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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 mo

by 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.
    - amarcheschi 11mo ago
      Chat control is being pushed by national police forces as well as europol. It's... Lobbying. Basically. The whole story of how it started with ylva johannsson is the result of strong lobbying by Thorn and Ashton Kutcher
    - kristjank 11mo ago
      Where I live, we have and exercise the right to legislative referendum, which stops such legislation in a very clear and decisive way. If something like this passes in the EU, we have no way to fight it (international treaties are not subjects to referendum). The influence in EU parliament is delegated on so many levels that it's impossible to transparently see what your vote influences.
      - saubeidl 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...

by mono442 11mo ago

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.
  - amarcheschi 11mo ago
    Chat control is being pushed by national police forces as well as europol. It's... Lobbying. Basically. The whole story of how it started with ylva johannsson is the result of strong lobbying by Thorn and Ashton Kutcher
  - kristjank 11mo ago
    Where I live, we have and exercise the right to legislative referendum, which stops such legislation in a very clear and decisive way. If something like this passes in the EU, we have no way to fight it (international treaties are not subjects to referendum). The influence in EU parliament is delegated on so many levels that it's impossible to transparently see what your vote influences.
    - saubeidl 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...