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radicalbyte

The EU is evil because it protects children :facepalm:

* Playgrounds, safety – EU safety directives to ban playgrounds, trapeze artists and bagpipes, Aug 2005

* Playgrounds, safety – Safety rules force the closure of UK playgrounds, Oct 2003

* Playgrounds, safety, speed limits – Speed limits to be enforced on children’s roundabouts, Oct 2004

* Playgrounds, safety, swings – A village has to remove its swings due to safety rules, Jan 2003

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I could give you tons of bogus euromyths, but this is a legit complaint.

How about "overprotecting children by closing down playgrounds is evil"?

Right, except that I am willing to bet money that in 99% of cases, playground closures happen because overprotective parents complain "my litle jimmy scraped their knee, you should close it until everything is made ouf ot foam!" and councils find it easier to just close a playground rather than fight a battle against parents, especially if they find few other households who think the same.

The excessive "health and safety" people justly complain about is kind of a British speciality.

It might be a legit complaint, but one that has nothing to do with the EU. The EU simply doesn't make safety standards for playgrounds.

You'd be surprised...

https://www.cen.eu/news/brochures/brochures/CEN-CLC_Child-Sa...

That's CEN, not EU

Yes, CEN, an public official standards body recognized by the EU, and whose members are "all member states of the European Union":

CEN is officially recognized as a European standards body by the European Union, European Free Trade Association and the United Kingdom; the other official European standards bodies are the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

You seem to be making the (rather common) mistake of confusing European organisations with EU institutions. CEN is not a part of the EU. It was founded to establish standards among European countries long before the EU even existed, and it has members outside the EU as well. The EU does indeed recognize it, as does the UK (and did long before the EU even existed), but the EU didn't create it and doesn't control it.

>but the EU didn't create it and doesn't control it.

Doesn't have to, just have to embrace and enforce its standards.

(Btw, I'm from the EU, thanks for the lecture on Europe vs the EU, who would have thought!).

it's not exactly "it protect children", but "protect them in the same way accros the union" So that when people travel they have the same safety than at home.

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