David Craig, on March 21st, 2014I first read this story on the Voice of Russia website. So, I assumed that it was just invented anti-EU propaganda. But it turns out that the story is actually true www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4001000.ece
Mr Barroso and his fellow corrupt, self-serving, greedy, unelected komissars have come up with a brilliant new plan to boost economic growth in the stagnant EU which is being crushed by their economically-illiterate policies. Hooray for Barroso! Maybe he’s about to deliver our EU masters’ promise to us: “the Euro will lead to full employment and make Europe the competitive powerhouse of the world“.
Here’s Barosso’s plan: The EU is enforcing rules which require countries to estimate how much cash changes hands on their black markets. Those figures will be taken into account when calculating national GDP and allocating the £120bn Brussels budget.
The EU officials say the change will ensure consistent economic comparisons between member states.
As prostitution and drug use is legal in some member states, like the Netherlands and umm the Netherlands and there’s also umm errr the Netherlands, officials say it is only fair for other states to include these activities in their national accounts.
Prostitution in the UK is expected to be valued at £3bn/year and drug dealing at around £7bn.
Rules from 1998 say criminal activity should be included in GDP calculations. But until now the rules have been ignored. The UK Office for National Statistics will reveal statistics for the size of the illegal industries this spring.
The £10bn inclusion of criminal industries will have a trivial impact on the UK GDP which currently stands at £1.6trn. But the change will make a big difference to poorer countries, particularly the Club Med states, where people in their desperation are more likely to have turned to drugs and/or prostitution, pushing up their GDP by several percentage points and increasing their share of the EU pie.
Greece tried to exploit the rule in 2006. Officials doctored their figures to try and reduce the budget deficit. Economic gains from prostitution, drugs and money laundering caused the country’s GDP to shoot up by 25% overnight.
But last spring the European Parliament insisted it was time for other countries to follow the rules. These require countries to include only those illegal activities where a transaction takes place between two willing parties. Robbery, kidnapping for a ransom and blackmail, for example, will not count.
One interesting point this story raises is: if it was mentioned on the supposedly biased Voice of Russia, why wasn’t it mentioned on the supposedly unbiased BBC?
(Tomorrow – a shocking message/warning from President Putin)
Category: 
Probably makes more sense than windmills.
“As prostitution and drug use is legal in some member states, like the Netherlands and umm the Netherlands and there’s also umm errr the Netherlands,”
And umm errr, WRONG!
Prostitution is 100% legal in England. (I think it always has been legal)
It is correct to say that there are many peripheral activities which can be connected with some prostitutes and associates (if any), such as:
More than one Escort working in a premises,
Soliciting on the street,
Running an agency/brothel (Control for gain, sexual offenses act 2003)
…is illegal.
But the actual “shagging for money” is all fine and dandy. And not breaking ANY LAW AT ALL.
Lots of prozzies comply fully with all the uk laws related to sex for sale.
Do not believe the media lies.
Nor J.Smith & H.Harman; they cannot be trusted.
And most prostitutes get really pissy when random punters ask them to supply some coke or whatever. Most prozies DON’T TOUCH DRUGS. (UNDERLINE, TWICE, IN RED INK)
Prostitutes usually have accountants who have a lot of experience in preparing accounts for Sex workers. They create for the escorts imaginative self employed job titles, for the benefit of discretion, when paying tax. So it seems reasonable to include those figures in the UK government revenue when the EU does whatever it does in calculations.
Some commercial sex is illegal. However most commercial sex is not illegal.
Bunching in prostitution {100% legal} in with the Restricted drugs trade {100% illegal} is misleading crass, and just plain brimming over with wrongability.
Some websites promote Bin Ladin flying lessons. But most websites don’t. I wouldn’t expect to see the NSA launch a Hellfire missile at the Snouts-in-the-trough server, just because it uses a medium called “The Internet”.
Doh!
Thinking wider. If David decides to stop running a mostly
excellent blog and I decide to stop writing this rather long comment,
and instead we both decide to become the biggest crack-heroin-speed importers/distributors in the uk.
With dealers on every street corner, a large amount of the money generated by our dodgy trade would work it’s way into the general economy.
So there would be an impact on money flow within the country as a whole. So there does appear some merit in the EU’s suggestion.
But I’d still say the UK should just bug out of the EU and call it even!