyway. He argued clothes, and daily products are more expensive throughout Europe as a result of inconsistent standards and costs of compliance with mutiiple systems and individual certification of safety and quality being required in each market.
The candidate has also called for much more powers for the EU and "more efficient administration" . He's argued for localising decision making to expert panels in each nation for each agency in areas of development, agriculture and environment among other areas. He said to us in his talk with us "At the moment the three commissioners decide everything , run everything and make every decision in the EU especially in agencies like the EDA. This is highly inefficient as every application has to go through Europolis and you are essentially screwed if an incompetent or less active commissioner gets elected as has happened many times recently. My proposals would see either national or regional panels and sub-panels handling applications with experts from all sectors with some appointed by EU and some by the national governments or institutions. These would decide grants and proposals under a certain amount and be given budgets in proportion to population to allocate. The measure would ensure that people assessing projects have local knowledge and expertise resulting in better more efficient decision making. These panels would have to write reports every 6 months and be audited every 12 months to protect against corruption. This would also apply to other grant making institutions." The commissioner candidates proposals have drew praise from the business community and third sector organisations who say navigating EU funding applications is often too complex , slow and bureaucratic with over 80% of organisations saying they instead pull from either ECON operated , other international agencies or domestic agencies for their funding as this tends to quicker and more efficient. James has branded this "an embarrassment for the EU" saying if the EU wants to survive it needs to be "indispensable and costly to leave just because it is the most efficient in development of Europe and important to everyday lives." He said " I believe in the vision of the EU and the idea but the problem is that in practise there is too much obstructionism and inefficiency. Every good idea to harmonise standards or make the EU more efficient and responsive gets voted down and frankly lazy and ineffective commissioners just go in get paid for doing literally nothing of note for the European people before the next "do nothing comissioner" gets in to repeat the cycle. My prediction is the EU will see nations leaving and forming alternatives if this situation continues. We are already seeing the rise of Unus in the north in United Duchies and this concerns me , I want to see us in the EU in 10 years time but unless the EU actually changes I fear a day when we will be leaving the EU and we likely won't be the only nation to do so in that situation." His candidacy has been backed by the Moderates, PSD , Liberals and UoD while Unus have called him an "EU lackey". Unus also have put in their platform they intend to hold a referendum on the EU promoting leaving the EU over their "control over the nation and wastage of Duchies money ". The party is in line with the AfD in this policy.