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Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. Le Pen got 35% in 2017, pro-frexit parties are flourishing in France. EU has got to be careful. It's doing good things (f

Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. Le Pen got 35% in 2017, pro-frexit parties are flourishing in France. EU has got to be careful. It's doing good things (free roaming, which as citizen who has family in both France and Germany, I highly appreciate) and the GDPR, which seems to force companies to think more about privacy. But if Github's phrasing accurately represents what EU wants to do with online sharing, then I feel like this change is a step in the wrong direction, restricting privacy to make big-corps even richer than they already are.

discordianfish 9y ago
Free roaming and peace. The small things..
- gadders 9y ago
  The peace was due to Nato, not the EU.
  - nl 9y ago
    Both. The EU bound counties together through trade and NATO protected against external threats.
    - timrichard 9y ago
      Internal/external. So presumably there would be a higher risk of France, Germany and Britain going to war with each other if it wasn't for a trade agreement and customs union? Despite them all being NATO members, unable to by treaty, with the whole NATO organisation geared up to enforce that? How exactly would your scenario play out? I'm genuinely curious.
      - antientropic 9y ago
        The first precursor of the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community [1]. It had the express purpose of putting control over coal and steel under supranational control, thereby making war between the members materially impossible. It's also important to note that NATO does not provide prosperity (that was the goal of the EEC through closer trade and cooperation). So it does absolutely nothing to prevent the rise of extremist movements that could cause a repeat of the 1930s. There is also nothing it can do to prevent a member from quitting, just like Germany quit the League of Nations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
      - nl 9y ago
        The economic structure of the EU provides incentives to avoid conflict. Worth noting that two NATO members (Greece and Turkey) have had deaths from a not-quite shoot out http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/23/greece.crash/ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/23/greece.crash/. Interesting also that Turkey isn't an EU member, and counties like Germany and France have had as least as much a history of conflict as Greece/Turkey have.
- Jdam 9y ago
  Exactly. When the EU falls apart, Germany will immediately invade France & Poland and nuke London.
teamhappy 9y ago
> But if Github's phrasing accurately represents what EU wants to do It doesn't. It's just a proposal. Not all proposals become law and this one has "not gonna make it" written all over it.
- detuur 9y ago
  Every few months an article gets to the top of HN claiming "EU IS GOING TO LEGISLATE TABS VS SPACES CODE STYLE" or approved names for your dog or maximum amount of light bulbs you can carry for personal use or some other really dumb shit. Invariably it turns out it's not a law yet, but a proposal. Which, due to the EU parliament's rather open law-making process, are immediately available online in 26 languages. A closer reading of the proposal then invariably exposes one of the following: a.) It's a theoretical conclusion that could be drawn from this proposal but is in no way how the law is supposed to be applied and will very clearly thrown out of court if you'd try. or b.) It's a proposal that it written by someone who has no subject matter knowledge, who has been clearly instructed by some lobbyist, who is adamant to defy every expert's opinion on their proposal, or who is just generally a loony who happened to make it into the 751-person parliament. No one is going to vote for their proposal. Obviously when a proposal like this makes it to the floor that's scary, but it's a side effect of democracy. Some people buy into the entertainment industry's shrieks that technology is killing them (even though they're doing better than ever) and some of the people that buy into it happen to be MEPs. It's a problem that exists in every legislature in the world, and the only way to fight this is by taking an active role in your country/union's politics.
  - RHSeeger 9y ago
    > It's a theoretical conclusion that could be drawn from this proposal but is in no way how the law is supposed to be applied and will very clearly thrown out of court if you'd try. I history of selective enforcement of laws (especially when using them as leverage to plead guilty on another charge) in the US has taught me that overreaching laws are a bad thing. The ones in power will, given time, always take advantage of poorly worded laws.
titanix2 9y ago
No, the FN was the biggest loser of the election. Marine Le Pen showed to the entire country and her own electors that she's totally not fit for any government position. The FN is dead (even with its name change), it has not even credibility on what was it's main selling point a few years ago: immigration. Also while MLP advocated for exiting EU and euro, that's not something voters want: they actually vote for her in spite of that. EU may have a somewhat bad reputation amongst some part of the population, the majority if far wanting to quit it.
IAmEveryone 9y ago
It must be increasingly frustrating for anyone in Brussels if every opponent of any legislation always starts with threatening the whole idea of European cooperation. “Do anything I disagree with and I’ll vote for the fascists in the next election” really isn’t constructive. The accusation of being on the side of big business is also insincere, as exemplified by your two examples of recent legislation that quite clearly side with consumers over large businesses. Even this legislation, while misguided, is actually aimed at large businesses (mostly YouTube) while the beneficiaries (publishers and artists) are rather small, comparatively.
- vim_wannabe 9y ago
  Putting the "fascist!" comment aside, what alternatives are there than the threat of breaking from the EU if every legislation seems to* head toward a US style federation? Think of it like the SOPA/PIPA/whatever fight: You manage to barely resist some bill from being enacted into law but then just a few months/years later another version of the same law is proposed. *: from the perspective of someone
  - John_KZ 9y ago
    There are a few political parties that call for a reform of the EU without breaking up. I'll try to vote for one of them. It's clear that the EU needs serious fixing, and German politicians/Brussels technocrats aren't up to the task because they don't care. Unfortunately, at the time being, these reform parties (mostly social democrats, but not exclusively, and not of the "old kind" of social democrats) aren't big, because the emotional way to deal with the crisis is "To hell with them, let's roll-back to nation-states so we can take over control". Unfortunately, we'll bitterly find out that breaking up won't solve the problem. We'll lose all the benefits of being able to lobby together for a better solutions, and still suffer from all the problems of the EU, even without being in it, because the big institutions won't be stopped by border checks..
- pjc50 9y ago
  > every opponent of any legislation always starts with threatening the whole idea of European cooperation Well, nothing else really works. The European parliament in general tends to be fairly good on these issues, but it's not in control of the agenda and the whole system is very vulnerable to being captured by industry groups. It's inherently difficult for the public to participate and there's seldom any discussion in the press while legislation is underway. There's also no recognition of or exemption for small businesses in EU legal thinking. It's one of the things that the UK tends to do fairly well, but EU law sort of assumes that businesses start at 100 employees with multi-million-Euro turnover and can afford compliance. Copyright/patent is an area where the legislation has been extremely pro-status-quo for a long time.
s_dev 9y ago
>Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. All the polls are showing EU citizens are much positive about the EU after the Brexit referendum. Even Greek citizens -- probably the most Eurosceptic -- prefer the EU compared to a few years ago. What your saying isn't backed up by what polling data is saying.
- nl 9y ago
  The Italian election (earlier this month) was won by a eurosceptic party. (Or at least they won the most seats but still have to form a coalition) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italy-turns-back-on-europe-as-election-points-to-hung-parliament https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italy-turns-ba...
mtgx 9y ago
And once again it's a stupid copyright law that is going to ruin everything. I've never seen a copyright law so far that isn't downright draconian and authoritarian and with a huge potential for unintended consequences and a lot of collateral damage (even if the authors' intentions were "good").

discordianfish 9y ago

Free roaming and peace. The small things..

gadders 9y ago
The peace was due to Nato, not the EU.
- nl 9y ago
  Both. The EU bound counties together through trade and NATO protected against external threats.
  - timrichard 9y ago
    Internal/external. So presumably there would be a higher risk of France, Germany and Britain going to war with each other if it wasn't for a trade agreement and customs union? Despite them all being NATO members, unable to by treaty, with the whole NATO organisation geared up to enforce that? How exactly would your scenario play out? I'm genuinely curious.
    - antientropic 9y ago
      The first precursor of the EU was the European Coal and Steel Community [1]. It had the express purpose of putting control over coal and steel under supranational control, thereby making war between the members materially impossible. It's also important to note that NATO does not provide prosperity (that was the goal of the EEC through closer trade and cooperation). So it does absolutely nothing to prevent the rise of extremist movements that could cause a repeat of the 1930s. There is also nothing it can do to prevent a member from quitting, just like Germany quit the League of Nations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
    - nl 9y ago
      The economic structure of the EU provides incentives to avoid conflict. Worth noting that two NATO members (Greece and Turkey) have had deaths from a not-quite shoot out http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/23/greece.crash/ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/23/greece.crash/. Interesting also that Turkey isn't an EU member, and counties like Germany and France have had as least as much a history of conflict as Greece/Turkey have.
Jdam 9y ago
Exactly. When the EU falls apart, Germany will immediately invade France & Poland and nuke London.

teamhappy 9y ago

> But if Github's phrasing accurately represents what EU wants to do It doesn't. It's just a proposal. Not all proposals become law and this one has "not gonna make it" written all over it.

detuur 9y ago
Every few months an article gets to the top of HN claiming "EU IS GOING TO LEGISLATE TABS VS SPACES CODE STYLE" or approved names for your dog or maximum amount of light bulbs you can carry for personal use or some other really dumb shit. Invariably it turns out it's not a law yet, but a proposal. Which, due to the EU parliament's rather open law-making process, are immediately available online in 26 languages. A closer reading of the proposal then invariably exposes one of the following: a.) It's a theoretical conclusion that could be drawn from this proposal but is in no way how the law is supposed to be applied and will very clearly thrown out of court if you'd try. or b.) It's a proposal that it written by someone who has no subject matter knowledge, who has been clearly instructed by some lobbyist, who is adamant to defy every expert's opinion on their proposal, or who is just generally a loony who happened to make it into the 751-person parliament. No one is going to vote for their proposal. Obviously when a proposal like this makes it to the floor that's scary, but it's a side effect of democracy. Some people buy into the entertainment industry's shrieks that technology is killing them (even though they're doing better than ever) and some of the people that buy into it happen to be MEPs. It's a problem that exists in every legislature in the world, and the only way to fight this is by taking an active role in your country/union's politics.
- RHSeeger 9y ago
  > It's a theoretical conclusion that could be drawn from this proposal but is in no way how the law is supposed to be applied and will very clearly thrown out of court if you'd try. I history of selective enforcement of laws (especially when using them as leverage to plead guilty on another charge) in the US has taught me that overreaching laws are a bad thing. The ones in power will, given time, always take advantage of poorly worded laws.

titanix2 9y ago

No, the FN was the biggest loser of the election. Marine Le Pen showed to the entire country and her own electors that she's totally not fit for any government position. The FN is dead (even with its name change), it has not even credibility on what was it's main selling point a few years ago: immigration. Also while MLP advocated for exiting EU and euro, that's not something voters want: they actually vote for her in spite of that. EU may have a somewhat bad reputation amongst some part of the population, the majority if far wanting to quit it.

IAmEveryone 9y ago

It must be increasingly frustrating for anyone in Brussels if every opponent of any legislation always starts with threatening the whole idea of European cooperation. “Do anything I disagree with and I’ll vote for the fascists in the next election” really isn’t constructive. The accusation of being on the side of big business is also insincere, as exemplified by your two examples of recent legislation that quite clearly side with consumers over large businesses. Even this legislation, while misguided, is actually aimed at large businesses (mostly YouTube) while the beneficiaries (publishers and artists) are rather small, comparatively.

vim_wannabe 9y ago
Putting the "fascist!" comment aside, what alternatives are there than the threat of breaking from the EU if every legislation seems to* head toward a US style federation? Think of it like the SOPA/PIPA/whatever fight: You manage to barely resist some bill from being enacted into law but then just a few months/years later another version of the same law is proposed. *: from the perspective of someone
- John_KZ 9y ago
  There are a few political parties that call for a reform of the EU without breaking up. I'll try to vote for one of them. It's clear that the EU needs serious fixing, and German politicians/Brussels technocrats aren't up to the task because they don't care. Unfortunately, at the time being, these reform parties (mostly social democrats, but not exclusively, and not of the "old kind" of social democrats) aren't big, because the emotional way to deal with the crisis is "To hell with them, let's roll-back to nation-states so we can take over control". Unfortunately, we'll bitterly find out that breaking up won't solve the problem. We'll lose all the benefits of being able to lobby together for a better solutions, and still suffer from all the problems of the EU, even without being in it, because the big institutions won't be stopped by border checks..
pjc50 9y ago
> every opponent of any legislation always starts with threatening the whole idea of European cooperation Well, nothing else really works. The European parliament in general tends to be fairly good on these issues, but it's not in control of the agenda and the whole system is very vulnerable to being captured by industry groups. It's inherently difficult for the public to participate and there's seldom any discussion in the press while legislation is underway. There's also no recognition of or exemption for small businesses in EU legal thinking. It's one of the things that the UK tends to do fairly well, but EU law sort of assumes that businesses start at 100 employees with multi-million-Euro turnover and can afford compliance. Copyright/patent is an area where the legislation has been extremely pro-status-quo for a long time.

s_dev 9y ago

>Frexit seems to be coming ever closer. All the polls are showing EU citizens are much positive about the EU after the Brexit referendum. Even Greek citizens -- probably the most Eurosceptic -- prefer the EU compared to a few years ago. What your saying isn't backed up by what polling data is saying.

nl 9y ago
The Italian election (earlier this month) was won by a eurosceptic party. (Or at least they won the most seats but still have to form a coalition) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italy-turns-back-on-europe-as-election-points-to-hung-parliament https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italy-turns-ba...

mtgx 9y ago

And once again it's a stupid copyright law that is going to ruin everything. I've never seen a copyright law so far that isn't downright draconian and authoritarian and with a huge potential for unintended consequences and a lot of collateral damage (even if the authors' intentions were "good").