Dave Galland’s recent column at Casey Research discusses the malaise that has swept Portugal, resulting in utter discouragement across the rising generation. In spite of the beauty and natural richness of Portugal, the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future tend to be looking to leave as quickly as possible. What has gone so wrong? Casey suggests that the innovation fatigue factor of stifling Eurozone bureaucracy and oppressive regulations have gutted Portugal’s spirit.
‘ll give you a hint by relating that as a condition for inclusion in the Eurozone, functionaries in the European Commission based in Brussels required the Portuguese to retire and destroy a large percentage of their fishing fleet. As I understand it, the commissioners felt that the size of the Portuguese fleet coupled with the sea-faring nation’s long history in commercial fishing gave it an unfair advantage over other nations in the Eurozone. They also helped rationalize the demand to burn the boats by saying that the Portuguese fishermen were putting the ecosystem of the Atlantic Ocean at risk.
The result of forcing the Portuguese to burn these tools for capital creation is that since joining the Eurozone in 1986, Portugal’s fish harvest has effectively been cut in half. I was told that the country is reduced to buying many of the sardines that find favor in the local cuisine from the Spanish fleet.
The Euro-meddling doesn’t stop with fish. The Portuguese are mandated to trash a large amount of their annual orange production lest they exceed the quotas set in Brussels. Apparently the Spanish, ever attuned to capitalize on Portugal’s mandated misfortunes, buy the unsellable excess oranges and use them to make marmalade… which they then sell back to the Portuguese.
Of course, actions have consequences. One of them has been that Portugal has run a trade deficit for about twenty years now – in other words, starting soon after joining the EU in 1986.
And even though the country (and the continent) is tight in the grips of the most dire crisis in living memory, the EU commissars are still at it. In fact, as I write, Portugal is being forced by the European Commission to kill a large percentage of its chicken population, with the slaughter to be completed over the next month. This by virtue of the ironically named EU Welfare of Laying Hens Directive, forbidding the continued use of conventional egg-laying cages.
Once the chickens are destroyed, and provided the Portuguese egg farmers can ever find the capital needed to rebuild, they will have to build to the specifications of the EC Directive that requires that all laying hens must be kept in “enriched cages” providing each hen with at least 0.8 square feet of cage area, a nest-box, litter, perches and claw-shortening devices, allowing the hens to satisfy their biological and behavioral needs.
Tragically, as Europe stumbles in a massive economic crisis, the bureaucrats aren’t backing off, but increasing the burdens on the backs of the people and making it harder than ever for business to grow and innovation to thrive. This is sadly typical of minds disconnected from reality and deaf to the voice of innovators, a voice that will become largely silent if the burdens on their backs aren’t eased.