A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year….

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit…

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

The full story is here: ‘If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits’ – Telegraph

Even Eurosceptics will soon find that there is nothing splendid about isolation. Our capacity to shape the future of the world’s wealthiest economic bloc, which is also our most important export market, has just been dramatically diminished. This will have consequences not just for Britain’s influence in Europe, but its standing in the world. A Britain with reduced clout in the European Union is a Britain of less interest to the United States, China or any other important global power.

Though David Cameron acted in the name of protecting the City of London, the City is aghast. Far from safeguarding British banks and other financial interests from Brussels, Berlin and Paris, Britain is now locked out of crucial negotiations on the future form of regulation. As for Tory Eurosceptics, once their misguided intoxication has worn off, they will sober up to find that their agenda of repatriating powers from Brussels has been retarded, not advanced.