Red tape mountains

The German capital Berlin is really flat, right? The only elevations being rubble heaps from WWII measuring some tens of meters, what the heck would they need a law on cable cars for? This (German) article tells a funny story about an EU directive requiring member states to pass harmonised legislation on cable car security, and what with Germany being a federal state which requires constitutional powers to pass such legislation centrally (which it doesn't have), each Bundesland has to pass such a law, or pay a fine of EUR 791'000. So that's what Berlin did ...

Mind you, I am not being sarcastic about EU legislation / centralisation in general, which is very much the fashion among sceptics (which I am - complicated, what?). But this is a very nice case of nonsensical regulation which is just plain wrong and which could have been prevented by applying some simple common sense on the part of regulators.

Dieser Artikel aus der NZZ ist selbsterklärend und unterhaltsam, wenn er nicht so traurig wäre.