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Even living nearby in the UK it blows my mind how quickly the EU proposes, kills and then revives and passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe

by piker 11mo ago

Even living nearby in the UK it blows my mind how quickly the EU proposes, kills and then revives and passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe.

Simulacra 11mo ago
That could be a result of the Parliamentary style system. With multiple parties - each sharing a part of the government - proposals and alliances can shift rapidly. It all depends on how big the pie becomes for each to get a slice
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- hexbin010 11mo ago
  Power sharing is very rare in the UK. What is more common is a party with a large majority with lots of infighting between factions of their party
  - graemep 11mo ago
    Not usual, but two out of the last 20 governments is not what I would call very rare. its more likely than it has been in a very long time with multiple smaller parties gaining seats. Nationalists in Scotland and Wales have been around a whole, and NI always had its own parties, but on top of that we now have Reform and the Greens making gains.
    - hexbin010 11mo ago
      Fair - "very rare" was a little over the top. I'm sure we can agree on "uncommon" :) Are you predicting a minority government in the next election? Time will tell!
iLoveOncall 11mo ago
You are a fool if you think the UK is better. I've moved from the EU to the UK and it is worse in every way when it comes to authoritarian measures. I'm not sure how you can have already forgotten the fact that we have to upload or face or ID to access websites.
- poszlem 11mo ago
  I think he meant that as "I live in the UK where this is already bad, yet the EU still ended up worse.".
  - green7ea 11mo ago
    This is how I also read it.
- cbeach 11mo ago
  In the UK we've had an authoritarian Conservative government for 14 years, followed by an even more authoritarian Labour government, which we'll have until 2029. In 2029 it's likely we'll have a more libertarian government: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/#national-parliament-voting-intention https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/... Reform will repeal some of the awful legislation that's been passed over the last few years (e.g. Online Safety Act). They've been loud critics of government overreach. https://www.ft.com/content/886ee83a-02ab-48b6-b557-857a38f30c1d https://www.ft.com/content/886ee83a-02ab-48b6-b557-857a38f30...
  - jbstack 11mo ago
    "a more libertarian government" As long as you are white British. If you're anything else you're probably going to be worse off under Farage. It's a shame that if you want to vote for someone with different policies to the two main parties, you have to accept that you are also voting for an outspoken racist.
    - baiac 11mo ago
arlort 11mo ago
Because it doesn't, people are just embarrassingly ignorant of how the EU legislative process works so when a vote to give first approval to a text is cancelled before it takes place journalists and reddit all over pull out the mission accomplished banners and when a negotiating position is approved everyone has a surprised pikachu face The "proposal" was made something like 3 years ago, the killing never happened and the passing, if it passes, will happen in at least one year from now because this will definitely take a long time to get through parliament and even longer to get through the trilogue. The process is many things but quick it is not
- zelphirkalt 11mo ago
  This is of course a process, that does not lend itself to be democratic, because it is way longer than most people's attention span. People don't manage to remember things that happened in politics 4 years ago in their own country. Now they are required to follow up on dozens of shitty proposals, all probably illegal in their own country, and those don't even happen in their own country? That divides the number of people, who even start looking into this stuff by a factor of 1000 or so.
  - mejutoco 11mo ago
    Is there a website that tracks these? That would be a nice divulgation process.
    - rbehrends 11mo ago
      There is the Parliament's legislative train website [1]. However, it only tracks actual legislative steps, not the intra-Council negotiations, so the proposal's page appears to be have been largely inactive since 2024 [2]. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ [2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new-era-for-european-defence-and-security/file-combating-child-sexual-abuse-online https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new...
  - basisword 11mo ago
SiempreViernes 11mo ago
Well, the impression of speed is mainly in the head of the headline writers. What has actually happened is that after about three years of faffing about the Council finally decided on it negotiation position begore the Coreper 2 meeting last week, thought it seems they ran put of time at actual the meeting and had to have the formal approval this week. The Council is only one of three parties that draft new laws, so now there's are still several rounds of negotiations left. Nothing substantial has happened to the three texts since last week, it's just that "chat control is back" drives traffic and "Council preparatory body formally approves draft position that got consensus previously but didn't formally get passed because people were fighting over Ukraine stuff for too long" doesn't.
- a022311 11mo ago
  > Nothing substantial has happened to the three texts since last week, it's just that "chat control is back" drives traffic and "Council preparatory body formally approves draft position that got consensus previously but didn't formally get passed because people were fighting over Ukraine stuff for too long" doesn't. While I agree with your point, it's still crucial to raise awareness of Europe's actions. It may be a small step, but it is not insignificant.
  - squigz 11mo ago
    Awareness of the reality, yes, but there's no reason to play people's emotions to get them "aware" of it - or in other words, get them angry about it.
    - YeahThisIsMe 11mo ago
      Yes, there is. This shouldn't move forward at all, regardless of how many steps are involved and how small they are.
      - TeMPOraL 11mo ago
        Anyone can and does say this about their pet favorite bit of legislation. And so journalists are more than happy to pull this shit with every other topic, too.
paganel 11mo ago
Because that's what autocracies in anything but name usually do. Who's going to stop them?
- maybewhenthesun 11mo ago
  The EU is more of a bureaucracy than a real autocracy. Lots of members with veto powers and the like. There is a lot wrong with the EU (the system). Opaque power structures, backroom deals, corruption. But I wouldn't call it an autocracy.
  - paganel 11mo ago
    > Lots of members with veto powers and the like. Similar to the Political Bureau in former communist countries, but still an autocracy. > But I wouldn't call it an autocracy. It has most certainly started to walk and quack a lot like an autocratic duck, it wasn't the case 10 to 15 years ago, or not as visible, to say the least, but the pandemic and this recent war in Ukraine have changed that.
    - maybewhenthesun 11mo ago
      I'd go along with 'authoritarian' . But autocrat implies people holding on to power/ consolidating power outside the system. The EC is still democratically chosen, albeit indirectly. There is no real sign (yet) of the stretching of term limits common for autocrats.
  - ekianjo 11mo ago
    Aristocracy is the correct word
- oblio 11mo ago
  The EU Parliament, that has to vote to pass the law. Let's be better at commenting than Libertatea, circa 2010 (or The Daily Mail, for international readers).
  - 11mo ago
surgical_fire 11mo ago
> passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe. It did not pass. I think the problem here is that you don't understand how the system works. The EU parliament still would have to approve this for it to become legislation. This is akin to a national government proposing a law, and the congress having to vote for it.
- piker 11mo ago
  Yes, I think that is right. I don’t understand how it works. This comment got a little more attention than I expected.
Traubenfuchs 11mo ago
The UK keeps a register of non-crime hate incidents and invests its scarce police resources into harassing, arresting and punishing people for twitter posts.
- graemep 11mo ago
  That might well change: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo.amp
  - pixelpoet 11mo ago
    Non-AMP link to help keep dirty monopolists at bay: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo Please don't use AMP.
    - graemep 11mo ago
      I did not actually notice it was AMP. Its on the same domain as the version you link to - is that still a problem?
      - pixelpoet 11mo ago
        All good, and sorry I'm used to making posts like this on Reddit where people are less aware. I just did what I always do, edit out the AMP part and check that it still works. Sometimes the URL will go elsewhere or need more fiddling, this time it just worked.
- vixen99 11mo ago
  And also: silently praying in public near an abortion center. The lady in question should have asked the policeman (as he was) "How would you define praying?". At least he'd maybe have paused for an interesting short discussion on semantics and more before for arresting her - as he did. https://youtu.be/wXURFRSUS9U https://youtu.be/wXURFRSUS9U Two years ago and she has received damages however similar attitudes still abound with marked police disapproval of attempts to display the English National flag - in England.
RobotToaster 11mo ago
That's generally how the EU works, they forced Ireland to hold another referenda after the first one rejected the Lisbon treaty
- ben_w 11mo ago
  The Irish people demanded concessions, got them. Saying "forced" about this is like if someone offered me a job, me reading the offer and saying "can I do a 4-day week?", the company's response being "yes, here's a new contract for you to sign", and describing that second contract as "forced" on me.
  - mytailorisrich 11mo ago
    The EU Constitution was rejected so they basically rolled its key provisions in the Lisbon Treaty. This has been the typical modus operandi in the EU. There is always a correct answer and the people are free to choose as long as they choose it.
- iso1631 11mo ago
  Forced - was this an EU navy ship parking off Dublin?
DocTomoe 11mo ago
If you are not really subject to public control and re-election, it makes it much easier. EU politics don't play much of a role in the media. The older and more cynical I become, the more. I am convinced: that's by design. That way, national politicians can move politically wanted, but publicly unpopular things to Brussels and blame the EU. We are just exposed to that much EU lawmaking news because we are directly affected as a subculture. During the Brexit referendum days, I learned that British friends of mine did not even know they had EU parliamentary elections - I had to prove to them via Wikipedia AND had to read them the name of their representative (who just so happened to live just down the roar), nor did they care. Made many things more clear to me.
- everfrustrated 11mo ago
  For democracy and government [1] to work it has to remain small and localised. The US had the right idea by expressly limiting the reach of the federal government to very explicit narrow things mentioned in the constitution (of course this was expanded by unconstitutional means over many governments over many years now but that is getting off topic). The EU seems to be taking the opposite approach - countries push any unpopular law into the growing EU layer to prevent local backlash affecting them. As comments around this call it - "political laundering". A great term that I shall be borrowing. [1] Relatedly, the philosopher Jimmy Carr has a great line about the failing of communism is about scale. It works locally at the family level but it can't scale to the level of a country.
genericacct 11mo ago
TFA mentions "european governments" but this legislation is proposed by a bunch of european members of parliament who in no way represent any governments and much less the commission or the union. In short it tries to depict a group of old farts as an overreaching snooping authority. I wonder who could have a vested interest in depicting the EU as a repressive regime...
- jonkoops 11mo ago
  This legislation is not proposed by members of parliament, only the commission can draft legislation, the parliament can only approve it.
- WinstonSmith84 11mo ago
  > this legislation is proposed by a bunch of european members of parliament who in no way represent any governments and much less the commission Well, here is the guy from where that comes from, the minister of justice of Denmark. He certainly represents a good part of Denmark, even though he may be irrelevant to any other EU country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard
- harvey9 11mo ago
  Are you saying that a neutral observer would not see this as repressive?
- vidarh 11mo ago
  However the European Council consists of the heads of state / government of EU member states, not MEP's.
Account_Removed 11mo ago
"European Council has no legislative power, it is a strategic (and crisis-solving) body that provides the union with general political directions and priorities, and acts as a collective presidency." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council
- TazeTSchnitzel 11mo ago
  Wrong Council, this is about the Council of the European Union (yes the naming is terrible).
dathinab 11mo ago
As others have mentioned: 1. this wasn't fast, it took ~5 years and most (but not all) of the problematic parts have been removed 2. It also wasn't "fully rejected" or anything in the decision which gained some awareness of hacker news, just one specific draft was rejected, not the proposal as a whole (but IMHO it should have been). 3. it's not passed just approved by the council, which consists of the various head of states elected in their respective countries (i.e. is the easiest part to pass something controversial), but still needs to pass the European parliament (elected through the EU elections) 4. and then it must not be shot down by the ECJ or ECHR, both might shot it down, the ECJ for it being excessive/disproportional, and the ECHR because privacy is accepted as a human right by it (in general, there are exceptions so not 100% guaranteed). Or shut down by the German supreme court (same reason as ECJ and ECHR) which has somewhat of a veto right (or else Germany wouldn't have been able to legally join the EU), idk. if any other countries supreme courts have similar veto rights, but idk. why they shouldn't have)
- iknowstuff 11mo ago
  EU law has supremacy over national laws. National courts need to disapply local laws in conflict with EU law, so typically any subsequent local disputes in court will just be ruled based on a new EU law/ruling. EU laws in conflict with a local constitution pose more of a challenge: from the EU point of view, EU law is supreme and they might apply infringement procedures for failing to recognize it, but for a country, the constitution is probably more important than a treaty.
  - dathinab 11mo ago
    > EU law has supremacy over national laws This only applies where countries ceded sovereignty to the EU. Technically in Germany non of the sovereignty was ceded but transferred based on two different articles in the German Constitution. But that transfer is neither absolute, nor automatic. Practically it means that in most situations it is "as if" it was cede, but just in most situations. This leads to a situation where if the supreme court rules that some EU regulations or similar are against the German constitution you have a conflict between the constitutional articles which transfer authority and the ones the court ruled to have been infringed one. But in the German constitution not all articles are equally, the first few have special protections and extra hurdles to amend. And the article which transfers powers to the EU _is not one of them_. This means that for any of the more protected clauses Germany has not at all ceded the authority of their supreme court to do a final judgement on. In such cases if the German supreme court says no, it's means no for any application of law in German no matter what the EU courts say. And there are only 3 ways to fix that, 1. the EU amends their regulation, 2. Germany amends their constitution (practically impossible in such cases), 3. the rule informally applies to everyone but Germany, 4. Germany leaves the EU which would likely mean it's end. So while everyone pretends there is no issue (3rd option) can in some situations be viable and given that 2 is non-viable it pretty much always ends with a compromise of amending things just far enough to not longer cause an issue with the German constitution. Systematic breaches of privacy through mass surveillance fall under that especially protected articles in the German constitution. And option 3 doesn't really work here. So it's one of the rare cases where German Supreme court actually matters on EU level. Through practically it hardly ever matters outside of very very few cases: - because of Article 1 (the most protected one you could say), the ECHR has more or less implicitly the same amount of power as the supreme court, only if the ECHR does rulings in conflict with human rights would that not be the case (so in practice never) - as one of the core founding members and the country with the largest population (and seats in the EU parliament are distributed based on population) Germany can normally make sure such a situation doesn't arise - and the breach must really be of a constitutional article standing above the one which transfers power to the EU (which most are not) - you have to propagate things up to the supreme court, while all other courts will rule based on EU law/ECJ decisions but it doesn't mean that it never happened, e.g. there had been one case where the German supreme court ruled that a) something is against the constitution and b) that the EU organ which caused this acted unreasonable in a way which isn't covered by the transfer of authority. That case go resolved with compromises, but was neither the first nor will it be the last where "in practice" the German Supreme court overruled EU decisions, even if it on paper doesn't (because it only overrules what happens with law in Germany and overruling an EU decision would affect other countries, too).

by piker 11mo ago

Even living nearby in the UK it blows my mind how quickly the EU proposes, kills and then revives and passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe.

Simulacra 11mo ago

That could be a result of the Parliamentary style system. With multiple parties - each sharing a part of the government - proposals and alliances can shift rapidly. It all depends on how big the pie becomes for each to get a slice

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
hexbin010 11mo ago
Power sharing is very rare in the UK. What is more common is a party with a large majority with lots of infighting between factions of their party
- graemep 11mo ago
  Not usual, but two out of the last 20 governments is not what I would call very rare. its more likely than it has been in a very long time with multiple smaller parties gaining seats. Nationalists in Scotland and Wales have been around a whole, and NI always had its own parties, but on top of that we now have Reform and the Greens making gains.
  - hexbin010 11mo ago
    Fair - "very rare" was a little over the top. I'm sure we can agree on "uncommon" :) Are you predicting a minority government in the next election? Time will tell!

iLoveOncall 11mo ago

You are a fool if you think the UK is better. I've moved from the EU to the UK and it is worse in every way when it comes to authoritarian measures. I'm not sure how you can have already forgotten the fact that we have to upload or face or ID to access websites.

poszlem 11mo ago
I think he meant that as "I live in the UK where this is already bad, yet the EU still ended up worse.".
- green7ea 11mo ago
  This is how I also read it.
cbeach 11mo ago
In the UK we've had an authoritarian Conservative government for 14 years, followed by an even more authoritarian Labour government, which we'll have until 2029. In 2029 it's likely we'll have a more libertarian government: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/#national-parliament-voting-intention https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/... Reform will repeal some of the awful legislation that's been passed over the last few years (e.g. Online Safety Act). They've been loud critics of government overreach. https://www.ft.com/content/886ee83a-02ab-48b6-b557-857a38f30c1d https://www.ft.com/content/886ee83a-02ab-48b6-b557-857a38f30...
- jbstack 11mo ago
  "a more libertarian government" As long as you are white British. If you're anything else you're probably going to be worse off under Farage. It's a shame that if you want to vote for someone with different policies to the two main parties, you have to accept that you are also voting for an outspoken racist.
  - baiac 11mo ago

arlort 11mo ago

Because it doesn't, people are just embarrassingly ignorant of how the EU legislative process works so when a vote to give first approval to a text is cancelled before it takes place journalists and reddit all over pull out the mission accomplished banners and when a negotiating position is approved everyone has a surprised pikachu face The "proposal" was made something like 3 years ago, the killing never happened and the passing, if it passes, will happen in at least one year from now because this will definitely take a long time to get through parliament and even longer to get through the trilogue. The process is many things but quick it is not

zelphirkalt 11mo ago
This is of course a process, that does not lend itself to be democratic, because it is way longer than most people's attention span. People don't manage to remember things that happened in politics 4 years ago in their own country. Now they are required to follow up on dozens of shitty proposals, all probably illegal in their own country, and those don't even happen in their own country? That divides the number of people, who even start looking into this stuff by a factor of 1000 or so.
- mejutoco 11mo ago
  Is there a website that tracks these? That would be a nice divulgation process.
  - rbehrends 11mo ago
    There is the Parliament's legislative train website [1]. However, it only tracks actual legislative steps, not the intra-Council negotiations, so the proposal's page appears to be have been largely inactive since 2024 [2]. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ [2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new-era-for-european-defence-and-security/file-combating-child-sexual-abuse-online https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new...
- basisword 11mo ago

SiempreViernes 11mo ago

Well, the impression of speed is mainly in the head of the headline writers. What has actually happened is that after about three years of faffing about the Council finally decided on it negotiation position begore the Coreper 2 meeting last week, thought it seems they ran put of time at actual the meeting and had to have the formal approval this week. The Council is only one of three parties that draft new laws, so now there's are still several rounds of negotiations left. Nothing substantial has happened to the three texts since last week, it's just that "chat control is back" drives traffic and "Council preparatory body formally approves draft position that got consensus previously but didn't formally get passed because people were fighting over Ukraine stuff for too long" doesn't.

a022311 11mo ago
> Nothing substantial has happened to the three texts since last week, it's just that "chat control is back" drives traffic and "Council preparatory body formally approves draft position that got consensus previously but didn't formally get passed because people were fighting over Ukraine stuff for too long" doesn't. While I agree with your point, it's still crucial to raise awareness of Europe's actions. It may be a small step, but it is not insignificant.
- squigz 11mo ago
  Awareness of the reality, yes, but there's no reason to play people's emotions to get them "aware" of it - or in other words, get them angry about it.
  - YeahThisIsMe 11mo ago
    Yes, there is. This shouldn't move forward at all, regardless of how many steps are involved and how small they are.
    - TeMPOraL 11mo ago
      Anyone can and does say this about their pet favorite bit of legislation. And so journalists are more than happy to pull this shit with every other topic, too.

paganel 11mo ago

Because that's what autocracies in anything but name usually do. Who's going to stop them?

maybewhenthesun 11mo ago
The EU is more of a bureaucracy than a real autocracy. Lots of members with veto powers and the like. There is a lot wrong with the EU (the system). Opaque power structures, backroom deals, corruption. But I wouldn't call it an autocracy.
- paganel 11mo ago
  > Lots of members with veto powers and the like. Similar to the Political Bureau in former communist countries, but still an autocracy. > But I wouldn't call it an autocracy. It has most certainly started to walk and quack a lot like an autocratic duck, it wasn't the case 10 to 15 years ago, or not as visible, to say the least, but the pandemic and this recent war in Ukraine have changed that.
  - maybewhenthesun 11mo ago
    I'd go along with 'authoritarian' . But autocrat implies people holding on to power/ consolidating power outside the system. The EC is still democratically chosen, albeit indirectly. There is no real sign (yet) of the stretching of term limits common for autocrats.
- ekianjo 11mo ago
  Aristocracy is the correct word
oblio 11mo ago
The EU Parliament, that has to vote to pass the law. Let's be better at commenting than Libertatea, circa 2010 (or The Daily Mail, for international readers).
- 11mo ago

surgical_fire 11mo ago

> passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe. It did not pass. I think the problem here is that you don't understand how the system works. The EU parliament still would have to approve this for it to become legislation. This is akin to a national government proposing a law, and the congress having to vote for it.

piker 11mo ago
Yes, I think that is right. I don’t understand how it works. This comment got a little more attention than I expected.

Traubenfuchs 11mo ago

The UK keeps a register of non-crime hate incidents and invests its scarce police resources into harassing, arresting and punishing people for twitter posts.

graemep 11mo ago
That might well change: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo.amp
- pixelpoet 11mo ago
  Non-AMP link to help keep dirty monopolists at bay: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kn54vj55xo Please don't use AMP.
  - graemep 11mo ago
    I did not actually notice it was AMP. Its on the same domain as the version you link to - is that still a problem?
    - pixelpoet 11mo ago
      All good, and sorry I'm used to making posts like this on Reddit where people are less aware. I just did what I always do, edit out the AMP part and check that it still works. Sometimes the URL will go elsewhere or need more fiddling, this time it just worked.
vixen99 11mo ago
And also: silently praying in public near an abortion center. The lady in question should have asked the policeman (as he was) "How would you define praying?". At least he'd maybe have paused for an interesting short discussion on semantics and more before for arresting her - as he did. https://youtu.be/wXURFRSUS9U https://youtu.be/wXURFRSUS9U Two years ago and she has received damages however similar attitudes still abound with marked police disapproval of attempts to display the English National flag - in England.

RobotToaster 11mo ago

That's generally how the EU works, they forced Ireland to hold another referenda after the first one rejected the Lisbon treaty

ben_w 11mo ago
The Irish people demanded concessions, got them. Saying "forced" about this is like if someone offered me a job, me reading the offer and saying "can I do a 4-day week?", the company's response being "yes, here's a new contract for you to sign", and describing that second contract as "forced" on me.
- mytailorisrich 11mo ago
  The EU Constitution was rejected so they basically rolled its key provisions in the Lisbon Treaty. This has been the typical modus operandi in the EU. There is always a correct answer and the people are free to choose as long as they choose it.
iso1631 11mo ago
Forced - was this an EU navy ship parking off Dublin?

DocTomoe 11mo ago

If you are not really subject to public control and re-election, it makes it much easier. EU politics don't play much of a role in the media. The older and more cynical I become, the more. I am convinced: that's by design. That way, national politicians can move politically wanted, but publicly unpopular things to Brussels and blame the EU. We are just exposed to that much EU lawmaking news because we are directly affected as a subculture. During the Brexit referendum days, I learned that British friends of mine did not even know they had EU parliamentary elections - I had to prove to them via Wikipedia AND had to read them the name of their representative (who just so happened to live just down the roar), nor did they care. Made many things more clear to me.

everfrustrated 11mo ago
For democracy and government [1] to work it has to remain small and localised. The US had the right idea by expressly limiting the reach of the federal government to very explicit narrow things mentioned in the constitution (of course this was expanded by unconstitutional means over many governments over many years now but that is getting off topic). The EU seems to be taking the opposite approach - countries push any unpopular law into the growing EU layer to prevent local backlash affecting them. As comments around this call it - "political laundering". A great term that I shall be borrowing. [1] Relatedly, the philosopher Jimmy Carr has a great line about the failing of communism is about scale. It works locally at the family level but it can't scale to the level of a country.

genericacct 11mo ago

TFA mentions "european governments" but this legislation is proposed by a bunch of european members of parliament who in no way represent any governments and much less the commission or the union. In short it tries to depict a group of old farts as an overreaching snooping authority. I wonder who could have a vested interest in depicting the EU as a repressive regime...

jonkoops 11mo ago
This legislation is not proposed by members of parliament, only the commission can draft legislation, the parliament can only approve it.
WinstonSmith84 11mo ago
> this legislation is proposed by a bunch of european members of parliament who in no way represent any governments and much less the commission Well, here is the guy from where that comes from, the minister of justice of Denmark. He certainly represents a good part of Denmark, even though he may be irrelevant to any other EU country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard
harvey9 11mo ago
Are you saying that a neutral observer would not see this as repressive?
vidarh 11mo ago
However the European Council consists of the heads of state / government of EU member states, not MEP's.

Account_Removed 11mo ago

"European Council has no legislative power, it is a strategic (and crisis-solving) body that provides the union with general political directions and priorities, and acts as a collective presidency." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council

TazeTSchnitzel 11mo ago
Wrong Council, this is about the Council of the European Union (yes the naming is terrible).

dathinab 11mo ago

As others have mentioned: 1. this wasn't fast, it took ~5 years and most (but not all) of the problematic parts have been removed 2. It also wasn't "fully rejected" or anything in the decision which gained some awareness of hacker news, just one specific draft was rejected, not the proposal as a whole (but IMHO it should have been). 3. it's not passed just approved by the council, which consists of the various head of states elected in their respective countries (i.e. is the easiest part to pass something controversial), but still needs to pass the European parliament (elected through the EU elections) 4. and then it must not be shot down by the ECJ or ECHR, both might shot it down, the ECJ for it being excessive/disproportional, and the ECHR because privacy is accepted as a human right by it (in general, there are exceptions so not 100% guaranteed). Or shut down by the German supreme court (same reason as ECJ and ECHR) which has somewhat of a veto right (or else Germany wouldn't have been able to legally join the EU), idk. if any other countries supreme courts have similar veto rights, but idk. why they shouldn't have)

iknowstuff 11mo ago
EU law has supremacy over national laws. National courts need to disapply local laws in conflict with EU law, so typically any subsequent local disputes in court will just be ruled based on a new EU law/ruling. EU laws in conflict with a local constitution pose more of a challenge: from the EU point of view, EU law is supreme and they might apply infringement procedures for failing to recognize it, but for a country, the constitution is probably more important than a treaty.
- dathinab 11mo ago
  > EU law has supremacy over national laws This only applies where countries ceded sovereignty to the EU. Technically in Germany non of the sovereignty was ceded but transferred based on two different articles in the German Constitution. But that transfer is neither absolute, nor automatic. Practically it means that in most situations it is "as if" it was cede, but just in most situations. This leads to a situation where if the supreme court rules that some EU regulations or similar are against the German constitution you have a conflict between the constitutional articles which transfer authority and the ones the court ruled to have been infringed one. But in the German constitution not all articles are equally, the first few have special protections and extra hurdles to amend. And the article which transfers powers to the EU _is not one of them_. This means that for any of the more protected clauses Germany has not at all ceded the authority of their supreme court to do a final judgement on. In such cases if the German supreme court says no, it's means no for any application of law in German no matter what the EU courts say. And there are only 3 ways to fix that, 1. the EU amends their regulation, 2. Germany amends their constitution (practically impossible in such cases), 3. the rule informally applies to everyone but Germany, 4. Germany leaves the EU which would likely mean it's end. So while everyone pretends there is no issue (3rd option) can in some situations be viable and given that 2 is non-viable it pretty much always ends with a compromise of amending things just far enough to not longer cause an issue with the German constitution. Systematic breaches of privacy through mass surveillance fall under that especially protected articles in the German constitution. And option 3 doesn't really work here. So it's one of the rare cases where German Supreme court actually matters on EU level. Through practically it hardly ever matters outside of very very few cases: - because of Article 1 (the most protected one you could say), the ECHR has more or less implicitly the same amount of power as the supreme court, only if the ECHR does rulings in conflict with human rights would that not be the case (so in practice never) - as one of the core founding members and the country with the largest population (and seats in the EU parliament are distributed based on population) Germany can normally make sure such a situation doesn't arise - and the breach must really be of a constitutional article standing above the one which transfers power to the EU (which most are not) - you have to propagate things up to the supreme court, while all other courts will rule based on EU law/ECJ decisions but it doesn't mean that it never happened, e.g. there had been one case where the German supreme court ruled that a) something is against the constitution and b) that the EU organ which caused this acted unreasonable in a way which isn't covered by the transfer of authority. That case go resolved with compromises, but was neither the first nor will it be the last where "in practice" the German Supreme court overruled EU decisions, even if it on paper doesn't (because it only overrules what happens with law in Germany and overruling an EU decision would affect other countries, too).