August, 2005 - Nr. 8
Bavaria breathes easy as dirndl ban rumours are debunked
TWIG - Bavarians breathed a sigh of relief this week as European Union officials said that they had no plans to ban beer-garden barmaids from donning traditional dirndl dresses.
Brewery owners and local lawmakers had been up in arms over reports that new European rules would ban the dresses, known for their distinctive sweeping necklines, in a bid to protect workers from skin cancer.
Observers said the reports were all the more traumatic coming just weeks before beer drinkers from all over the world converge on Munich for Oktoberfest, where thousands of waitresses, many of them outfitted in the traditional dresses, serve millions of thirsty patrons.
"This is European lawmaking at its most pedantic," Munich mayor Christian Ude was quoted as saying.
"A waitress is no longer allowed to wander round a beer garden with a plunging neckline. I would not want to enter a beer garden under these conditions."
A spokesman for the Bavarian innkeeper’s association meanwhile celebrated the dirndl as a symbol of the southern German region’s storied joie de vivre.
"I’ve spoken to a number of waitresses," added the spokesperson, Frank-Ulrich John. "But I’ve never heard that sunburns in the décolleté area have become a problem."
By mid-week, however, EU officials familiar with the so-called Optical Radiation Directive finally said that working in a beer garden is not considered one of the high-risk occupations subject to the bloc’s "tan ban."
The directive, which is currently making its way through the European parliament, will require employers to assess the risk of skin cancer and retina damage for outdoor workers.
In the event that the assessments reveal a health risk, employers will be obliged to do everything they can to limit it.
With over 80,000 pages of treaties, regulations, directives and opinions, the EU’s vast body of law has often been the subject of debate and rumour in the European press.
Past reports speculated that Brussels-based bureaucrats
would ban excessively curved bananas and require Christmas trees to be
symmetrical in shape, for example.
Republished with permission from "The Week in Germany"
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