HONOUR THY NEIGHBOUR?

Now of course I have every sympathy for those 25 people who have lost their lives in Germany and the one in Sweden as a result of contracting the e-coli bug. Another 2,700 people have been affected across Europe, all of whom either living in Germany or having recently visited there.  I feel for their friends and families and I feel too for the farmers and growers, especially in Spain, who have suffered enormous loss thanks to the erroneous scattergun blame heaped on them by the German Government.

  

Seems to me the German authorities were too quick to apportion the blame elsewhere when all the time the outbreak seems to have originated in their own backyard of Lower Saxony.   Quite reasonably, those Spanish growers, along with others in the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are looking for compensation and good luck to them.

But the compensation claims are likely to fall on our old friends the EU, who have offered something in the region of £200million from the Common Agricultural Fund which seems woefully inadequate given the amount of losses sustained including the total ban on exports from the EU to Russia.

And there`s the rub for us reluctant EU taxpayers.   I know I`m a Europhobe but I think I`m reasonably entitled to enquire how it can possibly be right that my taxes have to go towards paying compensation for an event for which the Germans are entirely responsible.

As far as I can see, it`s a German problem originating in the Fatherland and so it`s the Germans who should cough up the whole of any compensation due.   There is a suggestion that, despite the legal minefield involved,  the EU might try to reclaim the compensation payout from the German Government, which might provide our teutonic friends with an honourable get out.   Would be nice to see them putting their hands up as well as putting them in their pockets and maybe, just maybe, apologising to the rest of the EU for their precipitate, yet sadly typical, behaviour.