Extra virgin? Erm… not quite

The quote, from the Guardian online, starts thus:

"As you can imagine I'm not a Ukip supporter, but this is ridiculous. What's next? I really don't see the rationale. The whole contract between restaurant and customer is based on trust. If someone's going to break it, they're going to break it. No one says you need to show the pack of flour that the bread came from, so why the oil?"

Right. Now for the context. The "I" in question is a certain Yotam Ottolenghi, who is apparently a rather well-known restaurateur in London, and (as his name suggests) obviously not of British extraction. This might explain the allusion to the United Kingdom's independence party and Ottolenghi's instant attempt to distance himself from it.

Ukip, it seems, has acquired a reputation for racism, xenophobia and general, all-round political loopiness of the kind we associate locally with Norman Lowell and his Band of Merry White Supremacists. So it seems that anyone who criticises the EU in any way now has to also provide an instant disclaimer to prove that he or she is not a) a fascist, b) a homophobe, c) a misogynist or d) just another frigging idiot.

Now, it just so happens I am not much of a Ukip fan either, partly because I don't really give a flying Farage about the independence of the United Kingdom, nor for that matter whether it remains united as a kingdom for very much longer (which at the minute does not look very likely anyway).

These are quintessentially British concerns, and - not being British myself - I don't feel in any way involved in the discussion. But much more importantly, I am not a fan of Ukip for reasons apart from the traditional far-right rubbish we associate with the name.

I dislike Ukip because that blasted party has somehow managed to monopolise and appropriate what would otherwise be entirely legitimate doubts and misgivings about the European Union as a whole, thus undermining its own credentials as a supposedly eurosceptic party.

As a result of the increasingly lunatic antics of Ukip's extremist wing, anyone who now expresses disagreement with the EU- the same EU that (let's face it) has proven in reality to be so drastically different from the one we imagined we'd joined in 2004 - is instantly branded a moron or a lunatic, and by extension the criticism itself is instantly disregarded.

Yet there is nothing moronic or insane about reappraising one's opinion of the EU, especially when one is directly affected by any of its myriad absurd and blatantly industry-fuelled decisions.

Take Yotam Otolenghi, for instance. Is he a moron for objecting to the absurd new regulations drawn up (though since, thankfully, withdrawn) to 'protect' consumers of olive oil in restaurants, which actually limit his choice of olive oil to purchase for his own restaurant? Regulations which, in any case work spectacularly to the advantage of the major suppliers of European olive oil (and of course, to the detriment of small, cottage-industry producers)?

I think not. In fact, I think it was a perfectly legitimate complaint, and I find it sad that he evidently felt the need to qualify a valid objection with that irrelevant Ukip comment. Such, I fear, is the sinister side of the Union to which we are all now umbilically connected: criticise it in any way, and your motives and concerns will be cynically manipulated and twisted around into their opposites.

Meanwhile, looking at the proposed oil regulations in greater detail, it becomes painfully visible to all that there was nothing even remotely loony about the roar of sarcastic derision with which they were received.

Well, if this legislation had gone through, restaurants across the EU 27 would no longer be allowed to serve olive oil in a saucer or bowl, as is now fashionable in many a European culinary capital (for reasons that we in Malta have known for centuries. Recipe: pour olive oil into saucer, add salt, pepper and maybe a sprig of mint or basil... et voila! The results abundantly defecate on 99% of all world specialty dishes).

Sorry folks, but it seems that the major producers and suppliers of olive oil were all along concerned that - if the oil was brought to your table in a bowl instead of in a bottle neatly labelled di origine controllata - there was no way of forcing those restaurants to use THEIR oil, and ONLY their oil, in the saucers.

Instead, because of the retraction, restaurants in the EU are allowed to choose even microscopic local suppliers of olive oil if they want to - say, local artisanal producers of the kind that have proliferated in Malta in recent years, whose product is often spectacularly superior to the big names in the industry anyway.

But that, of course, seems unacceptable to a European Union based on the principles of a free-market economy (note: in case you still cling to the old definition, please be aware that the words 'free-market economy' now mean that the EU is 'free' to impose its own 'market' conditions, even if these wreck your 'economy').

So the legislation would have made it mandatory for restaurants to serve oil only in sealable, non-refillable, clearly labelled bottles. Oh, and look: they're precisely the type of bottles that one normally associates with Carapelli, Bertolli and the other major names in the oil business. My word, what a remarkable coincidence...

I could stop there, but I fear that even the most vociferous critics of the EU Agriculture Commission's olive oil cazzata seem to have overlooked the broader implications. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to spell them out myself.

Here goes. Maybe we need to cut the cord... or shorten it. Does anyone out there remember why John Dalli was forced out of office last October? Well, technically we have been given two conflicting answers to that question: the first by the EU's anti-fraud director Giovanni Kessler, who insisted that the celebrated OLAF report (you know, the one that was so "transparent" none of us could actually see it) contained "clear and unambiguous" evidence that Dalli had been personally involved in attempted corruption.

But when MaltaToday published that report, and it become instantly obvious that, well, it contained no such evidence at all, what was Barroso's reaction? Simple. He just changed the official reason. Suddenly, the forced resignation had nothing to do with OLAF at all and everything to do with "political reasons" that have never actually been defined.

The only hint concerns the perception that John Dalli was "too close to industry lobbyists", which is apparently the ultimate crime in the Commission (at least when that same Commission has other, undisclosed reasons for wanting to get rid of its own commissioners).

OK, now let us turn to the olive oil directive and apply the same general thought processes. Immediately the question arises, Did the European Commission seriously expect us all to believe that a law that makes it practically illegal for a restaurant to use any non-industrial-quality olive oil - perhaps, like some Maltese restaurants, its own house olive oil, served in its own small carafes - had no input whatsoever from the same industry which so obviously stood to gain? Are we to understand that our EU representatives never met any olive oil industry lobbyists to discuss this law? And if they didn't physically meet, was there any email correspondence? Did lobbyists use other means to influence legislation? Did they employ lawyers, make contacts at various levels within the bureaucracy of the Commission... and all the other things that the same Commission (and its anti-fraud watchdog) made such a fuss about in the case of John Dalli, but seem to have now forgotten altogether?

Time to face facts, I fear. We have been conned. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I still maintain that if one set of rules applies to Commissioner X, the same set of rules has to apply to Commissioner Y. Yet not only was Dalli judged using a totally different (and opposite) yardstick, but the lobbyist-influenced EU olive oil directive was very clearly drawn up on the insistence of the same lobbyists that the EU is not supposed to even talk to - against the interests of the consumer it is supposed to protect. And of course nothing happened. No commissioner was forced to resign; no EU member state was publicly and deliberately humiliated for no reason. Instead we are all expected to simply accept from the EU Agriculture Commission that which was unacceptable from Dalli, no questions asked.

Wait, it gets even better: if you question any of the above, in any way, well you're obviously a 'fascist, racist, homophobic loony' whose opinion doesn't count for frigging toffee. Aren't you so relieved we joined such a wonderfully democratic and fair institution?