'Don't confuse me with facts' Bureaucrat admits EU policy was based on 'emotive reaction'
A TOP European Commission bureaucrat has admitted than an EU policy was based on "simple emotive reaction" and pleaded "don't confuse me with facts".
Marie Donnelly, the European bureaucrat who made the statement
The revelation comes as a cabal of cross party Remain supporting MPs led by sacked Tory minister Anna Soubry, Lib Dem former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband, continue to try to delay Article 50 and keep Britain in the EU longer with a vote in parliament.
At a biofuels summit, Marie Donnelly, Director of Renewables, Research, and Energy Efficiency at the European Commission pleaded “don’t confuse me with facts, I believe what I believe”.
Her comments were taken to mean that emotive argument trump facts in Commission policy making.
Ms Donnelly, who is paid an annual salary between 160,000-200,000 euros, shocked listeners when addressing a conference in the European Parliament about EU guidelines on biofuels.
Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband along with a cabal of others are trying to delay Article 50
She admitted that a strategy on the topic published last year proposed phasing out food-based biofuels, was based on a “simple emotive reaction” due to people perceiving it as taking “food off the table of a poor starving child in Africa and [putting] it into the tank to burn it”.
Don’t confuse me with facts, I believe what I believe
The policy is slowing down efforts by the UK Government to meet binding environmental emissions targets by 2020 with a series of measures including making petrol 10 per cent bioethanol.
This would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars from the road in terms of reducing harmful emissions.
Her comments were taken to mean that emotive argument trump facts in Commission policy making
The admission by a senior figure in the European Commission has led the leading Brexit campaign group Leave Means Leave, backed by senior former ministers and Tory backbenchers, to call for the Government to increase its efforts to get Britain out of the EU quickly.
Ms Donnelly shocked listeners with her comments while address a conference about biofuels
Businessman Richard Tice, co-chairman of Leave Means Leave, said: “When the UK formally leaves the EU, we can return to implementing sensible policy decisions based on science, economics and crucially fact, rather than emotion to help our own people by lowering food prices. The sooner the better.”