4 ms·

I’m not so sure that equating more laws produced with “greater productivity” is necessarily the right idea.

VerifiedReports 10mo ago
Definitely 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 ago
  Glad 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 ago
    Just ship it, it will be someone else's problem
- 9dev 10mo ago
  It’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
That was meant ironically. The article explains in great length that this quantitative "productivity" does not result in qualitative "productivity". The fundamental problem, in my view, is that any significant reform of EU procedures would mean strengthening the European Parliament. In other words, EU governments must be persuaded to relinquish some of their sovereignty. Since the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, there has been no significant progress in this regard. This is also related to the fact that, unlike 20 years ago, many center-right governments are now in power in many EU countries, and strengthening the EU is not on the agenda of most of them—often quite the opposite. France is an exception, but Emmanuel Macron's initiative was met with little response.
- FridayoLeary 10mo ago
  For good reason. The United States of Europe is a pipe dream. Why not go in the opposite direction and drastically cut down the entire thing?
  - worik 10mo ago
    Because cooperating is better than competing
    - alephnerd 10mo ago
      Cutting down scope doesn't necessarily reduce cooperation. Until 2004-07, the EU was an economic and political union for Western, Northern, and parts of Southern Europe - all of whom are largely aligned from a developmental, economic, and social perspective. It was after the rapid Eastward expansion of the EU without updated checks and balances that dysfunction arose. The EU will remain dysfunctional as long as CEE countries that are not aligned with the core mission of the original EU remain politically relevant. The only way to reduce this dysfunction is to either decouple the policy component from the economic component, or reduce the amount of nations that should have a say in policy to those that are aligned with the EU. The fact that the government of an EU member state like Hungary still has political privileges yet is clearly preparing for some form of economic [0][1] warfare and potentially actual [2][3] warfare highlights how tenuous the project is as it stands today. First it's Hungary, then it's Slovakia, then ... Clearly the EU status quo is unsustainable and needs to be reformed ASAP. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/hungary-has-financial-shield-agreement-with-washington-orban-says-2025-11-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/hungary-has-financial-shield-a... [1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/orban-is-preparing-for-a-crisis-and-investors-are-wondering-why https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/orban-is-... [2] - https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202405/10/content_WS663d3b83c6d0868f4e8e6eb0.html https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202405/10/content_WS663d3b83... [3] - https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/11/u-s-hungary-relations-reach-new-heights https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

Definitely 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 ago
Glad 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 ago
  Just ship it, it will be someone else's problem
9dev 10mo ago
It’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

That was meant ironically. The article explains in great length that this quantitative "productivity" does not result in qualitative "productivity". The fundamental problem, in my view, is that any significant reform of EU procedures would mean strengthening the European Parliament. In other words, EU governments must be persuaded to relinquish some of their sovereignty. Since the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, there has been no significant progress in this regard. This is also related to the fact that, unlike 20 years ago, many center-right governments are now in power in many EU countries, and strengthening the EU is not on the agenda of most of them—often quite the opposite. France is an exception, but Emmanuel Macron's initiative was met with little response.

FridayoLeary 10mo ago
For good reason. The United States of Europe is a pipe dream. Why not go in the opposite direction and drastically cut down the entire thing?
- worik 10mo ago
  Because cooperating is better than competing
  - alephnerd 10mo ago
    Cutting down scope doesn't necessarily reduce cooperation. Until 2004-07, the EU was an economic and political union for Western, Northern, and parts of Southern Europe - all of whom are largely aligned from a developmental, economic, and social perspective. It was after the rapid Eastward expansion of the EU without updated checks and balances that dysfunction arose. The EU will remain dysfunctional as long as CEE countries that are not aligned with the core mission of the original EU remain politically relevant. The only way to reduce this dysfunction is to either decouple the policy component from the economic component, or reduce the amount of nations that should have a say in policy to those that are aligned with the EU. The fact that the government of an EU member state like Hungary still has political privileges yet is clearly preparing for some form of economic [0][1] warfare and potentially actual [2][3] warfare highlights how tenuous the project is as it stands today. First it's Hungary, then it's Slovakia, then ... Clearly the EU status quo is unsustainable and needs to be reformed ASAP. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/hungary-has-financial-shield-agreement-with-washington-orban-says-2025-11-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/hungary-has-financial-shield-a... [1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/orban-is-preparing-for-a-crisis-and-investors-are-wondering-why https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/orban-is-... [2] - https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202405/10/content_WS663d3b83c6d0868f4e8e6eb0.html https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202405/10/content_WS663d3b83... [3] - https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/11/u-s-hungary-relations-reach-new-heights https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...