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How Brussels writes so many laws
- m00dy 10mo agoleave europe before it is too late.
- black_13 10mo ago[dead]
- amadeuspagel 10mo ago> The Commission initiates legislation, but it has no reason to be reticent. It cannot make policy by announcing new spending commitments and investments, as the budget is tiny, around one percent of GDP, and what little money it has is mostly earmarked for agriculture (one-third) and regional aid (one-third). In Brussels, policy equals legislation. Unlike national civil servants and politicians, civil servants and politicians who work in Brussels have one main path to build a career: passing legislation. This is also relevant in debt-brake discussions. Many who want a smaller government support limits on debts, but a smaller budget leaves passing laws as the only way for politicians to assert themselves. Often, spending money is a less harmful way for a politician to get a headline then passing a law.
- appreciatorBus 10mo agoIn the same way that we budge the quantity of dollars we can spend, we should probably budget the quantity of laws we can create, and laws that can exist at any given time.
- dmix 10mo agoMandatory expiry dates or renewal cycles. You can bypass the expiry/renewal process with a large majority.
- solace_silence 10mo agoSounds like a lobbyist dream.
- jltsiren 10mo agoThe budget is ultimately limited by the government's ability to extract value. There are no similar limits to the quantity of laws and regulations that can be in effect at the same time. Legislators can of course impose an arbitrary limit, but they can just as easily increase the limit or repeal it, if they don't like it.
- CGMthrowaway 10mo agoThe number of laws is limited by several factors, among them: The ability of the governed to remember and attend to them all The resources of the government available to explain, interpret and enforce compliance The willingness of the governed to obey them without a gun being brought out The willingness and ability of the government to bring out a gun to enforce them For instance, when the rule of avoidance in late imperial China created a 5x increase in rate of new regulations, the result was up to 30% decrease in tax collections and a counterintuitive increase in the power and influence of local clerks, gentry and militias, laying the groundwork supportive of the eventual mutiny against and collapse of Qing rule
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- hammock 10mo agoThe more laws we have the more democracy we have! We need more! Look at all the problems around us
- bentobean 10mo agoI’m not so sure that equating more laws produced with “greater productivity” is necessarily the right idea.
- VerifiedReports 10mo agoDefinitely not. The article does go on to acknowledge this: "The result of this volume bias in the system is an onslaught of low-quality legislation. Compliance is often impossible. A BusinessEurope analysis cited by the Draghi report looked at just 13 pieces of EU legislation and found 169 cases where different laws impose requirements on the same issue. In almost a third of these overlaps, the detailed requirements were different, and in about one in ten they were outright contradictory." Whenever I hear a politician patting himself on the back for how many pieces of legislation he got passed, I cringe at the thought of all the junk in it.
- johncolanduoni 10mo agoGlad to see software engineers aren’t the only ones that count lines well past the point that they should be.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 10mo ago"Just ship it, we can patch any problems later..."
- baud147258 10mo agoJust ship it, it will be someone else's problem
- 9dev 10mo agoIt’s amazing how similar legislation is to software engineering in that regard: It all comes down to managing complexity. A good law is achieving its effect with as little special case handling in as few lines as possible while covering most of the problem space.
- Archelaos 10mo ago
- brusselslarp 10mo agohow else would they justify their abundant pay and perks plus Brussels is a boring place, not much else to do other than LARPing as law makers
- Insanity 10mo agoLegal productivity at the expense of actual productivity! As a Belgian, it does frustrate me that this is what we’re getting known for.
- raincole 10mo agoDon't worry, you're not alone. It's what the whole EI is known for.
- lurk2 10mo ago> As a Belgian, it does frustrate me that this is what we’re getting known for. Waffles and domestic terrorism.
- spwa4 10mo agoIsn't one of the Belgian governments still shut down? The Brussels government. Another thing Belgium is getting famous for.
- potato3732842 10mo ago>Waffles and domestic terrorism. I'll take waffles and domestic (the best kind) terrorism over "you got a license m8?" and bad food and day.
- kingleopold 10mo agomaybe better than being known about king leopold and what he did in Congo? where did all the wealth go
- Insanity 10mo agoThat’s true I suppose. Belgium had incredibly effective “PR” essentially turning “us” from the aggressor to the victim due to WW1 breaking out and effectively erasing Congo from the Zeitgeist. I highly recommend the book “King Leopold’s Ghost”. (Or the fictionalized “heart of darkness” by Konrad if fiction is more your thing).
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- markus_zhang 10mo agoI always fondly recall certain scenes in YM/YPM.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- stein1946 10mo agoA quick glance on who Luis Garicano is tells me all I need to know about these pieces. Economics @ University of Chicago Professor @ LSE Various memberships at pro American institutions Expect deregulation narratives, freemarketeering dogmas and how lobbying is actually good for democracy.
- zermelo 10mo agoA quick glance on who Isaac Newton is tells me all I need to know about these pieces. Physics @ Trinity College @ Royal Society Various memberships at pro Science institutions Expect inertia narratives, gravity dogmas and... wait, do you believe economics science is pro lobbying?
- kaonwarb 10mo agoThe biography of the author is interesting and relevant, but hardly all that matters about this or any other writing.
- mediaman 10mo agoA person who chooses to evaluate all ideas by way of their source tells me all I need to know about their opinion.
- alephnerd 10mo agoYou do realize that Luis Garicano was an MEP who was the vice-chair of the RenewEurope [0] coalition and is a member of the pro-EU think tanks CEPR [1] and Bruegel [2] right? If there is an academic you want to listen to in order to understand how to better reform the EU's institutions, it's definitely Luis. [0] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197554/LUIS_GARICANO/history/ https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197554/LUIS_GARICANO/... [1] - https://cepr.org/about/people/luis-garicano https://cepr.org/about/people/luis-garicano [2] - https://www.bruegel.org/people/luis-garicano https://www.bruegel.org/people/luis-garicano
- emtel 10mo agoWhat a small and dreary way to look at the world
- krick 10mo agoI was pondering on this very thing not so long ago. I didn't discover anything new, of course, but I ended up convinced that the whole thing exists only because most people don't take a moment to think how absurd it is, and not so much time has passed since its somewhat forceful foundation (meaning, it wasn't something that "people of the Europe willingly decided to establish"). And, hence, it's only a matter of time it falls apart, and it may happen any time. Which is a pity, because I like open borders, I like EU as an idea, and I don't like wars, revolutions and other rapid changes, which I'd otherwise prefer to happen outside of my lifetime. What I mean to say is that the whole EU political system is an epitome of citizen alienation, and it is like that by design. It is the purest faceless Kafkian bureaucratic machine. And, by the way, I think it works pretty well for what it is. I don't know how to measure it, but I suppose the overall quality of legislation is higher than what, say, Russia or USA produce. But the fact it is completely opaque by design, that no one is ever truly accountable for anything, I think, just isn't what anyone would willingly accept, and it's only a matter of time when the critical mass of people truly "notice" the fact. You can often hear how some guy on the internet calls POTUS "the most powerful man in the world", which is always somewhat funny, because, of course, anyone sane understands how far from truth that is. It's laughable, how little he can really do as a president, how powerless he is to change something he truly wants to change. He is more of a glorified clown, than a ruler or a politic. But I come to believe it's really important to have a role like that in the government, somebody who ignorant people believe to be responsible for everything, somebody they can hate and blame for all that is wrong around them. It is important for the silliest psychological reasons, just by human nature. Anyway, the comment is too long as it is, so I know I won't be able to properly explain myself, but the thing is I don't imagine things like the meaningless cookie-notification, or that idiotic bottlecap thing being possible almost anywhere but Brussels, certainly not that often. It is both ironic and very characteristic of the system, that both are only some very minor footnotes in an Appendix to some enormous legal package that is "mostly obviously good", and are about the only thing from the whole package that most people notice (and obviously are very costly in the end).
- debo_ 10mo agoIt seems like laws just sprout out of Brussels.
- frobisher 10mo agoI'm surprised we still don't get github for laws (or do we?) with useful automations like suggested garbage collection. Wasn't collaboration at scale the reason Tim Berners-Lee worked on the web at CERN? :)
- zermelo 10mo agothat was a fun project: https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil
- sam_lowry_ 10mo agoNo we don't.
- zermelo 10mo agoI'm going to play devil's advocate: the EU's mission was to bring peace. Maybe 80,000 employees producing garbage is a small price to pay for piece.
- pcrh 10mo agoAgreed. The EU institutions are remarkably efficient compared to their national equivalents. 80,000 civil servants is a tiny number for a polity of 450 million people. Ireland for example has 50,000 for a population of 1/10th the size. Admittedly however, the scope of national civil services tends to be much larger than that of the EU's.
- potato3732842 10mo agoThose 50k Irish bureaucrats exist in that number because the organizations they work for are tasked with, among other things, ensuring compliance with rules written in Brussels.
- disgruntledphd2 10mo agoWhere are you getting your Irish numbers from? This source [0] suggests around 300k if we count everything. It looks like you are just counting the core "civil" servants and defence maybe? [0] https://publicjobs.ie/en/information-hub?view=article&id=247&catid=12 https://publicjobs.ie/en/information-hub?view=article&id=247...
- pcrh 10mo agoIrish Times: "More than 50,000 staff now employed in Civil Service " https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/04/15/more-than-50000-staff-now-employed-in-civil-service/ https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/04/15/more-than-5000...
- disgruntledphd2 10mo agoThanks! Interesting that the answer to the PQ doesn't map to the official data (not surprising, but interesting).
- pcrh 10mo agoThe key point here appears to be an innovation called the so-called "trilogues", which were introduced to accelerate the process of negotiation between the Council of Ministers (representing national governments),the EU Parliament (elected EU legislators), and the EU Commission (civil service). It seems that this innovative process eliminates a lot of "gridlock" and is too efficient for the liking of the author, a strange complaint. That the legislation which emerges from this is sometimes flawed, or contradicts other legislation, is not a reason to introduce less efficient processes, but to allow greater scrutiny of that legislation which does emerge from the "trilogues". The normal parliamentary mechanism for this is to have several "Readings" where the legislation is scrutinized by different groups of legislators, e.g. an Upper and Lower House. Otherwise, perhaps Brussels has found something useful with the "trilogues", and other national parliaments should adopt a similar process?
- vkou 10mo agoEfficiency is not always desirable in legislature. It would be efficient if a political faction, as soon as it reached the threshold for being able to pass any of its legislature to immediately pass as much of it, as quickly as it can sign it. You generally don't want someone with a 50.1% (or a 48%) mandate to turn everything upside down as soon as they get elected. But yes, there's some middle ground between that and endless gridlock.
- bettercallsalad 10mo agoEurope and Europeans are turning themselves into museums and museum showcase. What’s new? A defeated nation waiting for its death knell in the coffin by its unelected leaders.
- cyberax 10mo agoEurope seems to be doing better than the US, for it's citizens.
- jeandenis 10mo agoOk, but passing laws is a bug not a feature right?
- hn_throw2025 10mo agoAn average of 7 acts a day. Wonderful. And I’m sure the 32,000 EU Commission employees are being fairly and responsibly advised by the 30,000 paid lobbyists from those 15,000 lobbyist organisations registered in Brussels.
- hiprob 10mo agowith their hands?
- silexia 10mo agoIs there anywhere in the world people can go and find freedom from big government?