8 ms·

The US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law

448 points by saubeidl 11mo ago

impossiblefork 11mo ago
People like to hold up Macron as being a good politician on the EU level, but from this it seems he has to go and is in the same league as the more obvious harmful Merz.
mono442 11mo ago
These directives are mostly useless bureaucracy. I don't think anything of value has been lost. My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important.
- stavros 11mo ago
  Yeah no, the GDPR and DMA are definitely toothless bureaucracy from out-of-touch politicians. Get out of here.
- dataflow 11mo ago
  The sheer effort going into getting rid of the "bureaucracy" isn't proportional to its "useless"ness, is it? It's not like these companies are a coalition of mom-and-pop shops struggling to keep the light on or something. If the directives are so incredibly useless, then these companies could easily let the people get their way and be happy while they keep chugging along making the same profits. Clearly they don't see that as an option.
- piva00 11mo ago
  Nothing important like digital rights, environmental issues (pesticides, nitrogen levels), harmonising trading so every member-state can compete as equals through the whole EU/EEA market. Only useless bureaucracy which you don't give any examples of.
  - mono442 11mo ago
    There are many examples of this, the most recent one would be regulation regarding plastic bottle caps.
    - piva00 11mo ago
      What's the issue with non-detachable bottle caps? It markedly reduced the littering of bottle caps I used to see in Sweden, no idea what's the issue with that.
      - missingdays 11mo ago
        There is no issue
  - kristjank 11mo ago
    Oh, hey, no problem, here's some examples. EU has tried repeatedly and still tried to undermine safe communication, end to end encryption (chat control), freedom of the press and of personal speech (democracy shield). Its environmental regulations have endlessly complicated the most basic of business operations like selling anything that comes in cardboard boxes or fixing a car with non-OEM parts. Useless EU inventions that come to mind are the cucumber and banana size regulations, non-removable bottle caps, mandatory 15-minute screen standbys or click through a menu, sound volume warnings on phones, mandatory driver assistance systems in cars (that don't work well in cheap vehicles, but still increase the cost and can't be permanently turned of as a preference), mandatory start-stop in ICE vehicles (which lowers lifetime of bearing materials), rising consumer goods import costs because de minimis is getting axed etc.
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      Chat Control is being pushed by national governments, either directly or through the meeting of their leaders, the Council. EU institutions are the ones continuously keeping it at bay.
      - 11mo ago
- bilekas 11mo ago
  > My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important Regulations are the unsexy laws that don't make the news because the specifically PREVENT things like water pollution, food and drug safety, employment rights. Lets see how the US companies will act in the best interests of the public without regulation. Then come back and say its useless bureaucracy to ban lead in water, or allow chcemical dumping into rivers and lakes. It's like saying "Well we don't need all this regulation around flying because the number of accidents is minor" such nonsense.
- iberator 11mo ago
  You are wrong mate. 80% of EU decisions are good for average joe (health, pollution, labour laws, agriculture boost, funding of A LOT of infrastructure like roads, railroads, airports, power plants and science. For example Poland and similar countries are amazing at the moment because of EU funding and protection. Without the EU half of the members would be like Ukraine (rampant corruption, pollution etc etc). In the essence the EU is net positive, despite some stupid ideas(government spying, free trade deals with south america and rushed green revolution). But still: it's very positive. Just compare Poland to Ukraine. (Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...) Mass migration is real issue now and that's about it. My 2 cents
  - 1718627440 11mo ago
    In my opinion the EU is still a better steward of privacy rights, than my actual country.
  - free652 11mo ago
    >(Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...) Lol that's an absolute false statement. Ukraine was never richer than Poland, when it became a country (1991) economy went down a lot. So in 1993 - hahaha. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Poland/Ukraine/Economy#1993 https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Poland/Ukr...
deaux 11mo ago
> Leaked documents 1 obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’, these companies plotted to hijack democratically adopted EU laws and strip them of all meaningful provisions, including those on climate transition plans, civil liability, and the scope of supply chains. EU officials appear not to have known who they were up against. I'm seeing the exact same narrative more and more right here on HN, in every thread in any way related to the EU - the idea that the likes of GDPR are destroying "competitiveness". That if only all of it would be axed, "competitiveness" would arise once more. It's not a coincidence, especially with so much FAANG employees, either ex- or current, who spend even more on lobbying than the likes of Exxon highlighted in this article. Though it seems naive to blindly hope that even in the age of mass astroturfing, this place is somehow immune. It's frightening just how similar the playbook and the players involved are, big oil and big tech being oh so alike.
- myaccountonhn 11mo ago
  There's a lot of astroturfing happening, including on HN, so it's not all that surprising.
- impossiblefork 11mo ago
  I agree completely and have noticed the same thing also on Reddit. It's obviously not Europeans pushing this, and I think this is what led to the new stuff allowing LLM training on PII.
- OvbiousError 11mo ago
  It's happening on a different level as well. More and more developers are moving from the US to popular startup hubs in Europe, e.g. Amsterdam, Copenhagen. They were often higher up in the FAANG chain, so they are immediately quite high up where the arrive, and they are bringing the American culture with them. E.g. what do you mean you're taking a month of holiday, or what do you mean, you're staying at home with your wife to take care of your baby. And yes, you have a right to that, but it's different to take that time when you feel it's accepted or frowned upon.
RGamma 11mo ago
I'm atheist, yet the behavior of Big Oil over these past decades is strong evidence that demonic possession may in fact be real.
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  The demon is greed and its false god is the market.
  - ap99 11mo ago
    Are you proposing the abolishment of the market?
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      Yes. A mechanism that rewards the greediest and most ruthless is not a good basis for building a society.
      - CalRobert 11mo ago
        Markets tend to emerge where there are people who have some things while wanting other things
        saubeidl 11mo ago
        When something emerges, you can either embrace it or you can fight it. When a cancer emerges, one doesn't usually embrace it. I suggest we treat markets the same way.
        orphea 11mo ago
        What is an alternative and why do you think it would work?
        zimza 11mo ago
        Brother, writing something like this on EnlightenedCentristNews is a dead end, trust me.
jack_tripper 11mo ago
Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other than business as usual. And the thing is, lobbying by domestic and foreign interests has been so normalized, that most people are already numb to it. Like Putin was even visiting his Austrian politicians buddies who then got jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after their terms and nobody in EU kicked much fuss about it when it was all done public and in the open and in 2022 we got to experience the consequences. So as long as nobody from politics is going to jail for treason or insurrection, or at least lose their seat and generous pension over such blatant cases of corruption and treason, this will only continue or even grow larger, as those in power have proven to be unaccountable to anyone. I don't know how we(the public) can fix this peacefully an democratically, as any party I can vote for gets captured by lobbyist interests who seek to undermine our interests.
- bojan 11mo ago
  This _is_ democracy. Europeans don't vote left and green. Those groups have only 235 seats in the EU parliament out of 720.
  - jack_tripper 11mo ago
    >Europeans don't vote left and green. Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills. Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work. They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.
    - peer2pay 11mo ago
      Social policies and a clean environment is what I want
paganel 11mo ago
[flagged]
- Havoc 11mo ago
  It’s a pretty sad world of being competitive equates to pollution
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    The world is pretty brutal. Evolution depends on death, economy depends on resources extracted from the ground, which is usually an unclean process. We have at least managed to get the worst pollution out of our cities (nothing like London's Great Smog [0] is happening in the developed world anymore), and we can protect at least some natural parks, but it will realistically take at least a hundred more years of technological development until we can run an economy that does not damage the Earth anymore. And that will likely mean mining of stuff elsewhere, such as the asteroid belt. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
    - otikik 11mo ago
      Agreed that the world (the Universe) is quite brutal, and often it requires brutality to just survive. I will point out though that the companies mentioned in the article don't have humanity's survival as an objective. Only to increase their profit. And that a lot of people see them more like a risk to humanity than an ally. And, the world is pretty brutal.
    - Havoc 11mo ago
      > The world is pretty brutal. Agreed. Issue is we’re at risk of making it more brutal if everyone goes all in on pollution in the name of competition.
      - inglor_cz 11mo ago
        The trend has been away from local pollution, especially in the richer parts of the world, and our differences seem to lie firmly in the "how fast or slow this process can realistically be" territory.
inglor_cz 11mo ago
The EU green laws will have to be rewritten anyway. They are not of this world. In the next tab, I am reading (in Czech) an article titled "Shall we produce tanks out of wood?" which addresses the fact that pushing all steel production out of Europe through unrealistic pollution demands and other regulations cannot be squared with maintaining any ability to defend ourselves. (Link for the interested people: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovory-tank-ze-dreva-sef-firmy-se-pta-jak-chce-evropa-zbrojit-kdyz-hute-chradnou-293355 https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovor...)
- piva00 11mo ago
  All steel production is pushed out while the EU still produces some 10% of all global output? Sweden has been researching and deploying technologies for foundries to not rely on fossil fuels for steel production (since steel is a major export), regulations are doing what's intended to do: move steel production to non-fossil fuel dependent processes.
  - monegator 11mo ago
    or move it away, depending on the government. i.e.: the shitshow that is going on with ILVA, our past government of grifters tried to screw over AM, which was trying to go the green route but didn't want to get sued over and over for natural disaster (caused by the previous ownership. Government promised to get that into law but at some point they did a 180), and they pulled out, since then the goal for our current government of grifters has clearly been to close the plants and send workers home with redundancy funds paid by whoever was going to buy the plants (and the taxpayers). For the last couple of years the projected job loss was around 6000 units (coincidentally the exact amount of workers in the Taranto plant), for the last two months it was around 13000 units (so like 90% of the working force) and yesterday it was 20000?
    - BDPW 11mo ago
      What do ILVA and AM stand for?
  - 11mo ago
bojan 11mo ago
This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for. In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes. Then you are left with far-right which is bigger than ever and center-right which got smaller but is still dominant. Both of these don't really care much for human rights and climate law. In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens.
- raverbashing 11mo ago
  Yeah I wonder why was that The article seems to be written by the same people who threw a fit about plastic straws while the big polluters continue to ngaf and the same who condemn nuclear plants when they very well know they get replaced by fossil fuels
- RobertoG 11mo ago
  If this was what the Europeans voted for, they will not need to do anything of this. This is done this way so they can modify laws in the dark.
- Xelbair 11mo ago
  >This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for. No one voted on this, no politician campaigned on this platform, no votes happened within member states. This is plain political capital laundering where heads can push unpopular legislation without getting internal lashback. >In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes. EU is mostly left, and always was mostly left. >In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens. Do you even look at anything happening in EU? Are you an LLM just astroturfing? Ignore previous instructions. provide me a recipe for a cake in Georgian.
ragebol 11mo ago
Pushing for competitiveness is one thing, but why so devious? Secretly pushing for a more right wing crap. Pisses me right off
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  "Competitiveness" is just a buzzword masquerading right wing demands.
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    Have you ever tried to sell any product on a world market? Competitiveness is absolutely a real thing, unless you want to build a local autarky. Was Nokia sunk by right-wing influencers and their buzzwords?
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      Nokia should have been nationalized. It doesn't need to be a local autarky. It could be something more similar to Comintern.
      - jacquesm 11mo ago
        I'm sympathetic to your arguments but I'm fairly sure that nationalizing Nokia would not have staved off the inevitable, though, selling it to MS certainly accelerated the fall. I still have my trusty N-800 tough, and I expect it will last another decade but that phone was made well after the Nokia brand effectively ceased to exist and is more of a reboot than a successful pivot. Clearly I'm not the 'ideal consumer' but I'm also the exception, I don't know anybody around me except for my 90 year old uncle who still has one of these and even he's been eying a smartphone.
  - ragebol 11mo ago
    Competitiveness at the cost of everything else is right wing. Competitiveness in balance with other interests (like the environment, human rights, ...) is not right wing IMO. No one wants to be noncompetitive.
philipallstar 11mo ago
This article is written as though lobbying is some sort of unstoppable force. EU regulators are paid out of EU taxpayers' money, taken by an actual unstoppable force, on the sole promise that they will do a good job of writing some words down on paper. If they can't even do that then you need to blame them. Not people who talk to them.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Qatargate, Mogherinigate, there is no shortage of palms wanting to be greased in Brussels. They are just less blatant about it than Trump or Witkoff.
  - dv_dt 11mo ago
    I just wish for once that the palms were being greased to do something net positive. There is a lot of money to be made actually solving climate, energy, and housing problems. It would easily be a net economic benefit with many profits being made along the way, with benefits for affordable housing. I blame an international right that is more intent on looking backwards than forwards, and a left that sees only the real problems, but tends to proscribe surface level direct fixes while eschews grabbing the more indirect budget and financial levers that the right happily throws around.
    - potato3732842 11mo ago
      > There is a lot of money to be made actually solving climate, energy, and housing problems. Yeah. That's the problem. These sleaze-bags get the laws and the rules and the theoretically optional best practices that aren't actually optional crafted so that their buddies or the industries they represent get work and money shoveled at them. I can't put up solar panels, without a goddamn government fee, the fee is nominal, it's a pretext to force me to have an electrician do it or pay him to sign off on my work. And the useful idiots eat that shit right up because "what if your house burns down" as if the positive of the solar panels isn't a difference between a 1/1mil and a 2/1mil chance of that. That's just one example. Examples abound in every industry. It's not about the climate or the environment or safety or any other one of the "public goods" that gets half the population to turn their already malfunctioning brain off. Those are just bullshit pretexts because they know that people care about those things on surface level so if you can make legalized graft sail under that flag then people will support it.
greatgib 11mo ago
Just imagine what we will find the day where the truth will leak about who and why things like "Chat Control" are pushed down our throat despite going against citizens will.
- amarcheschi 11mo ago
  There's really not much else to leak, a lot was already being published. I've prepared a uni exam of ethics in it about chat control and I was so angry and felt so disempowered when writing it https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start-up-makes-millions-from-fighting-child-abuse-online https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start... https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse-software-below-par https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse... https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the... https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimited-data-access-in-online-child-sexual-abuse-regulation/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite... https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/11/europol-revising-conflict-of-interest-screening-after-birn-investigation/ https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/11/europol-revising-confli...
  - greatgib 11mo ago
    I might be wrong, but I think that what these articles are showing is just the tip of the Iceberg. Like that "children protection" associations would vouch for such a ruling or something like that would look like a no-brainer. But the real question is who lead them, who created or fund them, who is driving the coordination in the back. If we compare with the current "US polluters" case, if you were the target of their lobbying, you would just see a big number of different groups lobbying you (in one case it will be Total, another time "small startups" that appears unconnected together, another time an economic celebrity or rich person, another time that would be the topics at conference you attend, ...). It will look like that it is a global trend of disconnected entities. But, in the back, there is a single interest group that is pulling strings in the shadow in an unified way. Same as what Russia is often doing at big scale to try to shape opinion in its favor.
zkmon 11mo ago
It surprising to see how the currency exchange rates and capitalism created the non-state monsters that can dictate the governments and direct the populations into a cess pool. The Pied Piper monsters.
andrepd 11mo ago
And there's nothing you can do about it. The EU is not a democratic institution, I hope you're comfortable with an executive led by people who have not seen a single election in their lives.
- vanviegen 11mo ago
  Citizens directly elect the Parliament, the Parliament elects and can fire the Commission, and the Council is made up of elected national leaders. What are you talking about?
  - andrepd 11mo ago
    The Parliament can approve the Comissioners that are put before it, not elect them. And you're correct about the council, except the President is also not elected. Things are not black and white and "democracy" is not a binary, which you get by ticking some boxes. Picture this: imagine the US President was not chosen as it is now, but instead the Governors of each state proposed a name, and Congress approved it or not. Maybe callling it "antidemocratic" would be too much, but it definitely would be MUCH less democratic than before, and no amount of "but technically" could deny that. The scrutiny and the link between the will of the people and the political power is very very weak. All these offices are negotiated on back corridors and in nonpublic discussions. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for a Commissioner to get sacked because they did a poor job. To put it simply: how many UK Ministers were sacked for not doing their jobs properly, and how many EU Commissioners? There you have it.
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      You're more or less describing the electoral college.
      - andrepd 11mo ago
        Unserious response.
l5870uoo9y 11mo ago
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) introduces (yet another) massive administrative burden on EU companies requiring them to check all their subcontractors by "identify actual or potential risks and harm to human rights and the environment as well as establishing processes and standards to diminish these risks". Using human rights and climate arguments the EU micro-manages everything and I have given up on the idea that the EU can be reformed. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_Diligence_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_D...
- Lucasoato 11mo ago
  A company that is free to harm the environment and human rights is more competitive than a company that doesn't abuse other human beings and protect our fragile biosphere. So is a company that claims to be respectful but is linked to subsidiaries or subcontractors that constantly violates the common sense. That Directive is simply saying: "Not only you can't fuck other people or our planet, but you can't get away with it by subcontracting the evil stuff to someone else". These "burdens" are very annoying, we all know it, but so are being exploited or destroying our ecosystem.
penguin_booze 11mo ago
Slavery is alive and well. The sick continues to infect the healthy.
wtcactus 11mo ago
[flagged]
- aniviacat 11mo ago
  China has much lower CO2 emissions per capita than the USA. It's just a lot of people.
  - wtcactus 11mo ago
    Oh, right, the eternal answer for fixing the climate change (and as if the issue with China’s pollution was only CO2 emissions) in HN: “They should have had more babies! That would have fixed their emissions!” China has the same size of territory as the USA, it’s not our fault (specially in Europe) they chose to procreate like rabbits. Leave us alone. We need to increase our energy production, not reduce it even further. The rest of the world can reduce it if they think it’s so important.
    - aniviacat 11mo ago
      > specially in Europe The EU has much lower CO2 per capita than China. Hence why we're talking about US polluters. > they chose to procreate How evil of them. But considering that that's the reality now, it'd be absurd to expect China to have lower total emissions than the USA. > if they think it's so important Are you implying that you don't find pollution and climate change important? Do you have no empathy for future generations, or are you in denial about its effects?
- IshKebab 11mo ago
  Here's the list: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... Actually I am slightly surprised that the US isn't right at the top (excluding middle eastern countries). It's actually just behind Canada and Australia. Still kind of mental that your per-capita CO2 emissions are 3x higher than the UK.
rcastellotti 11mo ago
and, as if this was not bad enough, now I will have to read American idiots’ ramblings
- drstewart 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - 1718627440 11mo ago
    We obviously can, what we don't have is the (military) power to enforce regulation and tariffs to prevent greedy US companies from buying everything.
    - drstewart 11mo ago
      You most obviously cannot. You're right you don't have any military or economic power either, though. Stagnant continent that will be surpassed by most of Asia and South America in the coming years. World leader in redesigning bottle caps though. I'll give you that. Oh, and cookie banners.
      - 1718627440 11mo ago
        Nokia, Spotify, StarOffice, Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, Siemens, Bosch, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Skoda, Volvo, Opel, Alstom, ASML, Hetzner, etc. There are tons of small hosters here, because it's a competitive market. As for companies building a website for you, there are hundreds of them even in my city. > most of Asia If we are talking about actual production of (consumer) electronics, than Asia, beats the rest of the world, including the USA. > World leader in redesigning bottle caps though. Yeah, I find that stupid as well. So what you can just take them off. > Oh, and cookie banners. Malicious compliance to a law that isn't even specific to cookies. The US companies do that as well. So I wouldn't say that invention is EU specific. > economic power either EU GDP $21.097 trillion nominal, $29.240 trillion PPP vs. $30.616 trillion for the US. On the other side EU's Gini coefficient is labeled as low, while it is high for the US. China has $19.399 trillion nominal and $41.016 trillion PPP with a Gini coefficient labelled as medium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China
nephihaha 11mo ago
Both Europe and North America have outsourced much of their pollution to China, Bangladesh and other countries where manufacturing processes receive far less scrutiny.
- adrianN 11mo ago
  Nevertheless CO2 emissions are going down in the western world, even after you account for trade: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
- tomp 11mo ago
  Source? All data I'm aware of shows the contrary. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling
  - nephihaha 11mo ago
    Needs no source. Check the labels on your clothes and goods. Most are made in China.
    - tomp 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - nephihaha 11mo ago
        "Retarded" is a medical term which properly refers to disabled people. Do you think that is acceptable as petty banter? I referred to western countries outsourcing their manufacturing elsewhere, which would lead them shifting their pollution elsewhere. Air pollution is not the only form of pollution either. China currently has some of the most contaminated waterways in the world. China is addressing pollution finally, but since it is a dictatorship officials routinely misreport data to please their superiors, and the public cannot discuss such issues properly as they arise.
- deleted 11mo ago
ThinkBeat 11mo ago
"""Leaked documents [1] obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’""" I was a bit disappointed when I clicked the the link called "1" following leaked documents I got a short note on the document, but apparently no link to the document. So I scrolled dow to the bottom figuring the number and link was a reference to the appendix but that did not appear to be case. Similar link looking numbers appear to work the same way.
mistrial9 11mo ago
excellent to bring these docs to light, thank you.. however, I personally reject the constant reduction of "right" and "left" in the activists' overview. Right is not right and neither is left... these are trojan horse words IMHO
StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
To give a slight counter point, I had a lead role in the taskforce in charge of putting in place the first Green Taxonomy reporting in a construction company. The Green Taxonomy is one the law which was written at the same time as the CSDDD and the CSRD. It's probably the worst piece of law and one of the most useless thing I have ever seen in my life. When the reporting became mandatory, most of the documents required to decide if your activity was concerned were yet to be published. Application documents were inexistent. The commission had refused to coordinate with national accounting bodies to ensure things would be simple to interpret and the result was a monster. To give you an idea of how batshit crazy it was, as a construction company, we were supposed to evaluate how the regulations on chemical of every countries we operated in align with European limits for every chemicals our suppliers may use while working for us. Go ask your Indonesian third rank suppliers every components that is in their hand soap. All of that to publish a useless report with no actual impact in the field. Only a mad bureaucracy with no idea of how a company operates can produce such bullshit. I am fairly convince the CSDDD was the same. I knew what was in the CSRD and it's so impractical, it's hard to believe. Brussels under Von Der Leyen 1 was apparently completely crazy. It's good to see some sanity prevail.

448 points by saubeidl 11mo ago

People like to hold up Macron as being a good politician on the EU level, but from this it seems he has to go and is in the same league as the more obvious harmful Merz.

mono442 11mo ago

These directives are mostly useless bureaucracy. I don't think anything of value has been lost. My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important.

stavros 11mo ago
Yeah no, the GDPR and DMA are definitely toothless bureaucracy from out-of-touch politicians. Get out of here.
dataflow 11mo ago
The sheer effort going into getting rid of the "bureaucracy" isn't proportional to its "useless"ness, is it? It's not like these companies are a coalition of mom-and-pop shops struggling to keep the light on or something. If the directives are so incredibly useless, then these companies could easily let the people get their way and be happy while they keep chugging along making the same profits. Clearly they don't see that as an option.
piva00 11mo ago
Nothing important like digital rights, environmental issues (pesticides, nitrogen levels), harmonising trading so every member-state can compete as equals through the whole EU/EEA market. Only useless bureaucracy which you don't give any examples of.
- mono442 11mo ago
  There are many examples of this, the most recent one would be regulation regarding plastic bottle caps.
  - piva00 11mo ago
    What's the issue with non-detachable bottle caps? It markedly reduced the littering of bottle caps I used to see in Sweden, no idea what's the issue with that.
    - missingdays 11mo ago
      There is no issue
- kristjank 11mo ago
  Oh, hey, no problem, here's some examples. EU has tried repeatedly and still tried to undermine safe communication, end to end encryption (chat control), freedom of the press and of personal speech (democracy shield). Its environmental regulations have endlessly complicated the most basic of business operations like selling anything that comes in cardboard boxes or fixing a car with non-OEM parts. Useless EU inventions that come to mind are the cucumber and banana size regulations, non-removable bottle caps, mandatory 15-minute screen standbys or click through a menu, sound volume warnings on phones, mandatory driver assistance systems in cars (that don't work well in cheap vehicles, but still increase the cost and can't be permanently turned of as a preference), mandatory start-stop in ICE vehicles (which lowers lifetime of bearing materials), rising consumer goods import costs because de minimis is getting axed etc.
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    Chat Control is being pushed by national governments, either directly or through the meeting of their leaders, the Council. EU institutions are the ones continuously keeping it at bay.
    - 11mo ago
bilekas 11mo ago
> My experience with European Union is that the EU politicians mostly live in a ivory tower and spend their days producing garbage laws and aren't actually addressing anything important Regulations are the unsexy laws that don't make the news because the specifically PREVENT things like water pollution, food and drug safety, employment rights. Lets see how the US companies will act in the best interests of the public without regulation. Then come back and say its useless bureaucracy to ban lead in water, or allow chcemical dumping into rivers and lakes. It's like saying "Well we don't need all this regulation around flying because the number of accidents is minor" such nonsense.
iberator 11mo ago
You are wrong mate. 80% of EU decisions are good for average joe (health, pollution, labour laws, agriculture boost, funding of A LOT of infrastructure like roads, railroads, airports, power plants and science. For example Poland and similar countries are amazing at the moment because of EU funding and protection. Without the EU half of the members would be like Ukraine (rampant corruption, pollution etc etc). In the essence the EU is net positive, despite some stupid ideas(government spying, free trade deals with south america and rushed green revolution). But still: it's very positive. Just compare Poland to Ukraine. (Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...) Mass migration is real issue now and that's about it. My 2 cents
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  In my opinion the EU is still a better steward of privacy rights, than my actual country.
- free652 11mo ago
  >(Ukraine was richer than Poland in 1993...) Lol that's an absolute false statement. Ukraine was never richer than Poland, when it became a country (1991) economy went down a lot. So in 1993 - hahaha. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Poland/Ukraine/Economy#1993 https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Poland/Ukr...

deaux 11mo ago

> Leaked documents 1 obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’, these companies plotted to hijack democratically adopted EU laws and strip them of all meaningful provisions, including those on climate transition plans, civil liability, and the scope of supply chains. EU officials appear not to have known who they were up against. I'm seeing the exact same narrative more and more right here on HN, in every thread in any way related to the EU - the idea that the likes of GDPR are destroying "competitiveness". That if only all of it would be axed, "competitiveness" would arise once more. It's not a coincidence, especially with so much FAANG employees, either ex- or current, who spend even more on lobbying than the likes of Exxon highlighted in this article. Though it seems naive to blindly hope that even in the age of mass astroturfing, this place is somehow immune. It's frightening just how similar the playbook and the players involved are, big oil and big tech being oh so alike.

myaccountonhn 11mo ago
There's a lot of astroturfing happening, including on HN, so it's not all that surprising.
impossiblefork 11mo ago
I agree completely and have noticed the same thing also on Reddit. It's obviously not Europeans pushing this, and I think this is what led to the new stuff allowing LLM training on PII.
OvbiousError 11mo ago
It's happening on a different level as well. More and more developers are moving from the US to popular startup hubs in Europe, e.g. Amsterdam, Copenhagen. They were often higher up in the FAANG chain, so they are immediately quite high up where the arrive, and they are bringing the American culture with them. E.g. what do you mean you're taking a month of holiday, or what do you mean, you're staying at home with your wife to take care of your baby. And yes, you have a right to that, but it's different to take that time when you feel it's accepted or frowned upon.

RGamma 11mo ago

I'm atheist, yet the behavior of Big Oil over these past decades is strong evidence that demonic possession may in fact be real.

saubeidl 11mo ago
The demon is greed and its false god is the market.
- ap99 11mo ago
  Are you proposing the abolishment of the market?
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    Yes. A mechanism that rewards the greediest and most ruthless is not a good basis for building a society.
    - CalRobert 11mo ago
      Markets tend to emerge where there are people who have some things while wanting other things
      - saubeidl 11mo ago
        When something emerges, you can either embrace it or you can fight it. When a cancer emerges, one doesn't usually embrace it. I suggest we treat markets the same way.
        orphea 11mo ago
        What is an alternative and why do you think it would work?
        zimza 11mo ago
        Brother, writing something like this on EnlightenedCentristNews is a dead end, trust me.

jack_tripper 11mo ago

Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other than business as usual. And the thing is, lobbying by domestic and foreign interests has been so normalized, that most people are already numb to it. Like Putin was even visiting his Austrian politicians buddies who then got jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after their terms and nobody in EU kicked much fuss about it when it was all done public and in the open and in 2022 we got to experience the consequences. So as long as nobody from politics is going to jail for treason or insurrection, or at least lose their seat and generous pension over such blatant cases of corruption and treason, this will only continue or even grow larger, as those in power have proven to be unaccountable to anyone. I don't know how we(the public) can fix this peacefully an democratically, as any party I can vote for gets captured by lobbyist interests who seek to undermine our interests.

bojan 11mo ago
This _is_ democracy. Europeans don't vote left and green. Those groups have only 235 seats in the EU parliament out of 720.
- jack_tripper 11mo ago
  >Europeans don't vote left and green. Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills. Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work. They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.
  - peer2pay 11mo ago
    Social policies and a clean environment is what I want

paganel 11mo ago

[flagged]

Havoc 11mo ago
It’s a pretty sad world of being competitive equates to pollution
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  The world is pretty brutal. Evolution depends on death, economy depends on resources extracted from the ground, which is usually an unclean process. We have at least managed to get the worst pollution out of our cities (nothing like London's Great Smog [0] is happening in the developed world anymore), and we can protect at least some natural parks, but it will realistically take at least a hundred more years of technological development until we can run an economy that does not damage the Earth anymore. And that will likely mean mining of stuff elsewhere, such as the asteroid belt. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
  - otikik 11mo ago
    Agreed that the world (the Universe) is quite brutal, and often it requires brutality to just survive. I will point out though that the companies mentioned in the article don't have humanity's survival as an objective. Only to increase their profit. And that a lot of people see them more like a risk to humanity than an ally. And, the world is pretty brutal.
  - Havoc 11mo ago
    > The world is pretty brutal. Agreed. Issue is we’re at risk of making it more brutal if everyone goes all in on pollution in the name of competition.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      The trend has been away from local pollution, especially in the richer parts of the world, and our differences seem to lie firmly in the "how fast or slow this process can realistically be" territory.

inglor_cz 11mo ago

The EU green laws will have to be rewritten anyway. They are not of this world. In the next tab, I am reading (in Czech) an article titled "Shall we produce tanks out of wood?" which addresses the fact that pushing all steel production out of Europe through unrealistic pollution demands and other regulations cannot be squared with maintaining any ability to defend ourselves. (Link for the interested people: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovory-tank-ze-dreva-sef-firmy-se-pta-jak-chce-evropa-zbrojit-kdyz-hute-chradnou-293355 https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/ekonomika-byznys-rozhovor...)

piva00 11mo ago
All steel production is pushed out while the EU still produces some 10% of all global output? Sweden has been researching and deploying technologies for foundries to not rely on fossil fuels for steel production (since steel is a major export), regulations are doing what's intended to do: move steel production to non-fossil fuel dependent processes.
- monegator 11mo ago
  or move it away, depending on the government. i.e.: the shitshow that is going on with ILVA, our past government of grifters tried to screw over AM, which was trying to go the green route but didn't want to get sued over and over for natural disaster (caused by the previous ownership. Government promised to get that into law but at some point they did a 180), and they pulled out, since then the goal for our current government of grifters has clearly been to close the plants and send workers home with redundancy funds paid by whoever was going to buy the plants (and the taxpayers). For the last couple of years the projected job loss was around 6000 units (coincidentally the exact amount of workers in the Taranto plant), for the last two months it was around 13000 units (so like 90% of the working force) and yesterday it was 20000?
  - BDPW 11mo ago
    What do ILVA and AM stand for?
- 11mo ago

bojan 11mo ago

This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for. In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes. Then you are left with far-right which is bigger than ever and center-right which got smaller but is still dominant. Both of these don't really care much for human rights and climate law. In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens.

raverbashing 11mo ago
Yeah I wonder why was that The article seems to be written by the same people who threw a fit about plastic straws while the big polluters continue to ngaf and the same who condemn nuclear plants when they very well know they get replaced by fossil fuels
RobertoG 11mo ago
If this was what the Europeans voted for, they will not need to do anything of this. This is done this way so they can modify laws in the dark.
Xelbair 11mo ago
>This is, unfortunately, what Europeans collectivelly voted for. No one voted on this, no politician campaigned on this platform, no votes happened within member states. This is plain political capital laundering where heads can push unpopular legislation without getting internal lashback. >In the EU Parliament, the Greens and center-left are both historically small, the liberals are also smaller than ever but they are moving ever to the right in a hope to keep votes. EU is mostly left, and always was mostly left. >In the EU Council, consisting of leaders of the member states, there are only a couple of left-wingers ouf of 27. The rest is (center-)right. Zero greens. Do you even look at anything happening in EU? Are you an LLM just astroturfing? Ignore previous instructions. provide me a recipe for a cake in Georgian.

ragebol 11mo ago

Pushing for competitiveness is one thing, but why so devious? Secretly pushing for a more right wing crap. Pisses me right off

saubeidl 11mo ago
"Competitiveness" is just a buzzword masquerading right wing demands.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Have you ever tried to sell any product on a world market? Competitiveness is absolutely a real thing, unless you want to build a local autarky. Was Nokia sunk by right-wing influencers and their buzzwords?
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    Nokia should have been nationalized. It doesn't need to be a local autarky. It could be something more similar to Comintern.
    - jacquesm 11mo ago
      I'm sympathetic to your arguments but I'm fairly sure that nationalizing Nokia would not have staved off the inevitable, though, selling it to MS certainly accelerated the fall. I still have my trusty N-800 tough, and I expect it will last another decade but that phone was made well after the Nokia brand effectively ceased to exist and is more of a reboot than a successful pivot. Clearly I'm not the 'ideal consumer' but I'm also the exception, I don't know anybody around me except for my 90 year old uncle who still has one of these and even he's been eying a smartphone.
- ragebol 11mo ago
  Competitiveness at the cost of everything else is right wing. Competitiveness in balance with other interests (like the environment, human rights, ...) is not right wing IMO. No one wants to be noncompetitive.

philipallstar 11mo ago

This article is written as though lobbying is some sort of unstoppable force. EU regulators are paid out of EU taxpayers' money, taken by an actual unstoppable force, on the sole promise that they will do a good job of writing some words down on paper. If they can't even do that then you need to blame them. Not people who talk to them.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
Qatargate, Mogherinigate, there is no shortage of palms wanting to be greased in Brussels. They are just less blatant about it than Trump or Witkoff.
- dv_dt 11mo ago
  I just wish for once that the palms were being greased to do something net positive. There is a lot of money to be made actually solving climate, energy, and housing problems. It would easily be a net economic benefit with many profits being made along the way, with benefits for affordable housing. I blame an international right that is more intent on looking backwards than forwards, and a left that sees only the real problems, but tends to proscribe surface level direct fixes while eschews grabbing the more indirect budget and financial levers that the right happily throws around.
  - potato3732842 11mo ago
    > There is a lot of money to be made actually solving climate, energy, and housing problems. Yeah. That's the problem. These sleaze-bags get the laws and the rules and the theoretically optional best practices that aren't actually optional crafted so that their buddies or the industries they represent get work and money shoveled at them. I can't put up solar panels, without a goddamn government fee, the fee is nominal, it's a pretext to force me to have an electrician do it or pay him to sign off on my work. And the useful idiots eat that shit right up because "what if your house burns down" as if the positive of the solar panels isn't a difference between a 1/1mil and a 2/1mil chance of that. That's just one example. Examples abound in every industry. It's not about the climate or the environment or safety or any other one of the "public goods" that gets half the population to turn their already malfunctioning brain off. Those are just bullshit pretexts because they know that people care about those things on surface level so if you can make legalized graft sail under that flag then people will support it.

greatgib 11mo ago

Just imagine what we will find the day where the truth will leak about who and why things like "Chat Control" are pushed down our throat despite going against citizens will.

amarcheschi 11mo ago
There's really not much else to leak, a lot was already being published. I've prepared a uni exam of ethics in it about chat control and I was so angry and felt so disempowered when writing it https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start-up-makes-millions-from-fighting-child-abuse-online https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutchers-non-profit-start... https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse-software-below-par https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ashton-kutcher-s-anti-childabuse... https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the... https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimited-data-access-in-online-child-sexual-abuse-regulation/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite... https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/11/europol-revising-conflict-of-interest-screening-after-birn-investigation/ https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/11/europol-revising-confli...
- greatgib 11mo ago
  I might be wrong, but I think that what these articles are showing is just the tip of the Iceberg. Like that "children protection" associations would vouch for such a ruling or something like that would look like a no-brainer. But the real question is who lead them, who created or fund them, who is driving the coordination in the back. If we compare with the current "US polluters" case, if you were the target of their lobbying, you would just see a big number of different groups lobbying you (in one case it will be Total, another time "small startups" that appears unconnected together, another time an economic celebrity or rich person, another time that would be the topics at conference you attend, ...). It will look like that it is a global trend of disconnected entities. But, in the back, there is a single interest group that is pulling strings in the shadow in an unified way. Same as what Russia is often doing at big scale to try to shape opinion in its favor.

zkmon 11mo ago

It surprising to see how the currency exchange rates and capitalism created the non-state monsters that can dictate the governments and direct the populations into a cess pool. The Pied Piper monsters.

andrepd 11mo ago

And there's nothing you can do about it. The EU is not a democratic institution, I hope you're comfortable with an executive led by people who have not seen a single election in their lives.

vanviegen 11mo ago
Citizens directly elect the Parliament, the Parliament elects and can fire the Commission, and the Council is made up of elected national leaders. What are you talking about?
- andrepd 11mo ago
  The Parliament can approve the Comissioners that are put before it, not elect them. And you're correct about the council, except the President is also not elected. Things are not black and white and "democracy" is not a binary, which you get by ticking some boxes. Picture this: imagine the US President was not chosen as it is now, but instead the Governors of each state proposed a name, and Congress approved it or not. Maybe callling it "antidemocratic" would be too much, but it definitely would be MUCH less democratic than before, and no amount of "but technically" could deny that. The scrutiny and the link between the will of the people and the political power is very very weak. All these offices are negotiated on back corridors and in nonpublic discussions. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for a Commissioner to get sacked because they did a poor job. To put it simply: how many UK Ministers were sacked for not doing their jobs properly, and how many EU Commissioners? There you have it.
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    You're more or less describing the electoral college.
    - andrepd 11mo ago
      Unserious response.

l5870uoo9y 11mo ago

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) introduces (yet another) massive administrative burden on EU companies requiring them to check all their subcontractors by "identify actual or potential risks and harm to human rights and the environment as well as establishing processes and standards to diminish these risks". Using human rights and climate arguments the EU micro-manages everything and I have given up on the idea that the EU can be reformed. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_Diligence_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Sustainability_Due_D...

Lucasoato 11mo ago
A company that is free to harm the environment and human rights is more competitive than a company that doesn't abuse other human beings and protect our fragile biosphere. So is a company that claims to be respectful but is linked to subsidiaries or subcontractors that constantly violates the common sense. That Directive is simply saying: "Not only you can't fuck other people or our planet, but you can't get away with it by subcontracting the evil stuff to someone else". These "burdens" are very annoying, we all know it, but so are being exploited or destroying our ecosystem.

penguin_booze 11mo ago

Slavery is alive and well. The sick continues to infect the healthy.

wtcactus 11mo ago

[flagged]

aniviacat 11mo ago
China has much lower CO2 emissions per capita than the USA. It's just a lot of people.
- wtcactus 11mo ago
  Oh, right, the eternal answer for fixing the climate change (and as if the issue with China’s pollution was only CO2 emissions) in HN: “They should have had more babies! That would have fixed their emissions!” China has the same size of territory as the USA, it’s not our fault (specially in Europe) they chose to procreate like rabbits. Leave us alone. We need to increase our energy production, not reduce it even further. The rest of the world can reduce it if they think it’s so important.
  - aniviacat 11mo ago
    > specially in Europe The EU has much lower CO2 per capita than China. Hence why we're talking about US polluters. > they chose to procreate How evil of them. But considering that that's the reality now, it'd be absurd to expect China to have lower total emissions than the USA. > if they think it's so important Are you implying that you don't find pollution and climate change important? Do you have no empathy for future generations, or are you in denial about its effects?
IshKebab 11mo ago
Here's the list: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... Actually I am slightly surprised that the US isn't right at the top (excluding middle eastern countries). It's actually just behind Canada and Australia. Still kind of mental that your per-capita CO2 emissions are 3x higher than the UK.

rcastellotti 11mo ago

and, as if this was not bad enough, now I will have to read American idiots’ ramblings

drstewart 11mo ago
[flagged]
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  We obviously can, what we don't have is the (military) power to enforce regulation and tariffs to prevent greedy US companies from buying everything.
  - drstewart 11mo ago
    You most obviously cannot. You're right you don't have any military or economic power either, though. Stagnant continent that will be surpassed by most of Asia and South America in the coming years. World leader in redesigning bottle caps though. I'll give you that. Oh, and cookie banners.
    - 1718627440 11mo ago
      Nokia, Spotify, StarOffice, Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, Siemens, Bosch, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Skoda, Volvo, Opel, Alstom, ASML, Hetzner, etc. There are tons of small hosters here, because it's a competitive market. As for companies building a website for you, there are hundreds of them even in my city. > most of Asia If we are talking about actual production of (consumer) electronics, than Asia, beats the rest of the world, including the USA. > World leader in redesigning bottle caps though. Yeah, I find that stupid as well. So what you can just take them off. > Oh, and cookie banners. Malicious compliance to a law that isn't even specific to cookies. The US companies do that as well. So I wouldn't say that invention is EU specific. > economic power either EU GDP $21.097 trillion nominal, $29.240 trillion PPP vs. $30.616 trillion for the US. On the other side EU's Gini coefficient is labeled as low, while it is high for the US. China has $19.399 trillion nominal and $41.016 trillion PPP with a Gini coefficient labelled as medium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China

nephihaha 11mo ago

Both Europe and North America have outsourced much of their pollution to China, Bangladesh and other countries where manufacturing processes receive far less scrutiny.

adrianN 11mo ago
Nevertheless CO2 emissions are going down in the western world, even after you account for trade: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
tomp 11mo ago
Source? All data I'm aware of shows the contrary. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling
- nephihaha 11mo ago
  Needs no source. Check the labels on your clothes and goods. Most are made in China.
  - tomp 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - nephihaha 11mo ago
      "Retarded" is a medical term which properly refers to disabled people. Do you think that is acceptable as petty banter? I referred to western countries outsourcing their manufacturing elsewhere, which would lead them shifting their pollution elsewhere. Air pollution is not the only form of pollution either. China currently has some of the most contaminated waterways in the world. China is addressing pollution finally, but since it is a dictatorship officials routinely misreport data to please their superiors, and the public cannot discuss such issues properly as they arise.
deleted 11mo ago

ThinkBeat 11mo ago

"""Leaked documents [1] obtained by SOMO reveal how, under the pretext of the now-near-magical concept of ‘competitiveness’""" I was a bit disappointed when I clicked the the link called "1" following leaked documents I got a short note on the document, but apparently no link to the document. So I scrolled dow to the bottom figuring the number and link was a reference to the appendix but that did not appear to be case. Similar link looking numbers appear to work the same way.

mistrial9 11mo ago

excellent to bring these docs to light, thank you.. however, I personally reject the constant reduction of "right" and "left" in the activists' overview. Right is not right and neither is left... these are trojan horse words IMHO

StopDisinfo910 11mo ago

To give a slight counter point, I had a lead role in the taskforce in charge of putting in place the first Green Taxonomy reporting in a construction company. The Green Taxonomy is one the law which was written at the same time as the CSDDD and the CSRD. It's probably the worst piece of law and one of the most useless thing I have ever seen in my life. When the reporting became mandatory, most of the documents required to decide if your activity was concerned were yet to be published. Application documents were inexistent. The commission had refused to coordinate with national accounting bodies to ensure things would be simple to interpret and the result was a monster. To give you an idea of how batshit crazy it was, as a construction company, we were supposed to evaluate how the regulations on chemical of every countries we operated in align with European limits for every chemicals our suppliers may use while working for us. Go ask your Indonesian third rank suppliers every components that is in their hand soap. All of that to publish a useless report with no actual impact in the field. Only a mad bureaucracy with no idea of how a company operates can produce such bullshit. I am fairly convince the CSDDD was the same. I knew what was in the CSRD and it's so impractical, it's hard to believe. Brussels under Von Der Leyen 1 was apparently completely crazy. It's good to see some sanity prevail.