That's most of the EU. Some countries take it very seriously, especially Germany. My wife was a social worker here before she retired. Before moving down to the Düsseldorf area, she worked in the Ruhr city of Gladbeck, only midly famous for being the city of one of the "Boys From Brazil," and the city from which a notorious gangster pair kidnapped some people in a car and drove it all over the map until a botched gunfight confrontation where one of the hostages was killed but the hostage takers were not.
The city was a bureaucratic nightmare, where her team at the youth center was reprimanded by the city government (Social Democrat-Communist coalition) demanded the use plastic markers to count how much in the way of soft drinks they served at some function that the city government had refused to sponsor in the first place. Their grave offense was taking the initiative to offer the kids anything to drink in the first place without a series of signed, stamped authorizations.
Here in the Rheinland, she went to vote one time, and was told she couldn't vote here. When she asked why not, she was told she lived in Munich and should have voted there. She explained that she had never lived in Munich in her life. They countered that their records said she lived in Munich and they never made mistakes, so she couldn't vote. All too familiar with the mentality of her countrymen, she then demanded they look up our children to see if they lived here. At the time, they were aged 3 and 5. Yes, they lived here. She then would call the police and as city officials they would be obligated to demand arrest for child abandonment (my legal residence was still Dallas at the time). At the prospect of making a grave mistake, they beat a hasty retreat and let her cast a provisional vote, which was later counted. The next week, she went to the city hall to ask WTF was going on. Someone (obviously, no one would take responsibility) had "moved" her to Munich at "some" time in the past, and so they "moved" her back here. They were unable to erase her domicile in Munich, though the arrest for child abandonment never happened, either.
France is no better. During the terror of the last socialist government, one brigade of renegade customs officers decided to go around raising money by issuing fines to shops in Paris that dealt in gold and old coins. They went through all their books, which were always in order, because people who run such shops are always terrified of just such raids. They went from shop to shop, handing out fines for offenses that didn't exist. But since the only alternative was having their shop closed and their stock confiscated during a year long "investigation," most shut up and paid up. I know one guy who was so meticulous, he wasn't even bothered when it was his "turn." Frustrated at finding nothing wrong, they fined him €1500 because his computer software was too slow, an offense that is not on the books anywhere. I am not making this up, I promise. When he went to the head customs office to pay his fine, the supervisor rolled his eyes, and apologized for the injustice. He said it was not in his power to dismiss the fine, though he would have preferred to, but he was allowed to reduce it to €1000, which he did.
Welcome to the dark side of the EU.
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