On school days, I get up early enough to catch the last half of the BBC World News. I learn all sorts of interesting things from the BBC. Last week, for example, I learned that Uganda was in Asia. Who knew? But today, I discovered that the French government thinks the French people are idiots.
The story concerned the French VAT on restaurant sales. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin promised in his last election campaign to reduce it from the current 19.6 percent to a much lower 5.5 percent. It seems that McDonald's take-away already qualifies for the lower tax. The higher one is only for sit-down meals. Alas, he can only do this with the approval of the EU. And guess what? Germany is opposed, because they don't want to be pressured to reduce their similarly high restaurant VAT.
Typical EU stuff. The funny part was the reporter's comment that the French government hopes that getting this tax reduction will induce the French voters to vote "oui" on the upcoming referendum on the EU constitution.
Sure. Let's underline for the French voters that the French Prime Minister has to go crawling to the Germans (or any and all other EU countries) to simply reduce an insanely high tax that is hurting French restaurants. Then let's watch the Prime Minister have to wait 8 months even get a meeting on the subject. Yeah, I'm sure that will work.
No comments:
Post a Comment