4 ms·

> the purposes of France and Germany. Do you have anything more concrete than the usual "France/Germany decide everything"? UK got loads of exceptions to the s

by bkor 6y ago

> the purposes of France and Germany. Do you have anything more concrete than the usual "France/Germany decide everything"? UK got loads of exceptions to the standard EU rules. UK also was able to influence the EU heavily. UK also pushed for expanding the EU greatly this so the UK had a source for cheap labour. This conflicts with your view quite a bit.

thu2111 6y ago
Yeah yeah, the UK influenced the EU so heavily it ended up choosing to leave. I've already explained one way in which the EU is basically oriented towards the needs of France and Germany - the single market for services never really happened. It was promised and that promise was never fulfilled. Why? Because Germany and France don't export many services. Even selling of goods and services online only started to be paid attention in 2015, decades after the single market for goods, and the EU has mostly made things worse for online sellers via things like its VAT rules, which are horrifically complex to implement. Basically you can't do it because it's so complex, so you have to get a dedicated third party company to process the VAT stuff for you, which imposes costs on everyone. Meanwhile the only thing that came out of their supposed digital services market strategy was a highly controversial change to copyright law, the product of vast amounts of lobbying. In Germany it was so controversial it even led to a bomb threat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market#United_Kingdom_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_... Things that could actually make it easier to sell the sorts of services that the UK is strong in never even made it to the table. Instead there is a very vague set of general statements in the treaties that don't mean anything, leading to lots of very silly court cases, like when someone selling a laser tag game in Germany bought laser guns from the UK and residents took them to the EU courts, arguing that "human dignity" meant that this service should be restricted. And the courts agreed. Really, who has time for this kind of stuff? The EU has time to standardise banana straightness (read my other post) and kettle power levels, but the basics of "can I open an entertainment business in another country without being shut down by bizarre legal arguments" isn't there.

by bkor 6y ago

thu2111 6y ago

Yeah yeah, the UK influenced the EU so heavily it ended up choosing to leave. I've already explained one way in which the EU is basically oriented towards the needs of France and Germany - the single market for services never really happened. It was promised and that promise was never fulfilled. Why? Because Germany and France don't export many services. Even selling of goods and services online only started to be paid attention in 2015, decades after the single market for goods, and the EU has mostly made things worse for online sellers via things like its VAT rules, which are horrifically complex to implement. Basically you can't do it because it's so complex, so you have to get a dedicated third party company to process the VAT stuff for you, which imposes costs on everyone. Meanwhile the only thing that came out of their supposed digital services market strategy was a highly controversial change to copyright law, the product of vast amounts of lobbying. In Germany it was so controversial it even led to a bomb threat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market#United_Kingdom_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_... Things that could actually make it easier to sell the sorts of services that the UK is strong in never even made it to the table. Instead there is a very vague set of general statements in the treaties that don't mean anything, leading to lots of very silly court cases, like when someone selling a laser tag game in Germany bought laser guns from the UK and residents took them to the EU courts, arguing that "human dignity" meant that this service should be restricted. And the courts agreed. Really, who has time for this kind of stuff? The EU has time to standardise banana straightness (read my other post) and kettle power levels, but the basics of "can I open an entertainment business in another country without being shut down by bizarre legal arguments" isn't there.