A big meeting of EU finance ministers is taking place next week in Dublin. Some politicians do appear to have got the message that the current system is a complete disaster. However, many are still holding out and insisting that small businesses sign up to an administrative system whose costs, both to them and to government, far outweigh the amount of tax likely to be paid under the scheme.

As Juliet McKenna explains here, we have a chance at that meeting to persuade the EU to act. We may get some sort of emergency provision that will introduce a turnover threshold below which businesses don’t need to register. It doesn’t have to be that big. Wizard’s Tower would do way less than €1000 worth of cross-border business each year, were I able to trade. Hundreds, possibly thousands of other businesses are in the same position. But if nothing happens in Dublin it will be 2017 or 2018 before we are likely to get another chance.

So yeah, another thing I need to do this weekend is write letters to European politicians. If some of you can find the time to do the same, Juliet and I, and many, many small businesses all over Europe, would be very grateful. Details here.