Euromyths: Fact and fiction in EU law

The mother of euro-fallacies: "Bananas must not be excessively curved"

LONDON (CNN) -- With 80,000 pages of treaties, regulations, directives and opinions, the EU's vast body of law has often been the subject of debate and rumour in the European press.

The British press in particular has reported EU law as jeopardizing everything from traditional Christmas lunches, to the Queen as head of state.

Many stories are said by officials to have resulted from complex rules being misunderstood or muddled. Others, officials say, are completely untrue -- including the story that bananas sold within the EU must not be excessively curved.

Geoffrey Martin, the spokesman for the EU's representative office in the UK, says the "bent-banana syndrome" arose from a reporter's question at a 1992 news conference at which European officials announced the need to create a single market, with single standards, among the 15 member states.

"Some wise cracker asked: 'What does this mean for the curvature of bananas?'" Martin recalled. The question stuck and a myth was born.

But eight years on, Martin says, EU realities have borne out the fallacy of the banana scare. "Notwithstanding the fact that bananas were going to be required to be straight, bananas have remained curved."

Symmetrical Christmas trees

Reports that fishermen must wear hairnets drew a pointed denial from the EU

EU officials have fought back with brochure campaigns and a website designed to dispel some of the more insidious reports.

Martin's office alone has published two brochures, entitled: "Do you believe all that you read in the newspapers?" and a sequel, issued in 1995: "Do you still believe all that you read in the newspapers?"

Among the erroneous rules that have been reported are stipulations forcing fishermen to wear hairnets aboard their fishing boats (in fact, only general sanitary rules are prescribed), and a rule enforcing a standard length for condoms (actual efforts at standardisation focus on quality of condoms, not length).

It was also reported that Christmas trees would be required to be symmetrical in shape, have regularly-spaced needles, identical roots and be of the same colour.

The EU acknowledged a possible reason for the Yuletide myth: The Christmas Tree Growers Association of Western Europe -- an independent organisation -- had drawn up a series of specifications for its own trees, aimed at enhancing their brand image.

One euromyth warned of a union-wide ban on "traditional" pizzas

Martin has observed growing acrimony over Europe in press coverage, with the approach of British elections (due before 2002), and the intensification of the debate over whether the UK should join the single currency.

Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of The Sun newspaper, a right-leaning UK tabloid with almost four million daily readers, says his newspaper has tried to focus on weighty issues in its European coverage.

"I think British newspapers by and large give an accurate representation of what is happening in Europe. We tend to deal with real issues, like taxes, democracy and bureaucracy in the EU."

He says that does not mean The Sun is not sceptical about Europe. "Our fundamental view of Europe is that it is undemocratic and bureaucratic."

Jo Groebel, Director General of the European Institute for the Media, a press-monitoring organisation based in Duesseldorf, said: "The British press is probably not so much opinion-making as populist -- they are reflecting what they perceive as the popular opinion. There is still this deeply-rooted suspicion (in Britain) of everything European."

Groebel said he saw much less of an anti-European bias in both the French and German press.