Whatever happened to the EEC?

Does anyone remember how, many years ago when Britain gained entry to the EU, it wasn't even called the EU, but the EEC (European Economic Community) or "Common Market"?

In those days, the major benefit that was sold to Britain was entry to an exclusive free trade club, and before that Britain was in EFTA (European Free Trade Association) along with a few of the Scandinavian nations.

Fast forward from 1973 to 1999 and the internet suddenly started making this free trade doctrine possible. So what happened? By a bit of rebranding the EEC had become the European Union (EU) and did things like forcing Amazon to charge VAT at the local buyers rate.

As a publicity stunt to put EU citizens off buying overseas ever again, it was a great success, but people need to know that Amazon was made an exception because of it's size. It's legal to buy from almost all other retailers in the EU and pay only their local sales tax.

I'm all for the EU as an organisation for fair, free trade, but at the moment this core belief has been forgotten...or did it ever exist except as an idea on paper from the days when they knew ordinary people wouldn't be able to take advantage of it anyway?

Tax Tricks

I'm amazed at the publicity the EU nations use to make it appear as though we're doing something illegal or unpatriotic by buying goods outside our national borders. Yet again, I encountered more people today who thought it was illegal to buy British books from Britain or that extra Danish taxes would be payable. This simply is not true!

As far as I'm concerned, the EU was sold to us as a Free Trade with No Borders association, and if they stuck to that I'm sure you'd find a lot more people enthusiastic about it than currently are.

I say to everyone out there...make the rules work for you. It is legal to buy from any EU supplier willing to sell an item to you, with no further taxes payable, so do it. It's the best way we'll ever get harmonisation and integration across Europe.