How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
Comments
mstaoru
stymaar
> They also do not introduce these regulations "from tomorrow" (well, sometimes they do, but it's a different topic). E.g. the non-degradable plastic regulation was issued in 2020 to come in effect in 2025. This gives time to prepare and implement (unlike EU border controls mess...)
The EU does that most of the time, and you have to add the duration of the European legislative process (~2 years in average) so it's hard to say companies don't have time to adapt.
The problem is that companies have repeatedly used “not adapting” as a strategy to postpone changes. The plan is quite simple: you don't adapt in time. Then the business lobby will repeat how unprepared the industry is and how they need a delay to prepare. Rince and repeat.
mstaoru
But you also don't adapt to something that is not necessarily going to be law? Between them passing it and it going into power is less than 1.5 years.
inigyou
I remember this with GDPR
riffraff
> This gives time to prepare and implement (unlike EU border controls mess...)
The Entry/Exit System was supposed to start in 2024[0], it was delayed to 2025, then it was delayed to 2026. They also changed from a full turn on to an incremental rollout over 180 days[1]. At some point you have to turn on things and "bugs will shake out", you can't delay things forever.
[0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025...
[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025...
mstaoru
...this is not the approach I would take with something like border controls.
rjsw
The level of border controls hasn't changed, only the technology used to implement it.
fallingbananna
>Could EU just ask DHL/Hermes/whatever to charge an additional €1 "for recycling"? Yes, but...
Within EU we already pay ~€3 for packages from China. And in Austria we will soon pay additional ~€2 for every delivered package. And 20% VAT.
Edit:
I am pretty sure at least some part of these already contribute towards recycling.
The goal here is likely not just to get more funding for recycling, but rather to use materials that can be recycled in the first place. Which you cannot achieve simply by charging businesses or consumers more.
piltdownman
In Ireland, the National Postal Service (An Post) charges €6.95 processing on top of the €3 Customs Charge. An additional €2 handling fee per product is expected in November 2026. All subject to 23% Vat.
So we go from €3 to about €15 a package ordering from the UK. The country we have a visa-less Common Travel Area exclusive from Schengen, without a land or sea border.
You could feasibly pay less accompanying such a package in an Uber from Northern Ireland to Ireland (e.g. UK->EU).
Joined up thinking at its finest to benefit the Benelux at the expense of the periphery.
mstaoru
> Within EU we already pay ~€3 for packages from China
Yes, the point is, pay +€1 for packages from EU to EU to finance all this PPWR circus.
mordae
It is already €20+ to send something from e.g. Czechia to France.
mstaoru
It doesn't matter, PPWR needs to get money from somebody to finance itself. Consumers end up paying it regardless of where PPWR's cut is taken.
rvba
DHL charges 1 eur for recycling, which it pockets since the envelope or box with thr product went to the consumer... who throws it away to the segregated garbage bin - for which every consumer also pays.
thesimon
> for which every consumer also pays.
Idk, at least in Germany paper and (plastic) recycling is free. I only have to pay for organic trash and trash to be burned.
philipallstar
It's mad not to keep the recycling costs at the point of recycling collection, though. Why would the EU need to be involved, when it's either a private company or local government procuring the recycling service?
arielcostas
In Spain we pay the "tasa de gestión de residuos" (residue management tax) to our city, for all recycling in general. doesn't matter if it's paper, plastics/packagings, organics (many cities now collect those separat from non-organic) and other residues. It also includes the "punto limpio", a place to take larger electronics, batteries, car fluids and other stuff you can't just throw to the bin. Old medicine is collected at pharmacies though, it's a separate thing to avoid animals or people looking from the trash from getting medication, that could be dangerous.
How is recycling free but you've got to pay for organics? Don't you just pay a tax (or pay it indirectly through income tax or VAT)? And you've got the whole returning the plastic bottles on the supermarket thing too, right?
emsign
That's correct. In Germany we pay "indirectly" via the end price. Meaning whoever has to pay the afforementioned EPR fee is free to add their cost to the price of the product.
yayachiken
But to be fair, at least paper disposal is truly free because paper recycling generally turns a profit for the municipalities.
spwa4
The taxes levied also go into the general government fund. Which means they mostly go to paying pensions and social security (unemployment, medical insurance, long-term medical leave, ...)
(... and that is really why this is so staunchly defended)
deno
This has nothing to do with EPR. The €3 for packages from China is a fixed processing fee on top of potential tariffs.
They got rid of the de minimis €150 limit for tariffs and added fees on top.
There was also €25 VAT de minimis limit but that’s also no longer the case since some time.
LaurensBER
Important nuance here is that the €3 for packages from China is a temporary solution and will eventually (2028?) be replaced by a more permanent system which _might_ work out more favourable for electronics.
Having said that, the customs duty will go to the EU budget so there's now a direct incentive for the EU to maintain or perhaps even increase this.
retired
Not just China. Also packages from Japan and Thailand get this charge.
danielovichdk
It should be much higher.
The amount of shit that gets shipped from China to Europe (world) is fucking ludicrous, and people should be taxed heavily for the stupid shit they often don't need.
rwyinuse
Unfortunately, if you want to fix electronics more often than not China is the only place you can buy spare parts. I don't think buying spare parts to devices counts as "stupid shit".
eptcyka
If you were to interpret the comment you’re responding to charitably, you’d understand that electronics components are a minuscule minority of all of Chinese exports.
dvdkon
I'm tired of being told I don't matter because I'm in a minority. You'd never dare imply a tax making gypsy folk singing unviable is fine because it's a "miniscule minority" of all music played, so why do it for electronics repair?
inigyou
But a ban on making loud noises after midnight would also impact a gypsy who likes to folk sing after midnight and it would be pretty ludicrous to cite that as a reason not to do it.
dvdkon
The right thing to do is not to sweep him under a rug because "there's only a few such gypsies", but to look at what he's doing and say "yes, this is what we want to ban". Being a in minority is not a shield from consequences, but it shouldn't be a reason for dismissal either.
In the case of the 3-EUR-tariff, nobody has come out and said "we want to make small electronics production/repair untenable", so I'm optimistically assuming its effects are not intentional.
knollimar
But the stupid part of stupid shit doesn't apply to the electronics, while Gypsy singing is still loud
roywashere
Sure! I understand that everyone buying stuff on Temu and Shein is horrific. At the same time, me paying $$$ for ordering electrical components from China is rough for me. And also, I find it mind-blowing and ridiculous that Ali offered free shipping for small orders for so long whereas if I'd buy local I need to pay up for shipping, and if I'd start a small business in the Netherlands, shipping to the rest of the EU for small parcels is prohibitively expensive, not even taking into account PPWR
inglor_cz
The problem with overarching regulations is that they kill the good along the bad, which is the original topic of the article being discussed...
wolvoleo
Yup and those parts often cost literal cents making the €3,60 per item a ridiculously high fee. All while we're protecting the environment by repairing things.
desterothx
the fee goes per product category, not per item...
wolvoleo
I know but in practice those categories are very narrow. If I order two different things I'll still pay the fee twice in practice.
m4rtink
I did two orders from Aliexpress recently. On the first one they did count the fee per item, on the second they already had the categories figured out & counted the fee only per category.
Since then I am now getting "duty saving" adverts for them where they help you to get items on sale & in the same category. So it took them like two months not to only adapt, but to use the fee as apart of their marketing. ;-)
wolvoleo
Oh ok I kinda stopped ordering from them since it was introduced. I've been ordering lots of stuff before it came in so I could have some stock of things I use a lot, like WS2812B LEDs, micro screws etc.
I was really infuriated when I heard that it was mainly the big chains like Lidl, Aldi, Ahold that have been lobbying for this crap. They are always trying to kill the little guy.
DiggyJohnson
I don’t think the electronics spare parts market makes up a sizable chunk of Chinese exports to the West but I could be wrong
trinix912
Right, so tell me where in Europe can I buy replacement parts for random electronics when I need them? Often very specific ICs, last time it was a cassette deck pinch roller, etc.
Preferably somewhere where it’s cheaper than the value of the thing being repaired.
danielovichdk
Yes, and that's a whole different problem, which in itself does not equal stupid shit.
The reason the price for parcels from China is going up in Europe is not shipping chips or component, it's from shipping stupid fucking shit people do not need, from e.g Temu and copied goods such as clothing, shoes and what not.
The toll offices in the airports are being drowned in cheap crap. Shut it down by making people pay more for the shit they buy. That will of course hurt everyone else, but that is how it works.
tancop
Maybe switch to less frequent random inspections instead of looking at every parcel? That would reduce the costs immediately at the "price" of letting in some illegal drugs and weapons. Sign me up.
murderfs
Clothing, famously less important on Maslow's hierarchy of needs than semiconductors.
prmoustache
Well, clothing that doesn't last or made of plastic is indeed less important.
victorbjorklund
As if everyone wear fast fashion from their local retail store for 20 years. Truth is many people are buying new clothes because they want new clothes and not because they break (just like many in HN buys new electronics even if their computer from 20 years still boots)
freehorse
The fact that these clothes tend to be in the category of "doesn't last or made of plastic" (plus low human labour costs) is what makes them cheap enough to be possible for people to order/buy them in as large quantities.
trinix912
Might it just be that people are buying from Temu because stuff at the mall is 10x as expensive and doesn’t even last all that longer nowadays? People can’t afford to pay 40€ for a T shirt.
kamma4434
Me too - I get the feeling it’s the same garbage at a different price point.
tacet
EU banned destruction of unsold clothing. Estimated 4-9% of textile products in europe are destroyed before sold.
Lack of clothing is not really that big of problem if we look from needs perspective.
DiggyJohnson
That’s just a tangentially related fact and not very relevant to this discussion from my perspective
fragmede
Maslow's Hierarchy has been revised: https://www.adipsys.com/en/wi-fi-customer-experience/maslow-...
Felger
What's "sex" doing in basic needs ? That's a recent addition ?
gnopgnip
Reichelt and Conrad in Germany. Digikey has logistics in Netherlands
pta2002
I’ve found that those sites tend to charge insane amounts for shipping (20€+ to Portugal at least) which considering the price of the parts in question generally makes it not worth it unfortunately. Maybe it’s better now, I haven’t tried in a few years.
inigyou
Isn't Conrad out of business?
victorbjorklund
Pretty much everything is made in China. Maybe you are just mad at the companies cutting out the European middle men making a large cut?
wolvoleo
Not everything is unnecessary and a lot of it will be bought anyway but now through EU resellers that charge a lot more for the same shit.
mns
> They also do not introduce these regulations "from tomorrow"
This wasn't introduced "from tomorrow", people had 1 year and a half to prepare for this (at least) or to protest this. See some comments below how individual countries actually messed this up.
> But of course EU is fundamentally different in a way that the politicians need to please the electorate, so nothing is really planned ahead.
> I don't know if this EU regulation will work or not (most likely not)
It's good that you take the time to just make assumptions about how the EU is bad based on your knowledge on how it operates...
yuye
>people had 1 year and a half to prepare for this (at least) or to protest this.
“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
gpjanik
"people had 1 year to protest this" this is terminal stage subjugation to bureaucrats
HWR_14
How long should we have to wait to hear objections to a rule before we can implement it?
Aeolun
Don’t wait for objections to an obviously dumb rule at all. Save us all the trouble and don’t implement it?
breezybottom
Who gets the veto over the democratic process? You?
oytis
I wish people actually making stuff had a veto right on things they make
inigyou
They do. You can just break the law. Especially when it's a civil regulation like using recyclable packaging material, you will not go to jail for that.
DiggyJohnson
I love democracy but it seems like you’re implying that everyone gets a veto or nobody. That’s obviously untenable.
freehorse
It sounds more like "the consequences of this regulation are your fault because you did not protest enough".
scythe
You responded to an abbreviation of the original argument. The original was "people had one year to prepare for or protest this". And the impact of a required equipment replacement is dependent on the expected lifetime of the equipment. Practically all equipment lasts more than a year. Disposable items bought in bulk are basically a form of equipment that lasts until you run out. Five years will see about a third of stuff get turned over. I have seen some fluoroscopy equipment still running since the late 90s.
Ultimately "make better rules" is only half the battle. You still need a process for implementation.
ikari_pl
We did
fakedang
Simply put, the Eurocrats can't hear us all from up there.
johanvts
Wrt recycled plastic content its more like 6 years (2024-2030), so much like outlined for China.
formerly_proven
It's yet another EU regulation that requires a rep for each EU country or you're not allowed to do business. EU single market is a bad joke at this point.
radicalbyte
Erm I've been talking about this for 4 years now. So I'm not sure how it can "come out of nowhere" unless you're paying 0 attention to really important regulation in your field.
There will be a post in 9 months from software companies crying about the PLD and CRA because their leaders were asleep at the wheel for the last half decade.
ihateolives
"in your field"? All small businesses and solo enterpreneurs that I know who are hit by this are not "in this field". Their field is making jewelry or knitted toys or something similar. Now many are just not planning to ship EU wide just because it's too high risk for them.
teiferer
> All small businesses and solo enterpreneurs that I know who are hit by this are not "in this field". Their field is making jewelry or knitted toys or something similar.
Are they shipping within EU? Then they literally are in the field of shipping within the EU.
xboxnolifes
Thats a stretch of the term "field". Are they also in the field of making money and the field of working within European law?
warkdarrior
Yes, of course. They need to be aware of regulations in all aspects of their business (manufacturing electronics, shipping, consumer warranty, and taxation seem applicable).
MrDresden
No one can reasonable think that someone who makes a few hundred artisan sales a year and ships them within the bloc should be monitoring what rules and regulations are coming down the pipe.
imtringued
You're somehow under the mistaken idea that the primary issue for businesses is that they don't want to be aware of regulations in all aspects of their businesses. The actual issue that you're sweeping under the rug is that these regulations create a minimum floor on the size of a business.
For example, a CRA self assessment including CE will require around $20k in liquid capital that you need out of pocket even if all you want to do is sell a single piece of jewelry with some electronics embedded into it. Not to mention the indirect costs such as guaranteeing 5 years of security updates.
There is also the issue that PLD for cloud services effectively means that you cannot easily update your software anymore while it is under investigation by a claimant because that could constitute destruction of evidence. This leads to a catch 22 with the CRA, where you are legally obligated to patch a security vulnerability within 72 hours.
The conflict here is that for physical products, the owner receives a unique reproduction of the design plans, whereas with cloud software, the customer is using shared infrastructure that can affect other customers if it is under investigation. So the entire cluster running the software turns into the equivalent of a smartphone. If you want to sell an updated product, you need to sell a new smartphone aka run a new cluster.
kvemkon
> CRA
Well, how small business can report anything during 24 hours through weekends, long weekends, 1-week Christmas, 3-4-weeks summer vacations?
ghosty141
Those will obviously be exempt?
kvemkon
If the law wouldn't say 24 hours counting only working hours (3 working days for small business or even weeks during vacations), then it wouldn't be an exempt.
ghosty141
No you misunderstood it:
https://www.enisa.europa.eu/topics/product-security/single-r...
> Reporting process starts at the moment manufacturer becomes aware of active exploitation of vulnerability or incident.
If your business is closed (due to vacation or sickness for example) you don't become aware until you are back.
pjc50
Per downthread, this whole crisis arises because of Chinese companies shipping to Europe. The EU Directives are definitely visible in advance, none of this is dropped on people.
mstaoru
I think this directive was from Feb 2025? Is 1 year enough for everyone to register in 25 different packaging regulation bodies, appoint representatives, etc etc?..
I also fail to see how this will stop Chinese companies from shipping to Europe. No Chinese company will register in this farce.
philipallstar
> Is 1 year enough for everyone to register in 25 different packaging regulation bodies, appoint representatives, etc etc?..
Also, are those bodies ready for the volume of applicants? They certainly weren't when MDR came in.
mcv
The issue isn't just the time, but the fees. It's not free to register, and for small sellers, it can be completely crippling.
hvb2
> No Chinese company will register in this farce.
What makes you so sure? It really depends on enforcement but your Chinese company sure isn't going to just drop Europe as a market.
mstaoru
Exactly. I don't see how EU can enforce it against China, when most of the goods are imported from China. Or any other non-EU country, for that matter.
etiennebausson
The client receiving the package (who is in the U.E.) could get fined I assume? Or the package sent back to sender for not being compliant.
So the clients will either ask for compliance from the sender or stop ordering there.
Doesn't work well for one-time orders, like artisanal novelty items, but it can still have an effect on the rest.
xinayder
Even then, being allowed to ship and package in Germany may as well be valid for other EU countries? I mean, you register in a single country (ideally where your business is) and then the other countries can just accept your packaging bureaucracy?
mistrial9
> this whole crisis arises because of
hmm that is not systems thinking there.. there are more layers than that!
lokar
Or have the sellers of the packaging pay the fee. So the maker can buy pre-paid packaging.
GreenLightGo
The "choke point" approach makes more sense. Regulating a few large logistics companies is much easier than enforcing rules on millions of small sellers. The risk is that EU regulation ends up becoming a competitive advantage for Amazon and other big platforms.
vintermann
> But of course EU is fundamentally different in a way that the politicians need to please the electorate,
Are we talking about the same EU? In my experience EU is used as a scapegoat by national government, to push through unpopular legislation that they want "because it's an EU requirement". No one checks if they actually supported that same policy when it was actually decided in the EU - it would have been a ton of work too, since how decisions are actually made isn't exactly transparent. I think it's by design, EU is in large part made to take the blame for domestically unpopular policy. So it's not a surprise that UK conservatives eventually pivoted from profitably using the EU as a scapegoat, to sacrificing that same ghost.
doikor
PPWR passed in August 2025 and this part of it came into effect now (a year later). There are other parts of the same regulation that come into effect in 2030.
This is EU doing it in a long span of time similar to GDPR or DMA. A lot of companies just choose to ignore the regulation until a week or two before it comes into effect.
goobatrooba
The article ist about a Platform which only facilitates the sale but actual sending is done by the original maker, so that doesn't seem to match.
mstaoru
Platform is one choke point, logistics companies (e.g. DHL) is another. In EU logistics would be the easier one. Let them handle all the PPWR circus, charge a little more from the seller.
malloryerik
Can you imagine an (Android) app store model? You know when you buy packaging that it's verified. Complies with regulations. Companies submit packaging for review that's cheap, fast, tax-supported, and EU-wide. Doesn't have to be like the FDA. So that reusables could become a thing, I'd be fine honestly with extra charges for most branded packaging. This butts up against freedom of expression I suppose but come on the single-use plastics problem is real. But as described what sounds exactly backwards is the EU model. Radiohead sang, "If I were king you'd be backed up against the wall" but I'd sing, "Send your goods in any verified packaging!"
quijoteuniv
There will be errors if you try to regulate, but the idea is good, you profit packing in x, you pay. There is a chnce they het it right eventually, hopefully before all the small actors disappear. What is the alternative really. Other parts of the planet is just the big corporations that lobby and decide. People is just left with the pollution
DiggyJohnson
Those places also are providing more opportunities for their populations than the EU. It’s way more nuanced than the dichotomy you laid out. The only reason this isn’t extremely obvious is Europe’s cultural and institutional inertia and society wealth. Without these head start I can almost guarantee you wouldn’t be making the same point about fiddling with regulatory minutia.
Danox
But of course EU/WEST is fundamentally different in a way that the politicians need to please the (lobbying companies), so nothing is really planned ahead…
drnick1
> Could EU just ask DHL/Hermes/whatever to charge an additional €1 "for recycling"? Yes, but...
The biggest problem in Europe is the obsession with taxes. Tax on recycling, tax on AI, tax on this, tax on that. So people who want to make money and keep it without having to fight absurd amounts of regulation and red tape just go elsewhere.
piva00
Externalities have costs and if they aren't accounted for then there's no incentive for reducing those.
Taxes are used as a way to account for the cost to society when products and services aren't pricing it.
inigyou
Things cost money.
m000
I've been following the PPWR in news and social media. Everybody is lamenting about the micro-enterprises that see their business squashed, but mostly because they are involved in one. I do empathize with them and really want to see these small business surviving and thriving. But then, in the context of discussion, nobody asks what matters: Cui bono?
To me, this looks like a direct handout to Amazon and similar (big) enterprises: Pay a % "Amazon tax" to have your fulfilment handled by them, and your PPWR problem goes away.
And PPWR comes a short month after another Amazon-friendly legislation: The €3 per item-kind customs duty for items shipped from outside EU. Obviously, direct shipping from China had been undercutting Amazon-and-similar prices, were you willing to wait for a couple of weeks for your package to arrive. The new duty drastically changed the balance in the delivery time vs price calculation.
So, we have a streak of 2 legislations in a matter of a couple of months, benefiting a specific business model, and conveniently timed just before (€3 duty) and during (PPWR) the European Parliament recess. Coincidence much?
mike_hearn
Amazon doesn't care about guys like Lectronz, they're far too small, and the EU Commission really doesn't care about Amazon. They're openly antagonistic to US tech firms.
Occam's Razor applies here. These regulations exist because the EU is 10,000+ civil servants writing whatever laws they want with no meaningful democratic accountability (this sort of thing is nobody's priority). They love creating new laws, they love micromanagement, they always have and they always will. There is nothing here we haven't already seen with things like the bottle top regulations, laws about how fast kettles can boil water and more.
And there is no end to this. The EU Commission is on a path that will completely kill the European economy, dragging it to Soviet levels or worse. By design there's no constitutional mechanism to force them to change course, save for every country following Britain and just leaving. That's why there's such a massive pile of propaganda trying to convince Europeans that Brexit was an unrepeatable disaster (which it wasn't, check the data for yourself).
Cpoll
I don't have a horse in this race, but sources I found claim Brexit was economically detrimental to this day, including but not limited to the wiki page and its citations.
gizajob
Give it time
jamiejquinn
When economists struggle disentangling the effects of brexit from the pandemic, an actual disaster, and so can't really determine if brexit was a disaster, I feel like you can't honestly say it wasn't. But still, while it's hard to gauge how bad the effect was, few experts seems to think it was good.
jorisw
> that Brexit was an unrepeatable disaster (which it wasn't, check the data for yourself).
OK thanks I'll go find and check the data to back up your claim
badestrand
I'm not agreeing with everything that this user wrote but for sure the Brexit did not destroy UK's economy. GDP-wise the UK and France always developed very similarly before Brexit and also after Brexit, so it's hard to call it a "desaster".
Saline9515
I still remember the articles saying that Britons will have no food on shelves after Brexit.
lucasRW
And no flights to Europe !! Since then, both Ryanair and Easyjet have OPENED new flights.between the UK and mainland Europe...
selfhoster1312
> They're openly antagonistic to US tech firms.
Utterly wrong. US tech firms have on many occasions violated deep fundamental EU regulations/rights and have barely received a slap on the wrist (fines). Very little is done to keep them in check, and to this day the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the member States are all very dedicated customers of big american tech firms (eg. Microsoft).
> they love micromanagement
Quite the opposite actually. EU regulations and directives give great margin for state-specific implementation, as shown in this particular case with each country having different packaging authority/fees. If anything, the EU is mostly about destroying existing pro-consumer pro-worker pro-environment pro-privacy regulations that were in place in member states. See also: deregulation of medical devices, deregulation of food and toxic chemicals, deregulation of public services. That's precisely because of deregulation that the EU is widely criticized from within (side-note for the nitpickers, they're not technically deregulating, but rather regulating with looser rules and bodies with no actual enforcement capacities which is overall equivalent).
logicchains
>dragging it to Soviet levels or worse
The Soviet Union at least had factories and an arms industry, even if they were quite inefficient.
mike_hearn
A depressingly true point.
jorvi
> And PPWR comes a short month after another Amazon-friendly legislation: The €3 per item-kind customs duty for items shipped from outside EU.
If you dig a little deeper you will see that this legislation was sponsored, championed and lobbied by the largest pan-EU retail organization. How convenient. Just like Chinese EVs, can't let EU customers have access to the best goods for the lowest prices. Better to have lazy greedy EU businesses gouge them :)
logronoide
Obviously, you have never dealt with Amazon as a merchant.
You still need to be compliant with PPWR, no matter you sell on Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress or the street corner.
j16sdiz
> You still need to be compliant with PPWR, no matter you sell on Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress or the street corner.
I am 100% sure AliExpress just doesn't care and ship it anyway.
tecleandor
But one of those is not like the others. If you sell on Amazon, via the "Fulfilled by Amazon" system... Wouldn't be Amazon the one required to comply with PPWR? They're putting the stuff in boxes and all that stuff... (I have no idea)
ccozan
No absolutely no. We were selling some electronic stuff on Amazon. We were doing good. But then this came, the registration that become mandatory, took 3 months instead of 3 weeks and then they had no rules and deleted saying our device is not the right category. We closed shop after spending time and money. The system is horrenduos and has not stopped the chinese stuff on the Amazon at all.
rramon
Did you store your Amazon listed product on Amazon in their warehouse or send it out from your home or from a supplier?
ccozan
yes stored in their warehouse. But the law says I am a producer becase my logo and my registered brand is on the package.
The packaging issue is orthogonal to Amazon. they just apply the law.
IshKebab
As it should be! Amazon have little control over product packaging.
(But of course this article is right about the insane admin and cost requirements for small companies.)
stefs
this is addressed in "Solution #3: Allow marketplaces to represent and manage micro-enterprises collectively as if it were a single producer."
so apparently, what you are describing is not what's actually happening.
whazor
I think it will happen.
And EU regulations are generally more two-sided where lots of innovations can happen by smaller marketplaces as well. Not just Amazon.
mosura
Which is like creating the Apple App Store for physical products.
framapotari
I think Amazon just adds another layer of packaging. I can imagine you are still responsible for yours.
11mariom
And that's the irony for me - adds another package over package, but it probably complies with documents, I hope they are filled in paper.
I get the idea behind the law. Not once I was surprised how many waste is in packaging and badly packaged goods (not only shipped, but even available in local shop). But this regulation changes nothing, just adds layer of paperwork and broke international shipping (many non-eu stopped selling to eu - I hope it's temporary only…).
deno
Don’t worry there’s regulation in the works that will mandate how much air you can have in the box[1]. The EU is on the case.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...
bpt3
Good lord. At what point do we need to just wipe the slate clean and start over?
dreadnip
What stops a person from starting a packaging/shipping business, paying the fees to ship and handle waste in all 27 euro countries and then charging customers a couple of cents for this service?
rcxdude
Overhead means it's gonna cost more than a few cents each.
moffkalast
Just get some VCs to take the losses for you for a few years /s
HtmlProgrammer
This will directly stop Irish based people shopping on Amazon as the Irish Amazon is useless and everyone buys from Amazon UK. These fees are going to change that big time so it’s not all in favor of Amazon
tgsovlerkhgsel
If Amazon was competent and saw that as a problem (doubtful, given how hard it is to filter items that actually ship to your country, as opposed to claiming to do so but then on the checkout page tell you otherwise), they could likely bulk-import the items to Ireland, then ship from there.
I assume Aliexpress is ~~going to do~~ doing [1] exactly that to bypass the 3 EUR fee. I wonder if the packaging rules are a shortsighted attempt at sabotaging Chinese sellers without making it obvious.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1ukojbr/i_place...
kolp
I agree that amazon.ie is useless, but i think that Irish shoppers will still buy from Amazon UK for more expensive items, where the €3 fee is relatively insignificant. Amazon UK, even with the new €3 import fee, is still cheaper than local Irish retailers who take price gouging to new levels.
raverbashing
Actually the strongest lobbyists for the €3 fee were European companies https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1ugpyoe/i_dug_a...
(but yes it's "conveniently good" for Amazon as well)
pembrook
I’m no fan of big tech, but, at some point the conspiratorial bending over backwards to blame big business instead of the government representatives creating the actual harm gets ridiculous.
Again, I often sympathize with the left leaning side of things, but you have to admit our side has a massive blind spot in terms of blaming all the worlds ills on a secret cabal of business elites instead of blaming the mechanism of government power actually creating the harm.
If we’re being honest, Amazon feels zero threat from European small businesses and quite frankly barely sees much value in their EU ecomm business at all. If anybody wants to see the EU turn into one market with one set of simple regulations it’s them. Trust me, they are not worried about small Etsy sellers.
The fundamental issue is the EU is a “union” in name only and the member states fundamentally don’t actually want to work together unanimously on most things. Yet, we’re paying all those officials in Brussels to do something, and the trivial green consumer issues like bottle caps are the only thing that doesn’t cause too big of a fight. It’s bike shedding 101. [1]
Until we acknowledge that this is the true root of the problem instead of inventing tired conspiracies, we cannot solve any of the issues.
freehorse
When big companies have the resources to lobby and pass regulations (EU or country wide level) it is hard to separate these two, in particular when there are long-lasting policies that consistently disadvantage smaller entrepreneurs/small property owners disproportionally.
I think it is fair to point criticism to government/eu, but it also fair to point who actually benefits (intentionally or even not) from these.
brookst
But it’s the incoherence of the EU support that’s so weird.
Apple ships USB-C phones (a year before required): look at the EU standing up to big tech and forcing consumer-friendly products.
Crazy policies cripple small business and domestic AI? Oh, it’s not the EU’s fault, it’s that evil big tech.
There’s a recurring theme where the EU can do no wrong, despite repeated negative outcomes that only make sense to read as well-meaning but misguided regulatory overzealousness.
There is no way Amazon is lobbying to complexity product distribution in the EU out of some kind of triple bank shot to suppress those €1m/year businesses. The potential downside is nowhere near worth the benefit. This is pure bureaucracy.
eastbound
Up to the governments to require the split-up of companies which become too large. Up to the governments to avoid corruption.
"The bribe was too seducing" is not a valid defense for citizens. The fact the gouvernements have an armed branch to enforce hegemony makes it more required, not more forgivable.
stymaar
Both passive corruption (accepting a bribe) and active corruption (giving a bribe) are a problem.
“But the officials accepted it” is not a valid way to discount Amazon from their nefarious practices.
pembrook
Please cite ANY evidence that Amazon, Epstein, Aliens, etc. had anything to do with this particular EU packaging nightmare...and that it wasn't wholly due to the bike shedding nature of a massive incomprehensible bureaucracy.
stymaar
> Please cite ANY evidence that Amazon had anything to do with this particular EU packaging nightmare
Easy. Amazon spends several million every year to have their representatives discussing issues that affect them like that. We know for certain that they were indeed involved in the discussions, because that's what they are being paid to do (and it's not entirely objectionable for legislators to listen to industrial interests in the first place).
> to the bike shedding nature of a massive incomprehensible bureaucracy.
It may be incomprehensible to you, but like it or not these bureaucracy are what shape the modern world. Countries without an extensive bureaucracies are all failed state (and the first thing any emerging state actors, like the Taliban or HTS in Syria, do when they come to power is to set up a bureaucracy).
philipallstar
> Amazon spends several million every year to have their representatives discussing issues that affect them like that
Discussions are not bribes. Write to your MEP and charge yourself out at €500/hour to do so, and you'll soon be spending a decent chunk.
mlrtime
This falls into where your ideology belongs to "see" what is most likely:
* Amazon paid politicians in EU to craft and pass packaging laws that they would have to enforce/abide by, but have the resources. [Who and how many is anyones guess].
* EU Politicians meaning well, created policy to clean up packing with enforcement in all EU countries, maybe hoping large companies pay for the cleanup. Unintended consequences mean small shippers have a higher burden.
senorrib
If it’s easy, where’s the evidence? Nothing you wrote is evidence for anything, at most “educated guesses”.
> Countries without an extensive bureaucracies are all failed state
This is such a ridiculous statement. There’s so many different levels of bureaucracy across the developed and developing world that you can’t really put them all in a single bag.
m000
Conspiratorial? Like lobbying is something I came up with this morning. Also, you don't need to feel threatened to push for something like this. Pure corporate greed is enough of a motivator. You're giving corporations a free pass, like they collectively have a spotless track record.
And, sorry, I don't buy into the law of triviality. Most things are trivial when considered in isolation and you are not affected.
wartywhoa23
> … the conspiratorial bending over backwards to blame big business instead of the government representatives …
False dichotomy.
tsss
More bureaucracy + more taxes + protection of status quo fits exactly into the EU's ideology. Amazon doesn't have to bribe anyone for that. The boot licking is so ingrained here that the lord doesn't even have to call. Europeans do it all on their own and they like it.
mordae
It is not. Big European business always get what they want. Which tends to be maintaining status quo.
jorisw
Blanket statement, no backup
anigbrowl
Thanks to tomis who posted the EU FAQ on the topic below: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ad1...
None of this applies to companies that are micro-enterprises or use generic rather than branded packaging. There's a helpful diagram on page 13. The author of this article seems to have imagined a worst-case scenario based on either a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the EU rules; the discussion here seems to have a lot of people who are in a big rush to demonize their perceived political opponents on ideological grounds.
veeti
Simply not true. The helpful diagram you refer to does not consider the case where company A manufactures the packaging, company B buys the packaging, and then does a B2C delivery to another member state. In that case company B is the producer, even if B is a "micro-enterprise".
> the discussion here seems to have a lot of people who are in a big rush to demonize their perceived political opponents on ideological grounds.
No, it is the opposite. There are a whole lot of people trying to rationalize something crazy. Nevertheless, countless online shops in the EU run by small business have already closed thanks to these regulations. Even if your assertion that this is a giant misunderstanding were true, the damage is already done.
anigbrowl
the case where company A manufactures the packaging, company B buys the packaging, and then does a B2C delivery to another member state
In that case company A is the producer. Also, even if the packaging is branded, company A is the producer if company B is a micro-enterprise. Looking through the document further, I notice that producers aren't even liable for detailed reporting until they put 10 tons of packaging material onto the market.
There are a whole lot of people trying to rationalize something crazy. Nevertheless, countless online shops in the EU run by small business have already closed
I'm sure you can find less emotive ways to make your point, like offering some approximate estimates of how many of these small businesses have closed.
imtringued
The entity that introduces the packaging is responsible for upholding the packaging laws. The manufacturing entity of the packaging is not and cannot be responsible, because it does not decide to which countries the packaging is ultimately sent to.
And even if it worked that way, if you add a CE certified module to your product, the product as a whole still has to be CE certified.
Huppie
Under definitions (page 9) there's a big section > 6) Who is the ‘manufacturer’ of branded packaging? NEW! And it starts off this blurb: > According to the PPWR (Article 3(1), point (12)), if a packaging does not bear a name or trademark, the manufacturer will be the natural or legal person who manufactures packaging or packaged products. Seems pretty obvious to me the generic bubble envelope example from the blogpost doesn't make sense because that is generic packaging where the manufacturer has to handle this.
imtringued
>the manufacturer will be the natural or legal person who manufactures packaging or packaged products.
Manufactures packaged products means you buy flat pre-cut card board, fold it, insert the product and then close the box and tape it shut. Even if you bought fully assembled packaging and somehow teleport the product into the packaging, that would still be considered manufacturing a packaged product.
>Seems pretty obvious to me the generic bubble envelope example from the blogpost doesn't make sense because that is generic packaging where the manufacturer has to handle this.
I'm not sure about the part "doesn't make sense" because it could go either way (you disagree with the regulation or you disagree with the example), but what's obvious is that manufacturer is the Greek engineer and he is responsible for the packaging of the product.
DiggyJohnson
Good god lol
jansan
Do you realize who Kafkaesque the discussion already has become?
floro
This whole discussion is the reason innovation it's dead in Europe. The regulations are so complex that you need a team dedicated to navigating the bureaucracy nonsense. Small companies and startups can't do that.
badestrand
My mom sometimes buys wool from online wool sellers which often are other 60 year old ladies who really don't know much about the internet or business.
These are affected, too, and will probably all stop selling to other EU countries because how could they ever fully grasp that regulation in all its details.
It's a shame, life and doing business is difficult enough already, and then millions of people get those regulations thrown at them.
They already had a big wave of newsletter closures when the EU's GDPR came around and everyone was scared to handle customer data. Now here's the next round.
inigyou
I think you're supposed to ask forgiveness not permission
pfa87
Same tax on software, just less visible. A solo browser extension or a tiny site still has store review, OAuth consent, privacy pages, and a different "are we a company" answer in FR vs UK. No parcel, still a lawyer-shaped afternoon before you can take a euro. The FAQ-as-PDF problem is the product.
meatpile
Go away, Claude
vanviegen
> Nevertheless, countless online shops in the EU run by small business have already closed thanks to these regulations.
Do you happen to have a source for that?
veeti
You can start with the TFA or many given in this comment section.
gusgus01
The article is actually saying they've had record sign ups this year and as far as I can see doesn't make any comment about a decrease in sales in the last 2 weeks since the implementation of this regulation. There is a first hand report of someone stopping their shipping really far down on this post, and then someone on that chain links to a reddit comment from someone as well.
I'm sure there's probably a few comments I missed, but idk if I'd say there's proof of countless here or in the article.
It does seem like it'd have a chilling effect if the article's interpretation is correct, and other comments here also stated that the EU commission wanted to have a central registry to minimize the overhead.
l-one-lone
Yes, but the quoted section actually confirms the article’s interpretation. The micro-enterprise exception in the final bullet on page 11 concerns branded packaging when it is initially supplied within a Member State.
"Within a Member State" is an important point here.
The relevant example is the preceding bullet on page 11: when a company fills a box and sends it directly to an end user in another Member State, that company becomes the producer in the destination country. In the article, the Greek maker is that company.
Micro-enterprises receive simplified reporting below 10 tonnes in the regulation, but they are not exempt from registration or destination-country EPR.
ajnin
The exact scenario from TFA is listed just before the diagram you're referencing :
"If a farmer packs a few apples in a container (sales packaging) and sells it under its own name or trademark to a retailer or consumer in the same Member State, the farmer is a producer [for the purpose of EPR obligations]"
And :
"If the farmer sells the packed apples under its own name or trademark in another Member State, the farmer is only the producer if the recipient is the end user of the apples."
And :
"If the farmer is a micro-enterprise, which is often the case, and the supplier of the apple container is established in the same Member State, such supplier becomes the producer"
That last exemption is quite restrictive, it can be a problem. I can attest that a French manufacturer of antistatic packaging refused to sell to me as a micro enterprise when I was selling electronics kits a long time ago and I had to buy them from China. Some states might not even have packaging manufacturers. So the concerns from the article are founded.
Huppie
Under definitions (page 9) there's a big section
> 6) Who is the ‘manufacturer’ of branded packaging? NEW!
And it starts off this blurb:
> According to the PPWR (Article 3(1), point (12)), if a packaging does not bear a name or trademark, the manufacturer will be the natural or legal person who manufactures packaging or packaged products.
Seems pretty obvious to me the generic bubble envelope example from the blogpost doesn't make sense because that is generic packaging where the manufacturer has to handle this.
Edit: The farmer example is a bit bad imho because produce is not like the products in the blogpost and 'under its own trademark' applies to the product packaging (e.g. custom Apple carton frames etc.), best to focus on the more applicable sections imho.
kccqzy
How does that jibe with the following paragraph then?
> If company A sells the cardboard boxes to Company C in another Member State, and Company C fills the boxes to transport packaged products, then Company C would typically be the producer in that Member State.
This example makes no mention of whether Company C is a micro-enterprise. This is under transport packaging, not branded packaging.
IsTom
Typically, the next point has the same typically with clarification that it's about micro-enterprises.
sva_
Even if true, I wonder if it really helps if I basically need to hire a lawyer ($$$) to find out which regulations may or may not apply, and if I'll get myself into trouble.
It is not a coincidence that here in Germany there are whole law firms specialized in suing small business owners (Abmahnkanzleien.)
I think for a lot of people the tradeoff might not be worth it.
aero_code
I don't see a diagram on page 13, but I read a few pages around there. I don't see anything about it not applying to micro-enterprises. I see one diagram (PDF page 14/page num 11) that says a farmer selling "under own name or trademark to end user in another Member State" (without saying there's an exception for a micro-enterprise) means that the "Farmer is producer," which sounds like the opposite of what you said.
LelouBil
There is a diagram on page 12 that says companies that use unbranded packages OR that use branded packages but are micro entreprise are not considered as "producer" of the package
LelouBil
After re-reading, it only specifies the packaging manufacturer is the producer when they are in the same member state as the seller.
If the seller sells to other member states I don't know
Huppie
Not a diagram but the section on page 9 regarding who's considered the manufacturer is relevant here. For generic packaging that's the manufacturer of the packaging.
anigbrowl
Sorry, it's on page 12.
baxtr
I don’t know who is right or who is wrong.
The mere fact that people seem to be highly confused (I saw many posts about that the last week) speaks volumes.
Why introduce legislation that is so complex and hard to understand that people seem to be confused wether or not they’re affected. It’s highly irresponsible and arrogant thing to do.
Longhanks
> Why introduce legislation that is so complex and hard to understand that people seem to be confused wether or not they’re affected. It’s highly irresponsible and arrogant thing to do.
You must be new to Europe :)
cm2012
There are a dozen small business owners in this thread alone, giving specific details of how this legislation is irrationally hurting their business and the economy.
tgsovlerkhgsel
EU web sites are such an epitome for the EU as a whole: Inscrutably bureaucratic.
Instead of a FAQ page that starts with, you know, the FAQ, the actual information is hidden in a PDF download. Once you click it, there is another popup to confirm. That then leads to a PDF with 9 pages of misc front matter before you can see the first question. And the answers themselves are completely unreadable.
Take for example "3) Are envelopes containing letters, invoices, statements and other correspondence which serve a communication function considered to be packaging under the PPWR? NEW!": Three paragraphs of legalese just to say "no" in the most complicated and hard to understand way.
The whole document is 27847 words. If we ignore the complexity and assume the reading-speed number of 238 wpm that I often see cited, that's two hours of extra compliance overhead just to read the FAQ.
And for extra hilarity, the page is also covered in so many popups and warts that fight each other that on mobile you have to accept all cookies because the decline button is covered.
Edit: Also, I've been unable to find any diagram on either the page numbered 13 on the bottom of it or the page numbered 13 by the PDF reader (not the same thing, in 2026...). There are two diagrams nearby but none of them seem helpful. If you mean the one in "9) Who is the ‘producer’ of transport packaging?", it only covers a subset of cases (company A sells the packaging in the same member state). The text states "If company A sells the cardboard boxes to Company C in another Member State, and Company C fills the boxes to transport packaged products, then Company C would typically be the producer in that Member State." so we're back to square one.
deepsun
> the decline button is covered
Well, covering the decline button is very illegal according to EU cookies laws.
tgsovlerkhgsel
Exactly, that's why I think it's hilarious that the EU itself is doing it. Clearly it's just incompetence not malice, but...
veeti
Complaints may be sent to the European Data Protection Supervisor. Give a GDPR consultant some billable hours, will you?
tverbeure
You can take that “EU website” broad, as in: any website in the EU.
I just tried to order train tickets in Portugal. Not only do they ask for my passport number, they also ask for your tax id. I will, of course, totally give them my SSN for a train ride… It’s a mandatory field too. People on Reddit say you can just fill in anything, it doesn’t matter, but I hate that kind of uncertainty.
mfost
Better get used to that. Nearly every time you buy something in Portugal they'll ask you for your tax id so that they can print it on the receipt. This is because this is something you can use for some tax breaks later and also there is some lottery going on I think? Though obviously the original reason for it to exist is to combat tax fraud.
This is also entirely optional for those kind of purchases, and meaningless if you don't have one (which you probably aren't going to if you are just a tourist passing through the country) so you should just not fill that field. I seriously doubt it is mandatory.
tverbeure
Just go to the Alfa Pendular website and you'll see that the field is marked as mandatory, even when you select US as country of residence. I kind of expect this kind of friction when I book or purchase things in Europe.
dana-s
Is a package branded if it has a sticker on it? Is it branded if it's got a print on the outside? If it has a tape that has the brand on it? Because all these cases have happened to smaller shops I buy from.
One has a tape on regular boxes that is branded
Other has stickers on the packages to identify it
And one has a small branded plastic packaging.
I doubt any of them is bringing home more than 500k EUR in revenues per year(giving a very safe margin there)
anigbrowl
Sounds like those small companies would be micro-enterprises, no?
harha
Better not grow then!
anigbrowl
[delayed]
yardie
One of the biggest problems that I have in the EU is that it's almost federated. EU will pass laws, countries will adopt those laws, but you end up with 20-24 different versions of those laws. With some countries being strict or lenient about the law that everyone agreed to. And a lot it is written from the perspective that large corporations are the only ones who do business throughout the EU. It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part. Modern technology makes it feasible, but old ideas just drags it down.
bambax
Yes. I used to sell objects on Amazon in Europe. You can sell from just one country, but then each sale outside of that country is an "export" that triggers high fees.
For sales to be "local", products need to be stored in warehouses in each country. But that in turn means the owner of said products (the seller) has to be registered for VAT in that country, and submitting annual reports in each country's language.
I went to the trouble of registering in 6 different countries; in some countries, Amazon more or less helps sellers submit reports; in others, they offer to partner with local lawyers.
The result is a mess of reports, injunctions, penalties for late filing, etc. coming to you in Polish, German, Spanish, Hungarian. I eventually gave up.
Europe is not actually a "single market". It's a federated bureaucracy entirely indifferent (or hostile) to small businesses.
radicalbyte
Having worked on the inside: this is by design. You know for 100% that Pepsico and Coca Cola unleashed an army of lobbyists to make sure the laws were written in a way where the single market only worked for large business.
cm2012
It's comforting to believe that large corporations with the greed of the rich and powerful is what makes these inefficiencies but really it's about a million little political negotiations, primarily driven by voters dislike of change.
schubidubiduba
It's comforting to believe that actual voters have that kind of political influence over these things, but really it's about a million little talls, primarily driven by lobbyists commanded by big companies
cm2012
You are about 20 years out of date. Modern politicians get almost all of their funding from small donations, in other words, from passionate partisans who care about culture war issues.
worik
I find that difficult to believe, having been involved in political campaigning (not in EU or USA).
Have you evidence?
cm2012
Sure. Here is us politician finances from 2024. Note that the vast majority is from individual contributors.
Only 6-8% of us political funding in 2024 came from business-PAC contributions.
https://www.fec.gov/resources/campaign-finance-statistics/20...
Further splits here: https://www.fec.gov/resources/campaign-finance-statistics/20...
There are exceptions to this of course but most politicians answer to voters much much much more than big business.
jppittma
That's because megadonors don't give to candidates directly? In order to trigger the unlimited campaign finance guaranteed by citizens united, you create a super pac. They can't openly coordinate with the candidate.
cm2012
If you add in all super PACs and outside spending, it would make up roughly 30-35% of the overall expidenture. That's a lot but super PAC money is worth much less to a campaign compared to donations because it can't be used for core expenses like labor.
danlugo92
People still in bubbles in the big 2026
victorbjorklund
It’s both. Massive regulation is usually driven by good intentions, populism. Large corporations often don’t mind when it means it would prevent smaller companies from competing with them.
jollyllama
How is that comforting? The phenomenon is entirely negative.
cm2012
Because if it's just a few evil people making the world bad then that's fixable. The truth that it is it's an extraordinarily complex stew of incentives means its harder to fix.
eptcyka
Sure, cynically, you can use the argument that we can’t just limit the influence of megacorps because the problem is more complex than that. Sure, but limiting them will still help.
Why not do the obvious thing that can still help? There are some simple things we as a people or a conglomeration of peoples can do to curb the enthusiasm for state level corruption. It is doable. It will not solve everything - but surely we can still do it.
jollyllama
> Because if it's just a few evil people making the world bad then that's fixable
The conclusion does not necessarily follow the premises
tgsovlerkhgsel
I'm surprised that was necessary. A single look at the EU website leaves no doubt that the EU is perfectly capable to create a bureaucratic nightmare all by itself (and incapable not to even if it tried).
philipallstar
Lobbyists don't do this. Regulators/lawmakers need to be corrupt and/or incompetent for lobbying to do this.
teiferer
You need lobbyists to pull on one side and the general population to be too uninformed or too non-caring to not pull enough in the other direction.
philipallstar
That removes the culpability again from the people being lobbied, who are for paid by mandatory taxes, so they don't have to win work - their only job is expertise and honesty.
teiferer
I don't think it does. Of course they are culpable, that's the whole point.
Them being in that position of power is not god given though, nor set in stone. Replacing them is a single election away. Still, people keep voting for them. So the ultimate responsibility is with the people who keep voting them into office.
philipallstar
People don't vote regulators into office.
teiferer
Last time I checked, regulators are part of governments which tend to be confirmed in one way or another in democracies.
Different story on non-democratic forms of government. There the hate is justified. But just complaining about regulators relieves those in power (the voting populace) of their responsibilities. Tempting (and convenient) though for everybody part of that populace.
philipallstar
Where do you live that regulators are part of elected political parties?
makapuf
You need both, and both are responsible for the current state.
To stop this, you need to try to stop both until one doesn't exists.
philipallstar
Lobbying is fine, though. Lobbying isn't bribery, although sometimes it probably looks like it. Lobbying is also an industry saying "please don't kill us; here's why that thing will kill us". The people making the decisions have the power (hence lobbyists need to exist) and they need to be better.
lll-o-lll
The revolving door between politician to made man (lobbyist) seems like a bit of a problem, no? These poor ex-politicians/staffers need to earn those mil+ salaries or they couldn’t effectively save these poor industries from demise? Perhaps the politician being asked to go easy on the regulations is potentially influenced by the ex-politicians rather lucrative position?
Corruption does not need to be overt to be destructive. It’s absolutely pervasive.
dolia
I will treat this comment charitably and just say that it's yet another case of "definition of X sounds good, so X can't be bad". I believe in reality it's less about "please don't kill us" and more about getting officials to set up the "pleas profit us" situation. Yes, money don't change hands in an office, so it's TECHNICALLY not a bribery.
philipallstar
Well, unlike regulators, companies die without profit. So they do indeed need profit. Smaller companies might want a system currently tilted against them to be changed. Larger companies might spend a fortune on regulation-following that has harmful outcomes, e.g. raising prices, for no benefit. Both of those motivations sound reasonable, and both getting their way may result in more profit for them. There's nothing wrong with profit.
The only thing that can possibly be bad is the regulation-writer, or the regulation enforcer, behaving incompetently and/or corruptly, who decides or enforces bad rules.
worik
> lawmakers need to be corrupt and/or incompetent for lobbying to do this.
Not really
Lobbyists get to talk into the ears of the powerful. It is literally their job. They make very sensible arguments for their point of view. So it seems very sensible, for the legislators, to make laws that aid the powerful and impede the weak.
The legislators are very busy with pressures from all sides. The cognitive load of considering views that you do not hear is enormous. It is not "incompetent or corrupt" to fail.
The system has the corruption baked in. It is one of the mechanisms, of many, that wealth and power concentrate in "democracies "
I have seen this process from the inside, good people making terrible decisions
philipallstar
I'm sorry they're so busy, but everyone's busy. Not everyone gets to drag money out of people on threat of jail, not have to pay any corporation tax on it, and spend that money on offices and salaries, do a bad job, and have everyone solely blame other people for their failings.
It's like if a judge blamed one side's legal representative for their terrible decisions. The legal representative is not paid to be neutral. They're paid to represent their client. The judge is paid to be neutral.
contravariant
So lobbyists did do it then?
radicalbyte
The lawmakers are: in the EU you have a block of right-wing parties. The large part are funded by large companies and make laws which favour them. Same thing as in the US.
There are other right-wing (and left-wing) blocks who are funded by the Kremlin and Kremlin-supporters who just try to break things.
At the EC they're not corrupt, they try their best, but they're often given bad advice and are themselves not experts. And their power is limited (they can nudge but not push).
philipallstar
> a block of right-wing parties. The large part are funded by large companies and make laws which favour them. Same thing as in the US.
You need to be mad to think it's the right wing parties in the US who get the most funding. E.g. [0]
> The Biden—now Harris—campaign committee raised $997.2 million and Trump’s campaign committee raised $388 million in total between Jan. 2023 and Oct. 16, 2024, the most recent date for which Federal Election Commission filings are available
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/11/04/trump-v...
tovej
Democrats are also right wing. A liberal is on the right.
The DSA is the closest to a left wing party you have in the US. They would be center left in northern european countries.
philipallstar
The party of no borders, no genders, and white men and/or rich people are root of all evil are right wing? Northern European countries would be to the right of those statements. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all in the top 10 of millionaires per 1000 people.
luke5441
Is that with the One-Stop-Shop regulation or was that before that?
If it was before than, then the EU recognized the problem and implemented a fix for it.
Aerroon
Yeah, it only took 4 years for them to fix an obvious screw up. Only 4 years. Surely every business can survive that.
AnssiH
I don't think any EU One-stop-shop scheme covers "local" goods sales in other EU member states yet, i.e. an EU company has to register in all EU countries they hold stock in.
That is changing with the Single VAT Registration (SVR) legislation, effective in 2028.
bambax
This was 2017-2021. Not sure if One-Stop-Shop covers this as it mentions "cross-border sales" and the problem with Amazon fulfillment and storage was to make all sales local (not cross-border). But maybe it does cover it. I don't know.
teiferer
Indeed, and that's why we need more EU, not less of it.
badestrand
You mean, it's good to have _even more_ bad regulations?
Or rather, if a little bit of X is bad, why would you want more of X?
teiferer
If you look at what I responded to then you see that it was about every country having their own rules. "More EU" would mean harmonizing them in the sense that they are all the same and you'd have a single regulatory body.
I don't see how less EU would make this particular problem any easier. It would certainly give you an even harder time to deal with 20+ states that all impose import bureaucracy. That's exactly what the EU was founded to solve, but the menber states are populisting against it, not unlike your comment.
ShadowOfThePit
What about the argument of these regulations not existing in the first place were it not for the EU?
dvdkon
Without the EU you wouldn't have a single set of annoying overly-bureaucratic bloc-wide regulation for trade between member states, you'd have a bunch of bilateral agreements between individual countries. You might not be paying a new tax to the EU, but instead you'd pay much more for your postal service to file customs paperwork based on declarations you'd have to write. And I'd guess countries would still want you to have a local representative for a bunch of things, not to mention compliance with tens of slightly-different safety standards (think CE).
Maybe it wouldn't be that much worse, but certainly not better than what we have today.
Saline9515
The EU existed for a long time now and you could replace all of this with bilateral organisations focused on narrow topics, rather than a bureaucratic body with an open agenda and no real checks and balances.
teiferer
You think without EU there would be no regulations and everything would be free for all? You must be young or don't remember pre-EU times.
In CS terms, the EU turned an O(n^2) problem, bilateral agreements, into an O(n) problem, everybody trying to get their view into a single body. The advantages should be obvious to anybody knowing O notation.
Again, not to say EU doesn't have problems. But dismantling the EU is not the solution. Improving it is.
corford
I never understand this argument. The same logic would suggest that things like the GPL, CNCF, OCI etc. are somehow harmful when, objectively, it's the opposite. Standardisation and conformity lead to much larger and more efficient ecosystems. Why should it not be the same for the EU?
crimsoneer
As in the UK, where we've since gotten rid of all the regulation and live in a halcyon utopia.
andai
Kinda sounds like it would have been cheaper, more profitable, and less of a PITA for you (a European!) to sell in the US?
jurgenburgen
Tariffs on, tariffs off. Have you tried turning the White House off and on again?
W3zzy
Thatshouldn't be right since there is free mouvement of goods and persons in the EU
petra
Let's say I'm a German small business owner.
Tomorrow Europe becomes a single market. How do I compete with a similar business but from a country where business costs are significantly lower ?
nemomarx
How does a Californian company compete with a company in Missouri that has lower labor costs and less overhead/ regulation?
They seem to manage this just fine, but it's a pretty similar scenario. You could also push for standardized business costs and regulations eu wide ofc to help.
trinix912
Standardized costs would just hurt the poorer members more. You’re underestimating the economical difference between EU member states. It’s more like if Californian businesses had to compete with Mexican in a single market, and Mexicans would be paying Californian prices with Mexican wages in the end.
petra
The Californian company probably opens their new plant in Missouri, so now it's not exactly a Californian company.
fakedang
That's the entire point - the Californian company leaves the higher-value R&D jobs in California, while it outsources the lower-value but still necessary manufacturing jobs/data warehousing jobs to Missouri. Both places benefit, because ultimately the union benefits as a whole from the distribution of productivity.
If you concentrated all manufacturing around just a few spots, you end up in a situation like India - inland states with resources get stripped of their resources while all the companies are based in coastal metropolises with port facilities.
One could also go the other way, like China, and let the states compete between themselves for manufacturing prowess, but you need a central planning committee to ensure that the competing provinces still coordinate and work to complement each other. Easier in China, not so much in the EU.
The EU single market is a sorry joke.
gpvos
Service in the local language, quick delivery, a local place where people can actually come by to buy or pick up things.
anigbrowl
You boast about the superior quality of german manufacturing. Or move your manufacturing to eastern Germany where costs are lower.
inglor_cz
If you are in Munich, how do you compete with someone from Magdeburg?
Also, quite a lot of German business costs are a self-inflicted wound (too much bureaucracy). Maybe taper down the endless paper war a bit, and throw away the fax machines.
Muromec
You don't and that's by design.
bluecalm
You specialize in things that are more difficult to make in poorer countries - you use your advantages they use theirs. Afterall this is what happened to a lot of Polish industry after we got our EU membership - it died under pressure of already developed competition from countries like Germany.
labcomputer
> And a lot it is written from the perspective that large corporations are the only ones who do business throughout the EU. It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part.
I'm not convinced that's an accident. I think politicians in Europe are just better than those in the US at hiding who they really work for.
There are numerous examples of regulations in many European countries that create a glass ceiling for anyone who strives to be more than just middle-middle-class, while creating effective loopholes for the wealthy to continue multiplying their wealth.
For example, the total (State + Federal) top tax rate for someone living in California or New York is not too different (maybe 2-3%) from someone living in France or Sweden. But the difference is that in California the top rate does not kick in until you earn north of $1M per year, while in Sweden or France the middle class is already paying those rates.
Likewise, in the US you cannot (legally) shelter your income by declaring it to be foreign income, as you can in most European countries. That is a tax dodge not applicable to the middle class.
And then we have the present discussion: The compliance costs are of course too high for any small business, so these regulations are just another form of regulatory capture to prevent anyone new from breaking into the upper class, while allowing those already there to have it easy.
teiferer
It's a success of the upper class to pit the middle class against the lower class and the immigrants. As long as people on one "side" complain that there is too much foreign culture and they'll all be replaced and/raped and the other "side" sees the racists as their main enemy, the rich have an easy time.
tsss
Immigration is a separate problem.
teiferer
It should be a separate topic, yes. But calling it a "problem" is already the framing that pits locals against immigrants, distracting from what's really keeping people down. In fact, immigration is a solution to lots of actual problems. (For example demography and lack of economi growth.)
spwa4
That sounds like a good argument, but if you look at government budgets and where come from and where they go that is not at all what is happening. I mean, there is a core of truth in that the rules allow the upper class to go less-taxed (generally not untaxed). But let's be honest here. If the upper class paid 60% on their income instead of 10%, it would improve government budgets by less than 1% (disregarding things like royal families that own oil company profits or rent out incredible amounts of terrible housing (UK) at essentially 0% tax as a specific exemption in the law)
Which means taxing the rich can make the rich poorer than they currently are and bring more equality. Which is a goal in itself. But it cannot fund EU governments. It cannot fund pensions. Not even a little bit.
Everyone knows what the big problem is: right now close to 35% of working people in the EU work, one way or another (usually in bureaucracies, granted), to take care of children, sick, unemployed or elderly non-working people. Of those groups, the elderly group is going up by about 3% every year, and that will keep going until 2050 or later. In the group of working people there is extreme resistance to actually work with the elderly (meaning physically helping elderly people, those jobs are low-status, low-paid, and generally hated with a passion), even against teaching jobs there is quite a bit of resistance (dropout rates are double digit percentages). So how do we take care of the elderly? Hell: how do we take care of kids?
This problem alone makes me say "we don't just want AI to take our jobs, we NEED AI to take our jobs". Because "we" are sure as hell not going to take them. That doesn't preclude that this needs to be regulated, but obviously just saying no to AI is not what we want. And that's putting it politely.
alexanderchr
> Likewise, in the US you cannot (legally) shelter your income by declaring it to be foreign income, as you can in most European countries.
Not sure what you mean, most European countries tax residents on worldwide income. You certainly can’t just declare income as foreign and be done with it. Some countries (notably UK) had loopholes for non-domiciled residents but they are being closed now.
greenraven
> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part
This is by design. It’s the same all over the world. The wealthy are not going to just let you compete
HeyLaughingBoy
Dunno about that. I live in the US. I can start a small business today and the only thing I'd have to do differently is file an additional form on my taxes next year. Yes, that's a simplification that doesn't apply to every situation, but it is still completely accurate.
tengwar2
That's pretty much the situation in the UK if you are a sole trader. If you set up a limited liability company, that's a separate entity and has its own tax reporting requirement, but nothing onerous. I am a sole trader, and manage a small company separately from that.
One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence". I'm not sure what that is or whether it applies to all businesses, so I'm not sure what it would correspond to in the UK. Neither of my businesses needed any licences or permissions to start trading.
Gormo
There's no standard concept of a "business license" in the US either. Generally, the corporate registration / LLC filing is all you need to start doing business as a limited liability company, and you don't need to do anything special as a sole proprietor. Sometimes state and local governments have special requirements for particular types of activity, and require registration to begin operating in a regulated field. City and county governments sometimes have a business tax that you have to pay if you're operating a facility open to the public, and may require the tax receipt to be on display on your premises.
corford
Same with UK LLPs
Silhouette
That's pretty much the situation in the UK if you are a sole trader. If you set up a limited liability company, that's a separate entity and has its own tax reporting requirement, but nothing onerous.
It's becoming more onerous all the time to run a small business in the UK though.
We just got charged £100 just to essentially tick one box with Companies House saying "nothing changed since last year".
The main tax paperwork is the annual financial statements. These are getting more demanding over the next couple of years with the simplified versions that small companies have been allowed to file looking like they will no longer be acceptable after that time.
You now have to file tax returns like PAYE and VAT using approved software. Most of that software - even the big names - ranges from OK but with significant problems and limitations to simply awful.
I heard recently that personal self assessment tax returns for company directors are about to get more complicated as well.
If you have business premises then you have to deal with business rates. Often these are still based on valuations from a time when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Some small businesses have already closed down due to this becoming unaffordable.
I've lost count of how many different kinds of insurance we now have. All have a cost of course.
If you're working solo or the only person from your company working with a specific customer/client then you need to worry about Off Payroll Working as well. That's still a huge mess of ambiguity decades after IR35 was introduced and likely incurs further expenses for legal reviews and insurance policies that shouldn't even need to exist.
Control any personal data? Make sure you register with the ICO and pay their fee too.
Sell online or even run a website? Make sure you know the requirements for information you have to provide and it's in exactly the right format for compliance. (I've even seen businesses working in the compliance industry failing on this one and risking regulatory sanctions.)
The public sector is increasingly pushing for things like Cyber Essentials if you want to be part of its supply chain. That is an absolutely textbook example of regulations that were clearly written for large businesses using a certain operating system. The only options are 100% compliance or failing and 100% compliance is tricky for sole traders or microbusinesses to achieve without disproportionate expense and administration. If you need the certified version then that's another cost and the disruption of being audited to deal with.
We haven't even talked about everything you have to do if you want to take on employee #1 who isn't one of the founders/owners yet.
I don't think it's realistic to say that the UK is supportive of small businesses today. It never really was but at least the the potential financial benefits used to justify the overheads. Now the taxes are far higher - you end up paying double-digit higher overall rates if you set up a Ltd that can actually grow as a business compared to simply trading as a self-employed sole trader now - and the overheads and costs are also far higher in numerous ways. It's no surprise that people are deterred from going into business here and that's really bad for the country because we need the people willing to take the risks and put in the effort to build the next generation of businesses to support our economy and provide much-needed new jobs.
dudul
> One thing I have heard of in the USA is the need for a "business licence"
Where have you heard about that? Because there is no concept of universal business license.
senderista
And you'd need to line up your own health insurance.
HeyLaughingBoy
Usually not if you already have a day job. But that's completely orthogonal to the original statement.
Aurornis
It is not the same all over the world. Starting a small company in the US is a breeze compared to what I’ve watched peers in the EU fight against.
skylurk
Back in college (USA) friends would spin up LLCs for the summer just to buy mowers or vans to do yard work. They would hire all the students who didn't get summer jobs. Those hired students would make about 3x a STEM intern makes in western europe today.
kccqzy
It was also in the context of Europe that I heard of the concept of an unpaid internship. I was like, what??
Saline9515
Sorry but do you imply interns are going to be paid? In Europe? /s
corford
Starting a small company in many EU countries is a breeze too e.g. Estonia, Portugal, UK and no doubt many others. The rumoured 'EU Inc' entity should also help close the gap for member countries where incorporating domestically traditionally comes with more friction (e.g. Germany).
formerly_proven
Interstate commerce also seems to be vastly easier inside the US in comparison to the alleged single market of the EU. The most companies seem to deal with is California-specific regulations. Meanwhile, most companies in the EU eventually opt to create a ton of subsidiaries, basically one per state, to handle all the localized duties that the EU requires.
corford
Not sure if you are referencing something else but in the case of VAT (sales tax) this is simply not true, see: VAT one stop shop / moss. There are also no customs duties on inter-state shipments.
Employment regulations are different - if you have a lot of people working for you in another member state you'll need a branch office or subsidiary there (or you can easily outsource it via services like https://www.playroll.com/)
kccqzy
Yup the Constitution here has rightly prevented each State from adding regulations that burden interstate commerce. Sometimes that has resulted in overly broad federal oversight (CFTC versus state gaming boards) but most of the time that’s a good thing.
argentinian
Laws are voted by politicians. Do you mean that most EU politicians are puppets of EU corporations?
Eddy_Viscosity2
EU politicians seemed to be fairly captured by corporations generally. Less so than politicians from the countries themselves. Voting turnout for EU representatives is very low compared with voting for local officials. I think its because people know that who they vote for as their chancellor or prime minister can make a big impact on their lives. They see the EU parliament as this distant thing and don't follow it so much. EU representatives therefore don't have as much accountability and can more easily be swayed by lobbying. How else can you explain the whole chat control thing which everyone hates but still keeps getting pushed through. Like who is voting for this a-holes.
nico_h
It passed on a technicality of present reps voted against in majority but not enough total votes because the president had triggered a special vote for the last session before recess when less reps are present.
Eddy_Viscosity2
Was even one representative that voted for this from a region where the people that they represent wanted it by even the slimmest of majorities? I don't think so. These votes were in full defiance of their constituents.
yardie
The one thing EU politicians hate is disruption. Entrepreneurs are fresh entrants trying to disrupt an existing market. The politicians don't even need to be puppets. The fact that these small startups exist and may even succeed is reason enough.
throw-the-towel
I'd say this is not limited to the politicians.
Lutger
Its not as bad as in the US I think, but yeah, most of the laws are actually (literally) written by corporations. I wouldn't call them puppets, but EU corps have an outsized influence on the outcome of the process.
runarberg
I don‘t know about EU laws specifically, but national law in Europe is often written by lobby firms in favor of their corporate sponsors. In Iceland for example the main corporate lobby is called Viðskiptaráð, and they brag about the high percentage of laws they write passing at the parliament (in 2007 it was like 90%). I don‘t think things are much different in the rest of Europe (maybe just less obvious due to size differences).
yturijea
That might be one reason they refuse to be open about their financial supports in their various organizations yes. it is very well known unfortunately..
Saline9515
There are more lobbyists in Brussels that EU public servants. I guess that corpos don't spend this kind of big money for nothing.
monegator
It's usually US corpos that are lobbying all over the EU, it's unlikely that the EU automakers would have lobbied for their destruction
kingleopold
Yes and mostly European elite and royal families. Royal families and their friends have strong power across Europe but they are well hidden via media.
techpression
The entire purpose of EU is trade (trading nations don't go to war etc), trade is more or less defined by large corporations, it's through that lens every decision is made and measured.
psychoslave
Nothing specific to EU here except the specific point is about EU this time. Otherwise just copy paste "most EU politicians are puppets of EU corporations" in some search engine and enjoy, here are the top result of such a search:
https://rednetwork.net/articles/2026/06/how-corporations-set...
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/eu-leaders-puppets-of-financia...
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_reasons_behin...
https://edwardshepherd.substack.com/p/the-puppets-and-their-...
https://www.lobbycontrol.de/wp-content/uploads/EU-Lobbyrepor...
Now looking up for "EU politicians are prised for their probity and strong attachment to defend their people" here are the top results:
https://www.transparency.org/en/news/political-corruption-in...
https://www.ftm.eu/articles/european-parliamentarians-involv...
https://www.eupublicintegrity.com/what-is-public-integrity-i...
https://www.politico.eu/article/european-union-corruption-pf...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/04/29/europes-unpopula...
So even searching specifically for praising information, one will have to dig deep apparently, or maybe go straight to the official propaganda of what the politicians say about themselves (but probably less so about others).
Everyone is free to go as deep as they want (and can afford) and draw their own conclusions.
kingleopold
well said. like WB said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
sleepyguy
That is the issue across the entire world. Large corporations can easily bear the cost of regulatory laws, environmental requirements, rules, and regulations. They can also go to great lengths to promote an environment that is almost nightmarish for a smaller company or entrepreneur trying to enter the game.
They create barrier after barrier through their lobbying efforts. A good example is having to pay $50,000 for an inspector to come and determine whether your automatic door opens and closes properly, or to verify that your facility does not have a chimney. A friend of mine who owns a business in Niagara Falls, Canada, had to pay around $10,000 for a wind assessment to determine where chimney exhaust would go once released. He didn’t even have a chimney. They ended up having to have another inspection to verify they didn't have a chimney.
Many of these environmental laws are intentionally created and applied to small businesses as well, even when the cost of meeting the requirements is greater than what the business could realistically generate in sales.
The result is that large corporations can absorb these costs, while small businesses and entrepreneurs are often priced out before they even have a chance to compete.
bpodgursky
The US is wealthier, has more billionaires and has fewer of these barriers for small entrepreneurs. So no, this is not the monocausal explanation that applies equally everywhere.
(YES, the US has regulatory capture, YES the wealthy attempt to use it, YES we should try to eliminate it here too, but it remains true that it is easier to run a small business in the US, while having more billionaires. There are other explanations to the differential here).
corford
I'm not sure I agree. I find the Delaware & IRS forms and systems archaic/byzantine compared to e.g. the UK system.
bpodgursky
Why do you deal with any of it? As a small business use Stripe Atlas or whatever.
21asdffdsa12
Agreed, europe has a culture of "stability" first. The fear of disruption and chaos is larger after two WW and it outsourced the risks of disruption to the US. Basically, use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity.
petcat
> use the us as a test-mouse for new ideas and innovations, then when proven safe introduce them and ride those coat-tails to infinity
What actually happened, and continues to happen, is that Europe and the EU became entirely dependent on US tech and other foreign industry. It wasn't just a matter of "see what works and then copy it domestically". It oursourced basically everything.
trinix912
To be fair, it was mostly outsourced to China, at least in Slovenia with our electronics development and manufacturing (Iskra and Gorenje). US stuff has also always been more expensive in every category except software.
watwut
Is fetishizing disruption good for USA? It did helped to create a billionaire oligarch class, but that class is literally intentionally destroying it. I mean, it may end up destroying Europe and the rest of the world too, but the US democracy seem to be their first target.
21asdffdsa12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil at best - organ at mid - cancer when bursting out of the role at worst
polski-g
Oh no. It's the mysterious "they"!
Helmut10001
Living in Europe, I find that with LLMs, it is possible to navigate the federal & law jungle. However, LLMs don't protect you from institutional envy or the resistance of people trying to block progress simply because it is perceived as 'too modern' or disruptive. I find this the hardest challenge. And I have the feeling during times of general decline, like these, it gets worse.
barrenko
And it's like there's a uno card that's "increase taxes for freelancers". And they sure like to use it.
arjie
That makes sense given the structure of the society, no? If you were to build an organization whose purpose was a predictable amount paid out to the senior most members committed ahead of time for an indefinite period, you would prioritize predictable income. In the ideal, your contracts would all be long-term contracts that don’t fluctuate very much.
Any entity that seeks to take risks to earn outsize income increases the income variance and makes it hard to organize your committed payouts. So you are forced (by your priorities) to discourage the entrepreneur and freelancer and encourage the 18-60 salaried employee. Fixed fungible production unit can be used as an input to a machine that produces committed output.
Then you import guest-workers etc. to improve throughput. You are forced by your priorities. Probably the expansion of the US welfare state will meet similar constraints soon enough.
It’s a bit just-so so I think there’s an over-claim in there but I think the seed is there.
barrenko
Appreciate this input.
nradov
Right, it's a zero-sum mentality versus a growth mentality. When people don't believe that growth is possible then they focus on guarding what they have.
21asdffdsa12
I personally hate the "reenact" the old- good times to recreate the prosperity cargo cults. What created those prosperous times, where "characters" that would just do things, and ask for forgiveness by the law later. And that was actually priced into the justice system, by giving the judges a range to verdict from. In a way, the rule of law was much less strict in the 50s and 60s and way more informal.
jabart
US Sales tax is the exact same way. Each state has a different rate, Texas has multiple rates inside a zip code you have to manage. Each state also has a nexus requirement that is either money, or number of transactions based. Then the filings you have to do and have a Foreign LLC registration, a registered agent in that state, and a yearly annual report to file to tell them you are still in business and here is my $40-200.
HWR_14
Except you can sell through Amazon (or other online store) and they will manage all that for you as a single fee. Exactly the solution that the article proposed for the EU rules.
rcxdude
There are already places that will take an annual fee for dealing with this bureaucracy for you, as well.
HWR_14
This article is claiming that his online platform wants to offer that service but they are legally forbidden from doing so. In fact, they suggest allowing services to perform this is a reasonable solution to the whole problem.
deno
Except you don’t have min threshold requirements for neither PPWR nor WEEE, it's before you can sell anything. And you need to register, hire an authorized agent and get contract (which always has minimal amount rather than per-kg pricing) with local recycling company in each member state.
Also you have Streamlined Sales Tax Registration System (SSTRS) for actual registration in US which covers 24 states.
Xelbair
>One of the biggest problems that I have in the EU is that it's almost federated
I would argue it's even worse, because with properly designed federated system you get checks and balances to some extent.
There are parts of EU that have almost zero oversight.
ajmurmann
Can you elaborate more? When you say "checks and balances" do you mean explicit legal mechanisms or implicit mechanisms like Tiebout-style foot voting? For the latter areas with "almost zero oversight" seem advantages. Also, can you give an example of these low-oversight places and how it manifests? I'm thankful even for some pointers in what to search for.
asdfadsfgfdda
One example is the effective prohibition on spraying pesticides by air, including drone. Drones allow lower pesticide use than current, legal practices
ajmurmann
Oh, so "parts of the EU" wasn't about geographic areas but policy areas? But this sounds like more regulation, not checks and balances either. Are you replying to the right comment?
dgellow
Yeah, this in between state is really frustrating. I hope we will see a push towards more federalization, but that’s unlikely
trinix912
It’s unlikely because smaller member states wouldn’t want that as they’d be outvoted by bigger members and thus forced to implement laws that might not even make sense in those (smaller) countries.
dgellow
It’s unlikely for a lot of reasons, but that’s not one of them given we don’t know what a federalized EU would look like.
trinix912
We had a federation around here called Yugoslavia and we saw how it played out. Forcing different nations to agree on everything down to things that are basically cultural preferences never worked well. Regulations, bureaucracy and laws are often based on cultural preferences. The EU tries to find a common baseline but still leaves a lot to each member state to avoid this problem.
dgellow
Lots of federations exists and work perfectly well… including Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, the US, and more
inigyou
At least two of the countries on that list are quite obviously not working well.
throw-the-towel
That's why federations have a Senate where all states get equal representation.
trinix912
Then the bigger member states will say that they’re contributing so much more but get very little voting power etc. It’s not an easy problem to solve, hence the current indirect system.
chermi
I think this is a big factor. While I would prefer a more federated US, the US as is is a great market to start in. It's 350M fairly wealthy people under mostly the same tech restrictions. That's a great place to grow.
It's important to remember that even without the fact that big companies basically write the regulations, regulations naturally tend to being effectively regressive wrt company stage/size. Every new one is a hurdle that a bigger company has more resources to overcome.
ryukoposting
> It's 350M fairly wealthy people under mostly the same tech restrictions
and, on a case-by-case basis, those people are generally happy to adopt other states' standards in the name of convenience and efficiency (California notwithstanding). Look at E-ZPass/I-Pass as a great example of harmonization across states.
It's funny. Ask any Illinoisan how they feel about adopting Ohio's policies and they'd bristle. But say "hey we're gonna make your highway transponder work in every state east of the Rockies" and they're all for it.
I have to wonder if Europe has the same thing going on.
chermi
Your example of adoption is interesting. I think California has actually influenced other states on efficiency. I wanted to say disproportionately, but perhaps in exact accordance with their economic and political power.
I don't know the details well enough, but I do know that there is an effective anti-fedaralist force in the US wherever federal funding is concerned, as it comes with rules conditions (rules) attached. I would be interested to what extent this acts as a bias toward cooperation in the case of ez pass, given the interstate system.
ryukoposting
> I think California has actually influenced other states on efficiency.
California has a frustrating tendency invent its own systems that are neither better nor worse, but nonetheless incompatible with more widely accepted standards. The highway transponder example actually applies again - Fastrak.
CA has some great ideas too, don't get me wrong (ubiquitous painted curbs: great!) but a lot of the time it's just different for the sake of being different.
kccqzy
Yeah and the best example is California vehicle emission standards.
silon42
Even medium-sized corporations are not willing to send products across borders to consumers (say, outside Germany), further destroying the single market.
PinguTS
In the EU you have to distinguish between "Directives" and "Regulations".
A "Regulation" becomes "law" in any member state without modification. No member state has to adopt anything. Examples are the GDPR and the new Machine Regulation.
A "Directive" does not become "law" in any member state. A member state has to enact their own national laws to implement the directive until a given date. It does not have to be single law. It could spread many laws. An example is the Machine Directive before it was re-released as Machine Regulation.
More on the different types can be found here from the EU itself: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/types-eu...
pjc50
> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part
This was traditionally something that the UK was better than the rest of Europe, having carve-outs for small businesses.
W3zzy
There is a EU company registration in the maling. You register your business on that platform and it will be recognized as a EU company wich should make it easier to comply.
deepsun
In US laws are also different between states, for example some products are compostable in Arkansas but are not compostable in California.
cloudie78
Ah yes, let’s give the EU and its undemocratic system in which policy formation is heavily filtered through a relatively narrow professional political class, ordinary voters have weak or almost no direct control over major policy choices, dissent encounters administrative/economic punishment, and central institutions possess and use powerful financial means to discipline peripheral governments should have even more centralised power?
And no, just because voting for MEPs is bolted on there as a pressure valve doesn’t suddenly make it all okay when most of the real decisions happen behind closed doors and adherence to the passed laws, no matter how damaging is ensured through financial coercion.
Not a single person voted or agreed to this law, and yet here we are.
PeterHolzwarth
Yeah, that's always been my concern with the EU (I'm American, for context): the long worrying practice where the legal concept of the EU is assembled by a small group who very much want EU citizens to go back to sleep and only wake up once all the laws and regulation has been created.
A federation makes sense to me: I live in one. But how the EU has assembled itself in a way that seems to unrepresentative has been worrying to watch over the last couple decades.
iknowstuff
US House term is 2 years, European Parliament is 5 years. The latter is actually proportional at least but you can see how they’d only feel pressure every so often
petra
But it seems relative immune to the current rise of populism.
Not a bad tradeoff, all included.
tchalla
It seems you have an issue with representative democracy.
cloudie78
Quite the contrary actually. I take issue with systems LARPing democracy.
psychoslave
There is no such a thing as "representative democracy", that’s antinomic bullshit throw at people to lower it down to powerless populace.
Either citizens have the power, exercise it continuously in practice and are supplied with everything it takes to assume that role properly with all the duties it implies, or there is no democracy beyond empty words.
dvdkon
Congratulations, you've redefined democracy to mean something very different to the dictionary and colloquial definitions. That's not very useful though, unless your goal is to confuse people.
psychoslave
Yes, as sure as the dictionary and the colloquial definitions were first altered by propaganda. War is peace, Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Democracy is delegation.
RandomLensman
Has such a system ever existed anywhere? How would citizens even have the time?
izacus
Funny how this questioning of democracy never shows up in topics about USA, UK or any other country - it's always EU that gets assaulted by sudden political theorists despite mirroring pretty much every other democracy on the planet.
psychoslave
UK is a monarchy. It’s actually in the name: United Kingdom. Democracy added as decorum on top of it is not there to change the principle of inequality that is deeply engraved in its underlying core.
USA is definitely described as a mix of plutocracy, kleptocracy, and oligarchy in many sources.
Not sure where this idea that the critics should be exclusive to Europe. TFA is about Europe, so comments will target more specifically EU, but that’s all.
https://parliamentnews.co.uk/is-the-uk-a-constitutional-mona...
https://josricardomartins.substack.com/p/is-the-us-a-democra... https://www.citizenscount.org/news/united-states-democracy-r... https://cirsd.org/horizon-article/democracy-or-plutocracy-am... https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/25/america-kleptocracy-tru... https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policycast/olig...
cloudie78
Switzerland
RandomLensman
Continuously exercised and on everything as a matter of course? Not all is done via direct democracy there (even though it is the ultimate backstop in a way), it also has representative democracy.
tchalla
Switzerland is also a representative democracy
gls2ro
You cannot compare 10 million people with 450 million people when talking about direct democracy. It cannot be done I think. But if you know a way propose it here.
Just saying lets vote directly on everything will put everything on hold until all goes down.
rescbr
Direct democracy doesn't mean everyone votes on everything.
At the extreme you could do something like localized e-voting: citizens vote on issues that affect a given geographic radius of where they live. Because the boundaries are purely distance-based, gerrymandering is impossible.
Maybe we could have a decaying distance boundary by some measurement like population density or something like it?
jurgenburgen
Or just decentralize power where it makes sense.
psychoslave
First let's acknowledge that "Has it ever existed before?" is not helping with conclusion outside "it proved not physically impossible for some time in some historical specific context". It would not tell anything about "is that possible now or in near future in this or that specific geopolitical context at such a scale". And if it never existed before, a first in history is always possible.
Now what get often cited as direct democracy is ancient Greek city-states and nowadays Switzerland, which are two vastly different implementations.
> How would citizens even have the time?
That's actually the exact opposite mindset of what it takes to think democratically: how one could be called a citizen when they are not equipped with everything it takes to properly accomplish citizen duties. Of course accomplishing civil duties should be fairly compensated for the time invested. Such a compensation is generally existing and expected by current politician, so the only difference with direct democracy on this regard is that it should not be reserved to a small cast.
inigyou
I think the idea is that you follow the law of the country you're in.
victorbjorklund
EU also have regulations where it applies directly without need for implementation in national laws.
alephnerd
The bigger issue in OP's case is they are dependent on de minimis.
The de minimis crackdown [0] and EPR [1] are both being rolled out because Chinese conglomerates like Pinduoduo (Temu) and SHEIN took undue advantage of that while ignoring European regulators on issues such as environmental regulations on packaging [2], dark patterns [2], breaching the Digital Services Act [3], and gacha/addictive engagement mechanisms [4].
All of OP's proposals directly conflict with the goal of de minimis taxation and the EPR.
Seems European HNers are fine with European regulations until it hurts their niche interests or pocketbook.
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/102e18d7-d06b-4405-a347-97bb3c373...
[1] - https://www.vereev.com/news/europe-faces-trade-conflict-is-e...
[2] - https://www.ft.com/content/ef72f186-2a02-4c51-927d-2c01ddece...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/eu-says-temu-breach-r...
[4] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/eu-probes-shein-over-...
rescbr
The issue is that those marketplaces got too mainstream, and the average consumer is too stupid.
10-15 years ago if you were importing stuff from China you'd know that the trade off for cheaper prices is that you'd lose your consumer laws protection and you'd be on your own. If you wanted those, then you'd go to your local retailer and pay extra.
whywhywhywhy
Means nothing though because no European country can produce the goods an impoverished European can afford to pay for the goods so the local store is just the same Chinese goods shipped to that address other than your home address.
Aerroon
And 5x the price
logseman
And then everyone started doing it, which meant that your local retailer isn't in business anymore (see local high streets in many countries). The choice you had 10-15 years ago doesn't exist anymore because everyone went for the cheaper price, and now the question is where the extra goes that we used to pay to the local retailer.
visarga
AliExpress and Temu would refund you if you complained about a delivery. Zero risk.
iknowstuff
What’s with those streets? Any examples?
pjc50
This got downvoted but is basically correct. We had a great "grey" market, but the tradeoff for that is having to stay small enough to not be visible.
tjwebbnorfolk
> old ideas just drags it down.
Are these old ideas? The broad regulatory apparatus in the EU appears very modern and intentional.
n4r9
> It's completely missed that small entrepreneurs may also want to take part
There's truth to this but it's an overstatement as it stands. For example, GDPR rules are less strict for small companies.
mnau
Please elaborate on less strict rules for Gdpr? There is Record of Processing Activities exemption for <250, but if you have to comply with Gdpr (and you do), you need essentially same info as Ropa and of course it has to be up to date. How else can you ensure you are in compliance?
troupo
Because if the EU tried to force countries into single compliance, there would no end of "EU is trampling national interests" and similar screaming.
It's an unwinnable situation. Again, EU-level politics keep assuming everyone (corporations and states) are adults. Unfortunately, everyone are just a bunch of screaming, scheming petulant children.
0x_rs
>Again, EU-level politics keep assuming everyone (corporations and states) are adults. Unfortunately, everyone are just a bunch of screaming, scheming petulant children.
One in four MEPs are involved in scandals [0] ranging from harassment to organized crime and corruption. The European Parliament also remains a free out-of-jail card through abuse of parliamentary immunity, and they do abuse it [1]. EU politics is a circus.
1. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-accused-overre...
sajithdilshan
One of the best example is Ursula Von der Leyen. She was sent from Berlin to EU by Angela Merkle because when she was the defence minister of Germany under Merkle’s government there was a huge scandal of offering contracts (https://www.euractiv.com/news/von-der-leyen-admits-mistakes-...)
She was sent to EU so she can do less harm in the future, but the irony is that she became the head of EU.
p_l
MEPs in many countries do not actually have immunity.
However, the bigger issue is that european parliament is treated in many countries as essentially dumping ground between national elections.
philipallstar
> there would no end of "EU is trampling national interests" and similar screaming
To just call this "screaming" is to completely dismiss a real and huge problem. The EU is the idea that countries should fuse into economic areas, but the countries are also individual still. Of course there's a lot of friction.
For example, because Greece was in the Euro, they couldn't inflate their currency to compensate for the fact that they gradually outsourced more and more work to Germany, until they had nothing left and hit a financial crisis because their government couldn't borrow more money. That's not mindless screaming.
Yizahi
Do you realize that your example actually counters your point? The Greece's example illustrates that a misbehaving minority shouldn't have an outsized influence on the majority, which is a correct thing to aim for, I completely agree with you on that. But the current EU arrangement actually allows minority entities to veto majority's initiatives and improvements, exactly because EU is not fully federated. 1 member country can screech and blackmail 26 other members for any arbitrary reason, and they all must comply with this minority's ultimatum. If EU was a federation, majority would simply outvote any obstructionists.
iknowstuff
This is too simplistic. Most eu laws pass by simple or qualified majority.
imtringued
Except in the Greece scenario, both Greece and Germany are to blame simultaneously as a whole package and not just Greece alone. The misbehaving minority that got bailed out are the German bankers.
If there were exchange rates between Germany and Greece, the problem would never had a chance to grow big enough to require a bailout.
Yizahi
And that's again follows my point - regular French or Poles or Spaniards have zero influence on the German financial system even if they together would be a majority by the numbers and had a same opinion. While German financial system can mess with them if they wish so.
Basically current EU has huge gaps of accountability in multiple directions and areas, even compared to a typical elected oligarchy of the singular developed country. Multiple EU institutions are not elected at all and neither they are accountable to the citizens across EU.
troupo
So you've described Greece as a bunch of scheming petulant children.
"Our plan to be inaccountable didn't work, so we'll try a different scheme instead".
And yes, it's a huge problem. That's why I called the situation unwinnable.
graemep
They could neither fix the problem with the policy tools a country with its own currency would have, nor did they have the automatic support from a central budget a region or state of a country would have.
nradov
Greece could have fixed their problems by cutting spending and collecting more taxes (not necessarily higher taxes, but actually collecting the taxes that were owed). Currency inflation was never necessary.
iknowstuff
I think they did? At the cost of very slow recovery, which I think is the problem with austerity measures.
nradov
Austerity is not a "problem", it's simply the only remaining option when you run out of other people's money.
iknowstuff
Countries can inflate their debt away at the cost of eroding savings and new borrowing becoming more expensive, no?
https://www.statbureau.org/en/greece/inflation-charts-yearly
realityking
Countries with poor credit struggle to issue debt in their own currency. Being able to inflate your debts away is a privilege of the rich.
nradov
Countries can't push that approach very far before new borrowing doesn't just become more expensive, it becomes effectively impossible.
imtringued
This is a very strange perspective when the simplest solution is to introduce a demurrage euro for automatic equilibrium in the Eurozone.
I know you permanent money people are keen on a dog eat dog world where you trust no one and see everyone around you as a competitor to defeat.
izacus
They couldn't fix the problem because they were a corrupt country refusing to face their reality and which leadership decided to blame EU for not pumping more money into their pockets instead of fixing the structural problems of their rotting country.
Destroying their peoples lives with inflation so they could continue the parade would be even worse for both Greece and EU as a whole.
philipallstar
> So you've described Greece as a bunch of scheming petulant children.
Can you quote where I did that, please?
carlosjobim
No, the Greeks were cool and calculating, turning an inflating fake fiat currency into hard assets like real estate, while not working or producing anything.
The introduction of the Euro was the start signal for each country to try to inflate as much as they can for their own benefit - since the first inflator gets the best value out of the currency. Idiots are left holding paper currency worth less and less each day. Having to work harder and harder in a never ending spiral.
pjc50
The Euro had a much better set of inflation controls than most of the previous European currencies. Especially the lire.
carlosjobim
Absolutely. But when you inflate your own currency, it is you who have to deal with the consequences. If you inflate everyone's currency you reap all the benefits and leave everybody else with the burden of the consequences.
pjc50
But part of the setup was that inflation was controlled centrally by the ECB? How are you declaring that national governments inflated it?
carlosjobim
Inflation isn't controlled by the ECB. Money is created when banks loan out money. Whether that be to people, companies, or governments (municipalities and so on). That's where all money comes from and how the currency is inflated.
The country which by legislation or by other means makes it easier for banks to lend out money will benefit their own citizens and companies, since they get to be the first spenders of newly created money before it reduces in value. That's how national governments can use inflation for their own benefit within a common currency system. But no government involvement is necessary. If a group of people (in this case the Greeks) are willing to take on extraordinary amounts of debts compared to other groups, then we have the same results.
Remember that all money which was borrowed in the European "debt crisis" went somewhere before the loans couldn't be paid. Somebody benefitted, and the idiots were left to pay.
Xelbair
Including EC, and MEP themselves.
mpweiher
A couple of things to note:
1. The EU commission wanted a single central registry
2. It was the member states, via the Council of Ministers, that torpedoed this.
3. The EU now advises its member states to not implement/enforce this
4. Until the correction, which is on its way, can be fully enacted.
So the same old same old: member states do shitty stuff and blame the EU.
amarcheschi
I haven't followed the legislative process, where can I find that the eu wanted a single registry but the country pushed for national ones? Because i have never read it.
I'm not saying it's not true, it's just that it's so hard to follow these things when one is supposed to have a life as well
mpweiher
There has been reporting on this in many places. Here is one:
https://packaging-journal.de/en/eu-commission-wants-to-scrap...
"According to the Händlerbund, the European Commission's proposal to abolish the requirement has been on the table since December 2025. However, discussions in the Council of the EU were suspended a few weeks ago after a majority of member states spoke out against it."
"A restricted version is currently being discussed in the European Parliament. According to this, an exemption is only to apply to micro-enterprises with up to 49 employees and an annual turnover of a maximum of 10 million euros. A first reading is scheduled for October 2026 at the earliest."
amarcheschi
Ok ty
pembrook
If you need to both:
a) exempt companies with under 50 employees to not kill small business
AND
b) are okay with doing so, ie. there's little consequences from exempting companies from this
Then this is the mark of a terrible piece of legislation. What problem are we actually addressing here by creating another fee collecting, headache inducing registration regime and the 684th enforcement bureaucracy in the EU over yet another trivial consumer issue?
Yes, single use plastics aren't great. Incentivize companies to move away from them by creating positive market incentives instead of creating an anti-productive, full time packaging Stasi.
It's almost as if the people attracted to a career in government can only imagine their subjects responding to the stick, even though the carrot is often far more persuasive. This is the classic downfall of all economic central planning.
The problem with this particular topic is it's a religious one for many in the urban monoculture. They don't ultimately care about packaging waste, they care about punishment and repentance for humanity's existence. We've angered the gods and must repent via punitive measures! To incentivize good behavior is antithetical to that, even if it is more effective at actually doing the thing.
dvdkon
What does "positive market incentives" mean for you? My immediate thought is various subsidies, but given how those usually end up (easy money for companies spending more on lawyers than actual productive work), I'd much rather just have a tax.
pembrook
The tax won't actually create the desired outcome though. In practice the tax is basically just a wealth transfer from the private sector to the state, who will use that money to dump into boomer pensions and not invest in packaging innovation.
Punitive taxation doesn't invent new technologies. Investment does.
For example, the only reason the electric car market even exists today is because of subsidies 15 years ago.
I agree subsidies can easily turn into a boondoggle, but so can the state itself given more tax money.
Ultimately, I personally think government choosing to focus time and money on this specific thing over other far more important issues is dumb (like say, the thousands of young men dying in Ukraine right now, the social welfare debt spiral, the lack of a capital markets union, the lack of any coherent military strategy, etc. etc.)
But if we're going to posture as if we actually care about this issue, we are going about the desired outcome the completely wrong way.
Avamander
You have to use the FOIA-equivalent of your member state to get access to the documents submitted to the EU by your country.
conradfr
> A couple of things to note:
I have Claude Code PTSD.
antiloper
> member states do shitty stuff and blame the EU.
The crooked MEPs also voted in favor of this law. They are just as culpable.
Turneyboy
Why would the implementation of this not simply be a fee that the mail carriers have to impose?
Isn't that by far the simplest solution that removes any and all bureaucracy for almost everyone and still catches 99% of the cases?
Yizahi
It's all about PR. If EU formulates the new law like they are fighting against pollution and plastic garbage, it sounds nice enough to the electorate who are content with greenwashing and won't investigate much. And 99% of population won't ever a hear a word about real issues by the sellers, to them sellers would quietly and imperceptibly start disappearing. But a direct fee sounds more like a tax hike and the same electorate ordering packages from foreign shops would definitely remember that.
Saline9515
The EU commission chooses what laws to propose for the parliament to vote, if it wasn't satisfactory they could have just withdrawn it.
mrtksn
It's always like this, EU is in urgent need of becoming a country in some form and local government deal with local stuff only.
It shows up in the stats, citizens almost always trust EU more than their governments and want EU to have more power but all this means those local governments becoming less important and therefore no one is really pushing for it.
Fingers crossed Trump invades Greenland so things can start moving.
antiloper
> It's always like this, EU is in urgent need of becoming a country in some form and local government deal with local stuff only.
The lesson is the opposite: The EU needs LESS power, not more. If the member states didn't have a cartel to tyrannize their collective population, this regulation could never have happened. Any single country that would try to enforce this would be on its own.
mrtksn
Nope, less power means the current situation will be the default as each country by default will have their own body and rules to govern instead of one rule and one body that handles the whole continent.
Unlike what you appear to believe Europeans are not some libertarian captured by the EU socialist, most europeans do want less wasteful and less harmful packaging.
antiloper
Do most Europeans want all of their E-commerce to be only handled by American and Chinese megacorporations without local players? Because that is the effect of this regulation. Instead of a SME shipping a cardboard box, it will be Amazon or Temu.
nickff
This also negatively affects smaller trading partners, and makes (bi-lateral) trade with the EU much less appealing to them. This means that countries like Canada are less likely to maintain trade agreements which open their market to all sorts of EU goods.
mrtksn
You are not arguing in good faith, such a loaded question. I will leave it here, too much BS in one comment to deal with it
antiloper
And "do you want less wasteful" packaging isn't? Because of this question businesses got priced out of shipping from the EU to the EU.
mrtksn
nope, irrelevant
badestrand
I really doubt that any country except maybe Germany would have introduced this legislation by themselves.
izacus
No, we absolutely don't need to give more power to Orbans and other corrupt selfish pricks across Europe to line their pockets at everyones expense and the future of Europe.
A_D_E_P_T
> Any single country that would try to enforce this would be on its own.
Actually they'd have no retroactive way to enforce it at all, and the most they'd be able to do would be to charge an import duty on a per-parcel basis, which would ultimately be borne by the importer.
This would be a huge improvement over the utter nonsense they're implementing!
cute_boi
Trump couldn't invade Iran, forget Greenland.
EU will be in mess forever because it is problem of power and greed.
izacus
Meanwhile in a neighbouring conversation thread people are attacking Van Der Leyen as she's at fault for democratic member states torpedoing the good approach.
Apparently it's undemocratic when elected governments of their countries destroy a good solution and then blame others.
codingbot3000
Good point.
If I were a small seller I would just ignore this, like many sellers on Temu do. Before you get into trouble, someone must take notice that you did not register for the recipient fiefdom's protectionism racket. And if that happens, it is not sure that you really are in trouble. As with the GDPR, this kind of regulation is almost unenforcable in practice.
deno
It is enforceable and the financial punishment is severe. There's no US’s LLC equivalent in EU, you basically only have C-Corp/Inc. equivalents (much more expensive to start and operate, both because of accounting and corporation income tax), so most small sellers in EU end up fully liable with their own wealth for the ridiculous up to 200,000€ penalties.
Chinese sellers don’t care, sure, but if you live in EU you do care.
That said while the financial penalties are in practice still not common they are chilling nevertheless.
However, EU is also now starting marketplace level enforcement, so in practice even those Chinese sellers will not be able to sell anything without registration.
fy20
> much more expensive to start and operate, both because of accounting and corporation income tax
Assumption. It depends on the country. I know in the UK I opened my limited company for £20 and there is no requirement to have an accountant prepare accounts at my size (and it's simple enough to do yourself).
Ok UK is no longer EU, but as I understand Ireland LTD, Latvia SIA, Estonia OU and Poland sp. z.o.o. are similar and can be ran as a non-resident.
simgt
Sadly you can't run them as a non-resident afaik. The member state in which you resides will come after you for taxes if you operate a foreign company.
In France the micro-entrepreneur status makes you partially liable, and running a SASU/EURL does require ~200€/m of accounting.
deno
If you actually sell intra-EU and deal with multiple currencies 200€/m would be cheap. I'd expect no less than 1000€/m.
deno
You need to do double entry bookkeeping and prepare annual financial statements for all of those you've mentioned including UK.
In addition, you cannot register LTD in Ireland yourself, the Company's secretary must be a different person. So either you are now in business with a friend or you pay someone.
For any other member country you also run into a language barrier.
Polish "Sp. z o.o." has ~1150€ (5000 PLN) minimal capital requirement.
Registering entity with corporation tax requirement in any other country also means you would need to defend its tax residency (practically impossible if you don't actually do business there) or you have to pay corporation tax in the country you are actually operating in. It's doable but now you are dealing with two different tax authorities and potentially pay taxes in different currency and you can't have books in multiple currencies so get to have lots of fun.
It's much easier to just register US LLC instead at this point. However if you want to do anything physical not digital you end up having to register and do taxes in your resident country anyway. But you can avoid corporation tax at least and keep limited liability.
simgt
> It's much easier to just register US LLC instead at this point. However if you want to do anything physical not digital you end up having to register and do taxes in your resident country anyway.
How does remaining digital help here? My understanding was that you'd still be operating a foreign company so the country you reside in is able to claim taxes, regardless of what kind of business you do.
deno
You're right I got ahead of myself a bit there.
Yes, you need to pay personal income tax in your tax resident country but that's much easier than formalized bookkeeping and corporate income tax (assuming your LLC is DE which is the default). Also for other taxes like VAT you have to register for and pay those regardless of where your company is registered.
US LLC has no formal bookkeeping requirements but you still need to report distributions and contributions to IRS annually (via fax or certified letter), submit annual statements to your state (but those are just hey I'm still alive not financial statements, they are even free in some states like Montana) and maintain registered agent but that's like $50/year. It's crazy just how easy it is.
The digital part is just about what your business can realistically do without it having local or at least EU based presence in some form.
For once you'll have issues with dealing with local businesses and EU marketplaces rather than government.
For example eBay account is basically impossible without having US address and resident VPN. And you'll constantly worry about getting banned, which is already a worry even if you are legitimate local based business since they too big to have to care about customer support like most big corps.
If you're just selling software or something like that it's much easier. The more you go into physical goods or services realm the more hurdles you will have. You can't hire people for example without having a branch or similar. Same for real estate or some equipment like cars.
Also for some services every local business you invoice will potentially have tax withholding to deal with. This is in particular a problem in Poland which has the strictest tax withholding regulations.
simgt
I wasn't talking about income tax, this one is almost easy. The country you reside in can claim corporate taxes on your foreign business. You end up having to deal with bureaucracy in both places... Otherwise all freelancers would have their company in Estonia (for easiness) or the member state that has a lowest corporate tax, while living in the one that has the best social security.
deno
Yes that was my criticism exactly, but US LLC by default has no corporate tax (unless you opt-in for some reason) while still having limited liability. It's why it's so unique.
There's no other country in the world that has anything like that.
People don't realize how insanely business friendly US is compared to rest of the world.
simgt
> US LLC by default has no corporate tax (unless you opt-in for some reason) while still having limited liability. It's why it's so unique.
> There's no other country in the world that has anything like that.
That's exactly what an EURL is in France. I'm pretty sure every country has a similar legal status.
deno
That’s cool I didn’t know about EURL. I have researched it before AI and must have missed it or dismissed because of the French language, so my mistake.
But it’s still an exception: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a8d8edbe3108191988c5dc978d62d43
Note you still have formal bookkeeping requirements for EURL unlike US LLC.
Jskewel
PPWR is an EU catastrophe.
Firstly for the reasons outlined in the article: it essentially makes being a micro/small business in the EU impossible, if your market is other EU countries.
Secondly because it validates insidious populist views that the EU institution is useless and incompetent at a fundamental level.
The legislation is so ABSURDIST that the EU have actually asked companies to ignore the law that they just implemented. I can assure you it is difficult to ignore a law that comes with a €200000 fine for non-compliance.
nonethewiser
If this view is validated:
>EU institution is useless and incompetent at a fundamental level
Then aren't the people who hold it simply correct? Why brand this valid view as "insidious populists?"
>The legislation is so ABSURDIST that the EU have actually asked companies to ignore the law that they just implemented.
This is probably the best way to emphasize it. It is completely absurd, useless, non-functional, etc.
kilpikaarna
> The legislation is so ABSURDIST that the EU have actually asked companies to ignore the law that they just implemented. I can assure you it is difficult to ignore a law that comes with a €200000 fine for non-compliance.
That's the commission telling small businesses that please don't stop selling in the EU and suggesting member states should use common sense. Unfortunately, as with all EU directives the implementation and enforcement is up to the member states, and especially certain northern countries really love their bureaucrats leaving common sense at home in the morning and sticking to the exact letter of the law. The 200000 EUR fine is Germany specific I think, obviously a prime candidate here.
jansan
Germany does an extra gold plating on every single EU regulation.
fh973
Or just ignores them, if it doesn't serve the lobby groups, like for example the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD).
easytiger
> Secondly because it validates insidious populist views that the EU institution is useless and incompetent at a fundamental level.
- resentment that bad policy damages the institution’s reputation - annoyed it proves people i hate like correct
carlosjobim
Gosh I hate it when politicians are useless and incompetent, since it just validates the false populist propaganda that politicians can be useless and incompetent, which is clearly not true (even in cases when politicians actually are useless and incompetent, which they of course cannot be, since that is evil propaganda).
gmueckl
Politicians can be quite evil, but in a functioning democracy they need to be at least competent at gathering support and navigating the occasional backstabbing plots to make it to the highest ranks of government. So I'm hesitant to call them totally incompetent.
zigman1
Exactly. Competent at getting votes (and taking them away from competition) and incompetent at leading and being in power.
ab5tract
What is the alternative that you are proposing? When I read something like this all that comes across is a strident desire for totalitarianism.
zigman1
The alternative to this is being also competent at leading.
logicchains
The alternative in this case is fewer politicians. European countries don't need another layer of politicians on top of their local institutions.
rcxdude
I hate it when politicians are useless and incompetent, since it just validates the false populist propaganda that the current politicians are only useless and incompetent (and of course the populists are totally competent).
lofaszvanitt
The legislation doesnt apply to small joes..... stop disseminating total hogwash, especially if you don't have any idea what you are talking about.
alerighi
Really the chances that someone will ask a small company to be compliant are just very low. Of course if you sell something in an envelope nobody will ask you anything, the deal and the reason for this law (that I consider correct) is to address packaging waste from big companies.
Of course this law it's complex for nothing, to me, they could have just added the cost of the recycling of the packaging material into the cost of the packaging material itself, making it that only the companies producing the packaging would need to comply (so that if you buy a box to ship something the cost of recycling of the box is already embedded in the cost of the box, like they did with plastic bags at the supermarket).
alberto-m
> Really the chances that someone will ask a small company to be compliant are just very low.
So EU has replaced rule of law with a system where every SME is a criminal and enforcement is left to chance or to the whim of the regulator (“oh, you criticized von der Leyen on your website? We cannot prosecute you for this, but let's send some inspectors to check if you are complying with the PPWR”).
Italy works like that for tax compliance. I've read USSR also worked in a similar way. The effect on economy and innovation is always catastrophic.
iamniels
PPWR is not the only one. Don't forget WEEE and the battery regulation. Only for VAT we have a single entrypoint, for all other regulations, businesses have to submit for each country. Its simply impossible.
On the other hand I estimate that between 50% and 200% of the taxes collected like this are wasted and not applied to their ultimate goals. The average collected amount per submission is so small that you cannot pay the bureaucrats managing the complex submissions from these sums.
An entrepreneur told me that they were being audited regarding the battery regulation. Two consultants came over from EY and audited all submissions in depth. They found out that the business overpaid by €10. The entrepreneur of course didn't mind and told them to keep the €10. The EY consultants told the entrepreneur to resubmit, otherwise the business would be fined. I think the government spent more on that audit by EY than the business will ever bring in on fees.
On top of this we have the regulations like Intrastat and in the future near-real-time submission of digital invoices to our tax authorities.
realityking
> On the other hand I estimate that between 50% and 200% of the taxes collected like this are wasted and not applied to their ultimate goals. The average collected amount per submission is so small that you cannot pay the bureaucrats managing the complex submissions from these sums.
The point of this tax is not to raise revenue bit to disincentivize wate. Since the tax weight based, companies have an incentive to reduce packaging.
germandiago
My first decision when building my company was to leave Spain.
They smash you very quickly. They do not care if they ruin you via prosecurion or you have to shut down. The tax agency is extremely agressive. The laws favor the agents to extents that are illegal and weven criminal (check the bonus of inspectors).
Check Robert Amsterdam work on this, something we all spanish know for a long time.
seydor
Another data point: Self-employed people in Greece are now taxed based on a "mandatory income" , which is meant to reduce tax evasion but also force small businesses to consolidate or shut down (guess which one happened). About 4000 people have objected this unfair taxation and requested being reaudited. 90% of them ended up being taxed even more, because tax laws are overly burdensome , complex and erratically applied. It's also not because of lack of oversight by tax authorities. In fact greece has the most complex digital oversight rules and digital bureaucracy , to the point that it is now ranked the world's worst country to do business: https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/articles/global-b...
ken666
Where did you move to, if I can ask?
germandiago
Two countries in South East Asia (one is Singapore) to operate.
The business is meant to be b2b SaaS which is quite global. But if I lived in Spain... omg I do not want even to imagine how they would try to prosecute me. So I do not live there and problem solved.
Asraelite
Why are you unwilling to say the other country?
germandiago
Bc it is not definitive and bc it is my right to keep it for me :D
TacticalCoder
Spain also smashes foreigners owning a property in Spain.
They see tourists and foreigners (even if they're from the EU) as a gigantic target to squeeze and screw as hard as they can. That's what you get when your economy is based on tourism and rich foreigners owning property there: you have to squeeze those hard for it's basically all you have. Officially tourism is "only" about 15% of the GDP but Spain is a service economy and so many of those services revolve around tourism and foreigner owning properties there. Same for the construction sector: they love it when rich tourists have fancy villas built there.
My wife used to own a house there. So did her mom. They sold it all and kissed Spain goodbye once and for all: too disgusted by how the fiscal authorities were treating them.
I won't go on vacation there anymore. Both my wife and my daughter speak spanish and yet we don't plan to go there anymore: she's done giving money to Spain to be seen, in return, as a lemon out of which more juice can be squeezed.
Vote with your feet and you wallet: when a country tries to fuck you, give it the middle finger.
seydor
To be honest i have no sympathy for immigra,,, er sorry expats. It is pure location arbitrage: rich pensioners moving to south europe to get a vastly bigger bang for their buck than they would get back home. It would eventually backfire, and i am glad it does. It was idiotic of the touristic countries to invite this kind of thing in the first place.
germandiago
> Spain also smashes foreigners owning a property in Spain.
I know this, just look at the media, removing Golden Visa (as if it was a problem to have a minority there getting some houses) or Richard Gere, that he run away bc he had to pay more money in Spain that he does in US, where salaries are much higher. Absurd.
Or the prosecution to Shakira, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. They love to show who is the "land owner". To the normal people I do not want even to start. There is also the case of Xabi Alonso, the football player and trainer, who fought and, like Shakira, etc. won. These are people with lots of money, but not for that it is fair to do that to them either. To the normal citizens it is much, much worse, since they do not have the resources to protect themselves and they prefer to pay a "fine by agreement" (namely, extortion) than to get through a multi-year process. In the meantime they preventively seize the amounts they ask for, even if you go bankrupt, if you decide to go ahead.
If you win, which is something people do not even dare to go through because of the seizing, then they will pay interests to you with the money of the other tax payers! Great!!! And you know what is the punishment for the tax inspector when this happens? Let me tell you: nothing, zero. So they do it systematically.
It is a place where I do not want to have much money into, and I am spanish. I wish things were different, I mean it: I am from there, my family is from there, lots of my friends are there. But no, it is not possible...
PIT reaches 47% starting at 60.000, it can reach even 54% at 300,000 euros I think it was (now probably more). It is just crazy. But this is just PIT: inherit? Pay taxes. Capital gain? Pay. Own a house and sell it? Pay taxes + capital gain. Want to buy a house? A tax with the 10% of the value. VAT? 21%. Gasoline, etc.? Reaches roughly 50% or more sometimes, depending on exact area.
You earn 80,000 in Spain and you end up paying literally (and I tell you bc I used to have a salary like that years ago) 65% or 70% of taxes if you account for all.
You want to be a freelancer? Prepare 300 euros... per month, just for permission to work. Of course, that is the start only. Now declare VAT every 3 months, go stand the tax agency requests and spend all the year in bureaucracy (that is why most people just delegate it, of course, causing expenses to them).
It is literally hyper-extractive. There is a reason why in Spain so many people want to be public workers. And do not think they think they should treat the private sector better. Noooo! You are there to pay, whatever the State needs. It is just your obligation without any regard for sensible spending, efficiency or whatever. If you make money you are kind of a somewhat suspicious person or something like that. It is a very extended mindset, sadly.
marc
> “Spain also smashes foreigners owning a property in Spain.”
In which way?
Grombobulous
Usually when people say stuff like this it translates to “the tax rate is slightly higher than [insert less desirable location here]” or "my marginal tax rate seems really high since I have a very high income"
germandiago
> "my marginal tax rate seems really high since I have a very high income"
You can read my comment above. If it was only that... it is way more than that.
But hey, a high income is not a reason to overtax over 50% to anyone. That is crazy just based on the idea of "because they earn more" IMHO.
Grombobulous
I don’t think your comment above did your argument a lot of favors.
~50% taxation rate is not even a particularly uncommon tax rate for top earners. Basically every developed country has that.
From 1932 to 1981 the top federal tax rate in the United States was over 60%, peaking above 90%.
germandiago
Rape and murder is not uncommon either and I think we can agree it is not something desirable.
germandiago
Read my comment above.
x0x0
Spain charges you tax if you rent the property out. If you don't rent the property out, it imputes a rent and you are charged tax on the imputed rent.
The cadastral value is (finger in the air) 40% of the value of the property; you pay (non-eu resident) 24% of between 1.1% and 2% of the cadastral value.
So 0.1%-0.2% of property value annually.
thfuran
0.2% is significantly lower than the property tax rate I pay on my house, and taxing vacant property seems like a good idea to try to disincentivize inefficient use of limited urban real estate.
x0x0
You won't get any disagreement from me.
gib444
> So 0.1%-0.2% of property value annually.
You're highlighting how amazingly low that is right?
In the UK (edit: England) unoccupied council tax charges can be in the region of £3000-8000/year (200% of the normal council tax bill)
germandiago
In England there is a policy for "no empty house".
But tell me what happens in England if someone occupies a house. What I know is that they are kicked out and quickly.
In Spain? Just stop the electricity or water for them or look at all the laws that make them "vulnerable" and you are going to pay for them until they kick them out. Things got so bad that now people when they rent they make an insurance against this kind of intrusion. Before this was not a problem.
x0x0
Yeah, a $800k property paying 0.2% or $1600/year is... seems low for the provision of roads, schools, firefighters, etc.
germandiago
> seems low for the provision of roads, schools, firefighters
well, not so low if you think that for roads they get 24 billion + 16 billion from highways + car taxes (car registration and others) and the maintenance of roads is 7 billion per year and they are undermaintained.
You forgot also all the money that goes to subsidizing votes and unnecessary positions. In Spain, depending on who you ask, the "comunidades autónomas" expenses are valued between 30 billion and 90 billion per year and I can tell you a lot of it is totally unnecessary. Or the central government. One or the other. There is duplication, which equals to legal corruption. Most countries have some of this but I think the case of Spain is relatively worrying.
You can ask about the firefighters, army, police, etc. to people from Ceuta or people from Valencia (where I am from). The 5th day after the disaster a french firefighter arrived to help and he was shocked to see that no spanish firefighters had arrived yet.
There is a reason why I do not like taxes, but there is even a more reasonable reason about me not wanting to pay them in Spain when I see how they are spent. Bc I still have to pay taxes somewhere anyway...
Ekaros
Property tax is not only taxation model. In some systems taxes are not really earmarked ton specific purposes instead they go to general budget and are then redistributed. So you can have lower property tax but otherwise higher other taxes and still pay for the stuff.
elric
So what? Lots of places do this. It's not unique to Spain and it's simply a tax ob real estate.
rickdeckard
As I keep reading about "no prior warning", "effective immediately", "nothing being planned ahead", etc.:
1. This regulation was SIGNED in Dec.2024 [0], the average lead-time for the final document is 13-17 MONTHS, so work on this regulation started in 2023.
2. The law went into effect in Feb.2025 and is only being ENFORCED from Aug.2026 [0]
3. The owner of this regulation is the Directorate-General for Environment (DG-ENV), which consists of members from many European Countries [1], closely working with local representatives those local government assigned to work in the EU.
This is not a blame on anyone in EU not knowing about this (!)
The point is that NOTHING was rushed here by the EU. Local representatives of the countries had PLENTY of time to contribute and influence the regulation, PLENTY of time to consult the public and local experts to work out the best local solution, PLENTY of time to prepare locally for the enforcement.
If there's a feeling that this wasn't done, then the pressure needs to be put on the LOCAL government.
It is too popular in local politics to frame the EU as an "external force" outside of anyone's influence of which the country is suffering from, while celebrating yourself for everything actually achieved by the Union of the European countries.
--> If citizens don't reject "Anti EU" sentiments and scapegoat-narratives from local governments and political parties, and demand the acknowledgement, participation and responsibility of procedures in the European Union, the pressure is not applied at the point where the problem can be resolved.
[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=OJ:L_202...
[1] https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive...
watt
When a law like this comes into effect it should have 3-5 year transition period. It does not matter how long they deliberated, there is time when law goes into effect, and then the countdown to enforcement should start, but it must not be less than 3 years, preferably 5.
rickdeckard
quite an arbitrary number, what's the objective foundation of this?
3-5 years is also longer than (most) election cycles in the local governments, so the representatives working on the regulation may not be in government anymore and are more busy fighting the aftermath of enforced regulation already decided in the PRIOR administration
stnikolauswagne
Im about as Pro EU as they come, but the problem is that lobying local governments does not help in this case. Im from Germany, we have no issues getting registration in Germany done, however when we looked into it there was quite frankly no way of getting for example the polish registration done.
As citizen of Germany I cannot really lobby the local polish government, so we are basically barred from that market by EU Regulations.
We are now in some sort of weird limbo where there is some weird language from the EU comission that they discourage punishment until some issues are ironed out so a good portion of our market segment just ignores the rules.
rickdeckard
The polish government is not relevant in your case. It was a regulation written and signed by the Union of all countries. Your local German government is your elected representative in the European Union.
They should have influenced the form of this regulation because its final form affects the business of (German) citizens in the (Polish) market and threatens the EU single-market for SMB.
stnikolauswagne
Trying to be good faith here:
It was decided that the registration is left to the individual countries (which I personally agree with, at least I think I do). Now the deadline has come and passed and some of the individual countries have not provided easy ways of registering. At what point should which entity done what?
Should I as a SMB been keeping track of the registries for the individual countries and lobbied my government to apply pressure to the other governments to set up the registrations?
Should my representative have lobbied harder to take control away from the individual countries in the union so this issue could not arise? (Should I have done so as an SMB even though I on a personal level agree with the individual registries?)
Because, again, right now we have a law on the books with relatively harsh punishments but nonexistent enforcement, this benefits no one.
izacus
Blatant lies about everything EU does have become pretty much a normal state of things on HackerNews and social media nowadays.
There are millions of dollars (and rubles) pumped into anti-EU propaganda that fuel this.
armcat
This is a great read and I can extend this argument really to any small business. Tax filing, VAT, bookkeeping, privacy, consumer, workplace and sectoral requirements frequently impose a disproportionately large cost on microbusinesses. EU is more and more split along the enterprise and VC backed line, and everyone in between has disproportionate costs. My barber in Stockholm often complains about this - the amount of money they would need to earn to overcome all these costs is staggering. So they often do lots of gigs on the side.
varispeed
General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations. Running own business is a sin.
The big corporations also don't want people to run small business, because they remove themselves from the job market and cannot be hired / exploited. So they lobby EU FOR regulations that ensure people cannot run business.
merek
> Running own business is a sin
Shouldn't any wealth creation viewed positively due to tax, not to mention value to consumers/society?
Or is the view that people on average produce more value when employed by a large corporation?
lnsru
A self employed person can deduct many things used personally from the taxes in Germany as a business expense. An employed person pays shit ton of taxes and the value added tax. So from pre-tax salary you get only 30% for spending. Lol. It’s slavery.
varispeed
Corporations also deduct things as expenses. Small business or self-employed person don't have any special privileges - au contraire - in many jurisdictions big corporations are not audited at all and have special tax arrangements where they agree with the tax man to pay certain amount of tax. The idea that small business somehow avoids tax is a myth. If you have limited company, your personal spending wont fly past accountant.
WarmWash
>General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations
The politicians are protecting the working class from corporations destroying society for profit. Lets not kid ourselves that the EU isn't endlessly praised for "having a backbone". Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections...
The thing is that people generally don't understand that everything in the world is tradeoffs rather than the media/internet portrayal of the world being good vs evil.
drnick1
> Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections...
The same "protections" also means that the E.U. has no major AI player at all. It seems like all the E.U. can do is tax and regulate what is invented and produced elsewhere.
flaunf221
> has no major AI player at all
So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? Or is it coming along with AGI which is why it should be the most important to every citizen? Or maybe EU citizens should all band together and stop being lazy and go to having 0 mandatory vacation days?
Reminds of me very old USSR joke which was basically "we have rockets in space, and don't have sausages in stores".
drnick1
> So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US?
We don't want universal healthcare, 6-month to one-year waits for routine operations, having to beg doctors for prescriptions, massive tax hikes to pay for all of that while disincentivizing people from working and keeping jobs.
KayEss
This is such an American take.
If you're unhappy with the wait time then get private insurance and go to a private doctor, just like you would in the US. But if you're too poor for that, at least you get something in six to twelve months instead of nothing or bankruptcy. And your insurance will be much much less because you're getting most of what you need publicly. Your US insurance is in the order of three to five times as much as private insurance in the EU, so your taxes are lower, but your costs are too.
The real problem always seems to be that universal health care would leave rich Americans worse off (higher taxes), would likely be about a wash for most middle earners (higher taxes, but none/less health care costs), but would leave the poor significantly better off (who are totally stiffed in the US at the moment).
So, by saying you don't want universal health care you're effectively saying that you're rich enough that you don't care about it, and you don't want poor people to be able to get health care at all, and if some die early or go bankrupt at least it isn't your problem.
defrost
> But if you're too poor for that, at least you get something in six to twelve months instead of nothing or bankruptcy.
Depends on the country, Australia triages so that routine, mundane, non life threatening procedures might take six months (or less) - but even a flat broke unemployed person needing an emergency stent placement in their heart gets that damn near over night with follow up hospital watch and after therapy at no cost (might get a $500 ambulance bill, but that's another can of worms - St John's Ambulance coverage is cheap, supports a worthy cause, and prevents that surprise charge).
KayEss
I think every national health service does something similar (minus the ambulance fee generally), but that might be too incredible for the Americans to believe?
defrost
Hard to believe or tainted with the stench of socialist communist welfare grifters as I read it.
From my PoV it reduces stress on society, increases a sense of well being, results in lesser serious crime and anti social behaviour, etc. and means I'm likely getting better value for my tax dollars than I might in the US.
WarmWash
About 8% of Americans don't have health insurance, and of those 2% willingly. So 6% want it but cannot afford it.
The poor in the US get total coverage for free.
dmix
If you want to talk about terrible regulation, the US health insurance system is a great example.
A single payer insurance system would be more rational vs choosing the worst of both worlds, which the US built through layers and layers of political compromise. The private alternative is a no-go politically in the western world so why not just commit to doing it properly?
Although of course that would require US states (more so than federal) to be more fiscally conservative, so the tax increase wouldn't be as burdensome... which might also be a no-go.
elric
Oh come on. Tax evasion by barbers is a classical example of why taxes are so high for the rest of us.
The cost of bookkeeping for a very small business is essentially zero. Everywhere that I know of exempts small business from double entry bookkeeping. VAT exemptions exist if revenue is low enough, too.
Privacy requirements are even easier: don't ask for, store, or process any personal information you don't absolutely need.
Your barber is being dramatic.
watt
I am not sure what you are driving at. My understanding of double entry bookkeeping is it's simpler and easier than the so called "single entry" bookkeeping which adds a lot of complexity because of all the special cases.
alerighi
My barber in Italy just doesn't make me a receipt in exchange for a discount if I pay him cash so he doesn't have to pay taxes. Come on... the cost to operating a small business are usually low/there are tax exceptions, and they most of the time are even not payed at all.
Of course if you are a person that ships 20 packages you don't register a company to do so, nobody will, you just sell them privately (and the exception to sell things privately is quite high, in my country you can do it up to 5000 euros AT YEAR, after that you need to declare the income in your tax declaration but still you don't need to register a company if it's not your main income).
veeti
The barber in Stockholm probably wouldn't take cash if you tried ;) Single union, different rules.
watt
In Berlin you can have same quality haircut for 15 euros, for 25 euros or 50 euros, your choice.
the__alchemist
This echos the FCC rules in the US, which I believe are gotten around by not complying.
Even if you are not making an intentional radiator, and/or are using datasheet-specified layouts or modules, you still must comply, which makes these businesses non-viable if complying.
I believe Adafruit gets around certifying every device by declaring themselves a cellphone company and being on good terms with regulators. This isn't viable for the sort of businesses and people described by this article.
I'm not sure about the Ali/Amazon products. I'm assuming they just are not complying.
stephen_g
FCC allows suppliers to self-declare conformance with EMI/EMC rules. You’re obviously taking a risk selling stuff if you haven’t had it properly tested so don’t really know if it passes but it’s unlikely to really be an issue for a small maker selling low quantities, especially if any intentional radiators (Bluetooth, WiFi etc.) are already-certified modules.
Your device tends to need to be causing problems, that the FCC then go and track down, and then come back to you. That is (hopefully, depending on the kind of device) extremely unlikely.
As for Ali stuff, probably lots of it is not tested but still comes with a FCC label - but if it is shipped from overseas, who is going to take responsibility for it? Nobody… So there is nothing they can do except fine the person who bought it if it’s really causing problems (and usually I doubt they’d even do that if the user wasn’t intentionally doing something they shouldn’t have been, they are just told to stop and maybe the device would be seized/ destroyed)
ac29
> FCC allows suppliers to self-declare conformance with EMI/EMC rules
Yes, though they can also ask for your lab results or to inspect your testing facility and hit you with massive fines if it turns out you falsified your compliance documents. As you mentioned this is very rare though - even enforcement actions against non-certified intentional radiators are uncommon.
dom96
Huh. I thought that is actually the EU that allows self declared conformance, rather than the FCC. But looking into this it seems both do?
I recall trying to build some hardware in 2020 and getting discouraged because of the CE/FCC silliness. Even though I could self declare for the EU it seemed like a big risk to do so.
WarmWash
As a hardware guy it totally kills me, to get a fun or needed small time product off the ground and legally onto the market can require ~$250k of lab certifications.
Imagine making a mod for a video game, and to legally cover your ass, go through months of testing that cost $250,000.
Talk about killing a project in the cradle.
On the flip side, there are engineers who absolutely do not give a fuck, and will design their product with zero regard for emissions. To them the world is "If it's not illegal, then I cannot comprehend why I cannot take it to the extreme".
rcxdude
That's, uh, a wildly overestimated cost of certification. Most products you can self-certify, even off the back of your own testing.
ranger_danger
Adafruit sells boards as subassemblies, which don't need individual certification.
https://emcfastpass.com/fcc-rules-kits-subassemblies/
Putting that board into an enclosure and then selling it now makes you the manufacturer, and you must certify that new product.
Robin_f
This is actively preventing me from sending packages to other countries as a maker. No matter how small the risk is, I don't want to risk a 5000 euro fine for sending a small amount of packages to other EU countries.
dgellow
Really sorry you’re experiencing this, that whole regulation rollout is a complete mess. The leadership should be sacked for such an incompetent regulation, it’s insane how much troubles they are creating for small businesses.
Another small business owner reported their experience in this Reddit thread, looks really bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1vrz88a/comment/p4i...
I’m as pro-EU as one can get but that’s a mistake we should solve asap
contravariant
The main reason I'm not particularly pro EU is the following.
How would we even sack the leadership?
RandomLensman
Who is the leadership? The Council - then it would be national elections etc for the individual national representatives; the Commission - then it would be the European Parliament.
contravariant
Requiring a 2/3 majority from the European Parliament seems a bit like a theoretical option more than anything. Even if it did (almost) happen once.
anigbrowl
No matter how small the risk is
That's just an excuse then. Register with whatever local authority in your country handles these things and in the unlikely event you get a grumpy letter just send them a copy of your registration documents.
criddell
Do you send them as your business or as yourself? If it's the latter, then I would consider forming a business to take on the risk. That's not free either, but think of it as insurance.
thesimon
Can't comment on all European jurisdictions obviously, but a 1 person LLC/Ltd. is not a great shield in Germany. Usually they'll still consider the owner/director liable because they were making those executive decisions.
graemep
Some people did the same when VATMOSS was introduced.
jeltz
And those people were idiots. MOSS was trivial to implement and an improvement of what was there before. I implemented it myself for our company.
graemep
Not far small businesses with very small numbers of cross border sales.
catigula
Do you not cross the street given the risk of being hit by a bus?
sokoloff
Fortunately, buses are not invisible and you can look for a bus before crossing a street to gauge and control your risk of being struck by one.
tygon
Schrodinger's Bus: You do not know if you will be hit until you are already in the street. I feel like there is some promise in naming a band this, but it is unfortunate it so often is what people have to deal with when bringing an item to market.
Hizonner
... but you can still fail to notice one, and you can gauge and to some degree control your risk of being fined.
In fact, if you sell 10 hobby prototype boards to other hobbyists, you probably have a higher risk of getting hit by a bus on the way to the post office than you do of being fined.
throw-the-towel
Umm akchully, not crossing a highway to avoid being hit is a perfectly sane course of action.
fitsumbelay
except he said "street" not "highway"
x0x0
Sorry, that's a really poor analogy.
Because there's a handful of companies (lectronz, seeedstudio, ebay, etc) that have the full shipment lists. So the compliance agencies don't have to go after individual business records one business at a time; they can go to probably fewer than 10 businesses and find the suggested mass rule breaking with a sql join.
See also the national tax agencies with NACE codes (euro version of NAICS).
nottorp
This is not new though. "We do not sell to EU end users."
https://pcengines.ch/recycle.htm
"... there are separate registration and recycling schemes for each of the 28+ EU member jurisdictions (and even a few of their provinces). What part of COMMON MARKET was so hard to understand for EU lawmakers ?
Since there is no single registration available, and separate registration would involve mindboggling complexity, bureaucracy and costs, we do not sell to EU end users until the EU gets their act together. Please order from EU based distributors, or as a business customer.
Business customers are expected to meet their obligations by registering in the EU countries they sell in. "
That was already ages ago when I did some sofware for them. 2007 ish if I'm to trust my Linkedin.
matt-p
UK has similar rules but, as with pretty much all other similar regulations, there are de minimis carve-outs:
≤ £1m turnover: no packaging EPR obligation, regardless of packaging volume.
£1m turnover + >25 tonnes of packaging: small producer obligations.
£2m turnover + >50 tonnes: large producer obligations.
The EU has been removing de minimis thresholds because 'China' can easily 'exploit' them. They're kind of right, but it's obviously an insanely stupid situation when someone selling something as a hobby, or just starting up on their own gets dragged into this.
mytailorisrich
The UK tends to be much more sensible than the EU and the main EU countries (France, Germany, Italy).
matt-p
I agree, though it's not a very difficult challenge. There's still some nonsense here too like for example the TV License
bogdan
The tv license is a bad example and it's in many ways better than in Germany or France. In the UK you can declare you do not watch any national tv and you forego the tax. No such luxury in Germany where as far as I know you can't avoid it. In France it's funded through vat and of course it's priced in so everyone pays anyway.
Silhouette
One significant problem with the TV licence here in the UK is that the people who end up paying it and the people who actually use the services it pays for are now very different groups. The BBC is heavily funded by TV licence fee payers but also provides numerous radio and online services. Many of those are available even to those without a TV licence. Meanwhile people who use few or no BBC services may still have to pay for a TV licence because they watch something else live but the money they're paying is mostly going to be used to support the BBC.
Also it's a silly little tax that raises relatively little money, incurs significant overheads in collection, suffers from significant non-payment, and has an aggressive enforcement operation that should clearly be illegal itself for the way it behaves.
thinking_cactus
I think in the future we should think less about fine-based regulation, and more about easy access to education, and assistance in compliance. It's much better for the environment (and the economy) that someone doesn't pollute, for example, than that someone pollutes than pays (a potentially large) fine.
So if you want to make a product, there should be readily available, easy to read and follow, guides to make your product compliant. For products with large sales volumes or higher risk, the procedures of course should be more thorough, allowing some more complexity. I think even free consults offered by governments could be a great idea, much better to have consultants before violating a law, than waste money with a lot of inspectors. Also stimulating people to solve problems (many times using technology) is another benefit.
dmix
So basically the "pyramids of support" in the responsive regulation idea https://johnbraithwaite.com/responsive-regulation/
blueSky1989
I initially learned about this from a luthier and plectrum designer, Hufschmidt Guitars, a one man shop in Switzerland. Some quotes from the update he sent to his customers:
""" For a one-person workshop, the result has been pretty brutal.
[...]
The numbers simply do not work for a micro-business like mine. Even in France and Germany, I send only around 1 to 2 kg of cardboard per year. In some other EU countries, I may send less than 100 g in an entire year. Paying annual compliance costs for one or two parcels makes no economic sense.
[...]
I have therefore decided to maintain EU shipping only to: FRANCE GERMANY """
tumetab1
I'm not sure the "anti-geo-fencing" rules will not collide with this in the near future.
The EU constantly pushes that either you sell to all EU-member-states at the same price or nothing at all.
AndroTux
As someone living in the tiny country of Estonia with just about 1.2 million residents, this worries me. No one but the biggest online shops in the EU will bother with the paperwork for such a small market. I'm expecting my import options to drop sharply in the coming years because of this.
drchickensalad
Sorry for the off topic but I absolutely love the Estonian House in NYC. Wonderful people, events, and food
anaidenov
The EU consists of member states pursuing two contradictory goals: improving long-term economic efficiency by building a pan-European single market, and protecting local inefficiencies to preserve short-term political stability. Once the first goal ceases to be about improvement and becomes a matter of survival, the second will lose its importance (and the cycle -- "low taxes and barriers - growth - seems safe to tax, regulate and spend more - stagnation" -- will begin again).
svobodamartin
History will see last years as EU that turned Europe
-suicidal for own energy industry and economy via green deal without real impact for the world (see EU vs World/ China CO2 emisions chart)
-demographically/socially suicidal via open borders and stupidly generous social benefits for immigrants instead of supporting own families
-going back in time via overregulation of every aspect of our lives
-becoming police state/s via overcontrol
-hypocritical via outsourcing industries and making carbon footprint in other parts of the world
-internally weak via not protecting european values over immigrants "rights" and terror mongering (p.e. Xmas markets canceled on many places)
-supresing democracy via online censorship (DSA)
-juicing own people via over-taxation (exit taxes and unrealized gains taxes)
-being stowaway in terms of own external security (majority of states didn't fulfill NATO requirements in terms of GDP's percentage spent on military...well this actually is one thing that improves over the years, but Europe needed a kick from east and west to becoming adult here after years of underspending)
All in all, EU controlling Europe is committing civilizational suicide, living off past merits which results/capacity are running low while morally lecturing the rest. At the same time also destroying the very foundations that made Europe prosperous. History will likely look back at us as we/Europe voluntarily chose decline.
ps. the fact that I had to check if any claim made is not illegal, shows how far with censorship we already are. Freedom of speech cant be regulated without being lost.
reillyse
Little hysterical no?
Everywhere has their problems, I think Europe is doing fine.
Where do you think is a model society ?
svobodamartin
Its a frustration and seeing things, that cant be unseen, speaking..
I don't know where model is, but what would be ideal: valuing own history, values, societies over not own, being strong outwardly and soft inwardly/on own people (not vice versa as is now), being practical and forward thinking over posing as a "leader in regulation" with suppressing everything meaningful hangover.
There are tons of examples of strategically bad political decisions with long term broad consequences.
Reminds me of "everything is fine" meme.
reillyse
What country in Europe are you referring to? Your objections seem to be quite broad and lack focus but seem to be alluding to the specific. Give me an example of what you mean?
I think leadership is hard. I’m not sure I buy the idea that a group of countries should be “hard” on anyone.
svobodamartin
Political decision to close modern nuclear powerplants without replacement - Germany. Experts made a petition to reopen them.
Migration - EU failed for many years to protect its border against illegal imigration - millions came, half a mil now legalized in Spain.
Overregulation - EU institutions themselves now acknowledge that regulatory and administrative burdens are hurting EU competitivenes
"Integration"/security - imigrants choose rich countries with good social benefits while in some areas inner security drops (car attacks, knife attacks, ra*es)
Greendeal-carbon pricing paid by industries to meet strict quotas, soon also paid by households, very expensive for europeans while having near zero effect on global emmisions in commparisson to China/rest of the world aka too much pain/costs for "nothing".
Digital regulation - via DSA, fight against so called "hate speech" and "disinformation"
Unrealized gains taxes - Netherlands
Exit taxes - France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium (conditions vary in each coountry).
Demographical colapse - all EU countries have born rate below replacement level 2.1 (average 1.34 for EU in 2024)
Strategic dependency - Europe made itself super dependent on Russia for energy and from military POV on USA, both of these dependencies are now being painfully corrected
Digital ID/CBDC: EU is building digital ID and digital euro, tools with obvious future potential for surveillance and control.
Concerning being "hard" I meant mainly protecting our borders, being hard on enforcing them and our own laws equally on everybody, being strong independent just Europe in general
Obviously I am no expert in (geo)politics, just an average Joe observing concerning tendencies and not liking direction EU is heading.
reillyse
I don't really see these as problems. I think the world needs someone to lead on the environment and Europe is more than rich enough that they can handle some short term pain. The countries aren't trying to maximize for short term gains like some other countries and thinking more long term and I think that is a great thing.
From the top. Nuclear - many people in Europe are anti nuclear
Migration - Europe is going to need migrants and I think most Europeans are in favor of a kinder Migration system
I like European regulation, particularly food regulation - I think it makes for high quality food. Besides, companies always complain about regulation.
Crime has decreased substantially in Europe since 2000 - lots of people are stoking tensions though for their own political ends
Carbon tax is good, the world should adopt one, Europe can lead on this.
Digital Regulation, more problematic for me but people are beginning to see the issues are social media and online porn, something has been needed here for a while
Taxes, lots of countries have taxes. Many countries have exit taxes - seems to be a problem for richer people.
Birth rate - as countries get richer they have less kids... not going to be forcing people to have kids so I'm not sure what the solution is there but I think Migration will play a role. ....
basically all of these sound like a bunch of Fox news soundbites rather than real world issues that Europeans have and I feel most Europeans are in favor of these things so this is how Democracy works.
I like that they are thinking longer term and not doing stupid shit like invading countries and killing people. I think thats a win in and of itself. Also, Europe has been peaceful for several generations now which is also a huge win.
svobodamartin
I think that main difference is, that you look at Europe from outside, I live here and talk to people from mentioned European countries living with these consequences and problems.
One more typical example: we have no big AI company in the EU, because EU was busy being "world first AI regulator" before the industry even started here.
And no, EU is not that rich that it can sustainably pay for policies which make its own energy and industry significantly less competitive with little to no effect on CO2: https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_widt...
Btw would you be so optimistic about Green Deal and regulation if you too had to pay EU price for petrol of about $8/gal ?
Yes peace since WW2 is great, but we have one war on EU borders and other in Middle East.
Freedom of speech is a bedrock of democracy. I dont thinkt we can bent it for different "noble" reasons or because regulators label smth as hate speech or misinfo. https://prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/image_2022-...
I think we can agree that we disagree, I wish you well.
reillyse
I’m actually European and live in the US so I have plenty of perspective.
For what it’s worth I think the US should increase petroleum tax to limit usage - not going to fly here but I’m all for Europe doing it. Especially without domestic oil sources - bring on the EV revolution, makes tons of sense for everywhere in the world especially Europe.
Razengan
Uranus, where I have announced myself as undisputed leader.
reillyse
In light of your unilateral pronouncement, I’d like to deliver my own message to all the loyal residents of Anuses everywhere… this too shall pass.
fakedang
As Supreme overlord of Saturn, I soundly dispute your assertion.
UnwrapComment
> -demographically/socially suicidal via open borders and stupidly generous social benefits for immigrants instead of supporting own families
Could you tell me how you brought immigrants to this and found them to be the problem?
brazukadev
> All in all, EU controlling Europe is committing civilizational suicide, living off past merits
The excessive prosperity ended together with the end of the colonization era (there are still a lot of european colonies but they aren't enough to make Europe rich).
Losing access to shamelessly cheap resources naturally and forced customers impoverished Europe and this process is still going. Same thing would be happening with the US thus the aggressiveness now.
herbst
I ran an online shop from Switzerland. Some years ago packages suddenly returned with the info I need to register with a packaging something company now. I had no idea what's going on, I didn't understand the concept and what they wanted. Apparently there were several companies I could register at pay a fee and it somehow became legal again, none of them looked real it looked like a lot of weird broken fake websites.
Germany was just a small market for us so we stopped shipping there.
I assume it's better and more clear these days and this probably makes it kinda easier in the long run. However it's a perfect example on how such things don't work if not done properly.
zoobab
If you are interested in the EU killing small companies and economic suicide:
https://ffii.org/unified-patent-court-is-100x-more-expensive...
This is an article from 2021, but in the meantime, after the complaints of small companies, countries made the matter even worse by *increasing* the court fees even more, citing the inflation over 10 years.
You see there is hope in this corrupt world, not to mention that the people who decide do it for themselves, states don't want to spend more so they send the bill to companies that have to litigate.
lccerina
The complaint is totally understandable, BUT the examples do not make sense. Arduino did not start as some dude selling less than 10 boards a year, but as an educational tool, which THEN ramped up to 100s of boards produced every day.
If your perspective is "I may sell 10 boards this year, maybe", your target is some local/national maker-faire, not a EU marketplace.
I think makers with such limited productions will just fly under the radar (if you sell so little, it's likely you probably won't need to incorporate or declare taxes in a lot of EU countries). If they sell 100s of products across EU, they probably have at least one over-worked accountant taking care of existing compliance stuff.
varjag
It sounds like a pain for any small company, not just individual makers. There are many small manufacturers of boutique equipment that could be sold at dozens units per year, and this would add massive bureaucratic overhead.
prolly97
For every time the EU implements a new regulation... and sees it fail horribly... it seems as if their collective minds concludes that the reason is for not having even more central control.
Soon we will have our own, European, Gosplan. Comrades.
ionwake
as the whole world crushes small entities one has to wonder whether the EU would be the saviour or not. Apparently not. With its rules, they merely help crush small business as per usual.
I heard in the 50s an american could just startup a business installing septic tanks. But now the same person would need a myriad of regulations to be met, heavy equipment use mandated, all of which raise overhead to a level where its impossible to get off the ground.
I always felt the EU were the "good guys", IE not allowing corps to steam roll everyone, what with their rules fining poor behvaiour such as privacy violations, chargers being non standard etc.
However the same problem exists in weird ways you wouldnt even imagine.
For example if someone walks into a small "mom and pops" coffee shop and accuse the owner of "ejecting them due to harrasment reasons", that results in a court case, which can bankrupt the whole margin thin enterprise.
You might say, wait how on earth would a random troublemaker get funding to take a cafe to court, and for what benefit? For one its easier for a settlement to be reached regardless of fault that benefits the claimant than a long court process.
Now how could claimants have the resources? Unbelievably it turns out there are free national non profit corporations that will take any claim for free to court for situation mentioned above.
So what happens in the end? The small coffee shops cant survive but the larger corps who can afford the random payouts are fine, the competition seems to go away on its own and the claimants are happy with what amounts to random payouts for little work.
Please look it up it, and correct me if im wrong, I only know this from some little research into the forays of why small coffee shops find it hard to survive in western landscapes and risks, as I wanted to open my own coffee shop!
In summary, as always the road to ruin is paved with good intentions. So the EU trying to help a little guy in a specific context, ends up creating a situation that makes all small coffee shops non profitable.
I have no solutions.
ilamont
> I heard in the 50s an american could just startup a business installing septic tanks. But now the same person would need a myriad of regulations to be met, heavy equipment use mandated, all of which raise overhead to a level where its impossible to get off the ground.
You can still do such businesses, but the red tape and other requirements are enourmous: health department and construction applications, soil tests, inspections, manufacturing requirements, and so on. The additional costs and delays are passed on to customers.
It's not just septic tanks, it's all areas of construction and one of the reasons why in many states (like New York and California) it's impossible to make low-cost housing anymore, or (like in Florida) new regulations governing old construction are leading to sky-high reserve requirements and condo fees.
There's also the phenomenon of people just ignoring the laws or bypassing them. For your septic tank example, in Alabama out in the countryside people with low cost prefab houses ("double wides") don't want to pay $10,000 to dig a trench for a septic tank, so they just run sewer hoses deep into the woods or ditches. https://www.epa.gov/septic/surface-discharge-raw-wastewater-...
nonethewiser
>as the whole world crushes small entities one has to wonder whether the EU would be the saviour or not.
Who was wondering this? The EU has been hostile to small businesses and entrepreneurs from the beginning.
latexr
> Please look it up
You’re the one making the claim, so please provide sources for your fantastical scenario. By your logic there should be no small coffee shops across the EU, yet this is verifiably and patently untrue.
nonethewiser
Small coffee shops prove the point. It's not worth it to invest for growth.
latexr
There is a big difference between being unable to grow and being uninterested in it. I sincerely doubt most people open a small coffee shop dreaming of expansion. Small coffee shop owners don’t want to be Starbucks. Being small and wanting to stay small is not a failure.
nonethewiser
Desire is irrelevant. Small European coffee shops can’t become starbucks.
Phelinofist
Which honestly is a good thing? Starbucks sucks. Every small coffee in the EU has a unique flair. I don't like and don't want mega-corps.
ionwake
You should do your own research and I don’t want to take up space on HN but I’m happy to take a look can you name what exactly you found hard to believe? It’s been known for decades small business can’t survive legal landscape as easily as large corps.
If you are confused by the statement there are no small coffee shops - are you living in Europe? From first hand experience coffee shops survive less than a couple years on any high street , yet there is a Starbucks on every street corner and it’s a well known fact small coffee shops operate on almost non existent margins.
latexr
> You should do your own research
Sure, but you should also understand that “look it up” is the escape words of every inane claim. “The Earth is flat, look it up”; “Reptilians are controlling the world, do your own research”; “Bill Gates is injecting you with mind-control chips, google it”.
You can “do your own research” and “confirm” anything. Which is why the person making the original claim should provide sources, so we can all discuss the same thing and not talk past each other. If your sources are flawed, it’s much easier to reach that conclusion if we’re all looking at the same thing.
> I don’t want to take up space on HN
Don’t worry, a few characters won’t make a difference.
> I’m happy to take a look
Thank you.
> can you name what exactly you found hard to believe?
Certainly. It’s paragraphs 5–8 in your original post. The claim that there are random troublemakers regularly employing free national non-profit corporations in the EU to extort and bankrupt local coffee shops by lying about having been ejected for racial reasons.
ionwake
Thanks for your reply, you are right, its always helpful to have sources but you cant expect everyone to constantly source their statements, especially when they can just be googled.
Personally, and this could just be me, I think if I read something of interest I always do my own research, as I dont believe most of what I read, so I expect others to do the same.
I also think its rude to write alot of text instead of a concise expression of an idea.
Bro 5-8 paragraphs is like saying, prove every single point in half of what you wrote.
First of all I didnt "Make a claim" I said "For example". Bear in mind everyone infers differently. My point was there are setups that allow claimants to take small entities to court, without them having to foot the bill.
Law Centres Network: ~120,000 citizens/year (free solicitor casework & representation) LawWorks: ~70,000 citizens/year (free pro bono legal advice & casework)
shimman
uhh no, if you're the one making an argument the burden is on you to provide actual sources and not say "trust me bro, look it up."
You're trying to argue how school children argue, aim a little higher if you want to convince people that know how to read.
ionwake
You are insulting me which is an odd way to have a discussion on this forum, and no I disagree with you. Stop being lazy and do your own research. To help you along I gave some more info above. Thanks for the bump.
shimman
Imagine thinking asking someone for sources as "insulting."
ionwake
No this comment is insulting as its calling me a child "You're trying to argue how school children argue, aim a little higher if you want to convince people that know how to read."
imagine if you will.... the trolling you are serving
cucumber3732842
>I heard in the 50s an american could just startup a business installing septic tanks. But now the same person would need a myriad of regulations to be met, heavy equipment use mandated, all of which raise overhead to a level where its impossible to get off the ground.
Worse. You can't even install septics in wide swaths of the country. Well, the evil people in the internet comments will say you can, but they're omitting the nonstarter costs, discretionary permits, etc, etc, that make it simply not worth it vs paying for city sewer or whatever mound system the compliance people want to make you buy.
So that sliver or industry that has 100x the compliance burden it used to has 1/100th the activity to amortize it over. Further shrinking it.
srg0
It appears there is space for "packaging and distribution in EU as a service" business model.
Creators, producers and manufacturers in many fields do not distribute or sell directly to consumers (musicians can't directly upload to Spotify and Apple Music; film producers don't upload to Netflix, writers don't print their books).
A small-time maker may pay a fee to the established distributor of the physical products, who takes care of compliance, and uses their packaging and distribution channels.
gmueckl
Good idea, except that the regulation (as I understand it) prevents this. The company sending out the packaging to the customer is the one who has to register. It's possible to hire consulting to set this up, but the fees don't go a way or get distributed over a broader set of shoulders.
nonethewiser
>It appears there is space for "packaging and distribution in EU as a service" business model.
What a fucking nightmare
vlyan
>The main idea of EPR is sensible: businesses that place packaging on the market should help finance its collection and recycling.
it is not sensible at all because businesses and individuals who dispose of that packaging already pay for the privilege.
dbdr
The problem now is that it's the producer that decides what the packaging is, but it's the consumer (or the state) who pays for the collection and recycling. By making the producer pay for it, you give them an incentive to make it more efficient.
mbq77
Except there is no incentive whatsoever; it is just pay bureaucrats with your consumer's money, so they can report improvement in fake eco-points. Most garbage collection money sinks have pricing like 1000 EUR yearly forever + 0.01 EUR per ton of arbitrarily unsustainable trash.
dvdkon
> pay bureaucrats with your consumer's money
Once the consumer has paid, it's your money now. The incentive is clear, less packaging means more money you keep. That only big producers will actually see the per-ton payments as significant instead of just having to pay absurd registration fees is a separate issue.
StrLght
It’s even less sensible when you consider the effect that small businesses have on this. But I guess it’s just another heavily lobbied law, sponsored by companies responsible for 80-90% of packaging.
wim
This is par for the course when it comes to EU regulation unfortunately. The EU should really make a choice here: either there can be EU-wide regulation but Member States can't impose their own implementations or overlapping/competing national laws, or regulation should be left to Member States. You can't have both and pretend to be a single market.
kakoni
And then there is Temu (as a platform). They've done all the necessary EPR/PPWR agreements with various European countries/vendors. It handles all the fees and reporting for Chinese sellers.
Urahandystar
Yup, soon they will offer to handle the compliance for EU sellers for no risk and low and behold the idiots have given away a tax on selling in the single market to another country before they know it.
silexia
Overregulation is the number one threat to mankind, bar none.
IsTom
I've seen some conflicting claims on this law and to me it sounded like it affects mostly producers of packaging, but everyone else seems to be complaining about it too. Did everyone actually read the law or is this a game of telephone?
alephnerd
> Did everyone actually read the law or is this a game of telephone
It's HN - everyone did the latter.
l-one-lone
The terminology is confusing. Under the PPWR, a “producer” is not necessarily someone who manufactures packaging. The regulation also covers businesses selling packaging or packaged products directly to end users in another Member State. So a maker shipping a board in an envelope can indeed be the packaging producer for EPR purposes.
IsTom
Having looked into FAQ[1] it seems that it's mostly the case if you sell in branded packaging and are >10 people or >2M eur revenue.
[1]https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ad1...
kakoni
According to the PPWR rules, if you (as a webshop) package your shipment in non-branded box and send it from another EU country to another, then you are considered to be manufacturer(=you were the first to bring this into market) and EPR/PPWR rules apply. There is no exemption for this.
anigbrowl
I'm more inclined to believe the person who backed up their argument with a citation, especially after looking at the document they linked which expressly contradicts you.
kakoni
Sorry, messed up the terms here. You became producer. From the earlier faq that parent posted;
> The following provide some typical examples of who the producer of transport packaging is: - If Company A fills the cardboard boxes and sells them to an end user in another Member State, then Company A would typically be the producer in that other Member State.
IsTom
In the following
> If Company A manufactures cardboard boxes under the name or trademark of Company B, then Company B will typically become the manufacturer and producer of the boxes in that Member State. However, if Company B is a micro-enterprise, then Company A is manufacturer and the producer in the Member State.
That has the same "typically", so I'd assume it has the same micro-enterprise exemption. Otherwise only branded boxes would be exempt and that'd be pretty weird.
mkl95
EU states do an excellent job at tolerating each other, with the odd hiccup. They are also gerontocracies fronted by middle aged leaders focused on pleasing older wealthy people, who last cared about entrepreneurship in the 70s. When you combine it with extremely low birth rates, you get a rotting economy.
bitlad
I can attest to this. People say the Netherlands is among the best countries to be an entrepreneur. The visa policies for starting a business are good. But man, the whole tax system, shares, and holding management—belasting breathing up your neck—is horrible when I am trying to do firefighting. You never know when you might get hit by a tax bill. The tax system is built towards benefitting large organizations, and they can afford expensive tax consultants who can help them dodge it. The VC ecosystem is limited and not risk averse.
Having operated in multiple geographies, US is really business friendly.
stoltzmann
>the whole tax system, shares, and holding management
You don't have to set up a holding management structure for your company. It's there if you want to, but why make it complicated if you don't want a complicated structure?
If you're small, a simple eenmanszaak will suffice - which you can fill online, and then complete within an hour at the KvK.
>belasting breathing up your neck
Honestly I never had any issues with the belastingdienst, as long as you file your reports every quarter/year, and you're willing to pay the taxes you owe.
Any time I ever had issues, I just had to talk with one of their inspectors, go over my paperwork, and we sorted it out there. When I had issues with paying, it was one phone call to defer it for 2 years and set a payment scheme.
throwawayffffas
While the regulation is really stupid and could be done much better with either a one stop shop or with simply taxing/complying in the country of origin instead of destination.
It opens a very clear market opportunity for LECTRONZ themselves. Stop bitching and start doing the shipping and selling, you probably have the volume all the micro entrepreneurs will ship to you, comply with a single jurisdiction and you take on the task of complying with all the other ones.
The EU just printed you a licence to be a middleman, the words you are looking for are thank you.
yason
Recycling fees for and managing packaging ought to be delegate-able to a packaging company. I.e. could buy a pre-made, EU-stamped and PPWR pair-for box of size WHD for a slightly higher price, put your stuff in it and ship it. The box already includes the whatever recycling fees and bureaucracy charges when the box was purchased by you. If you manufacture something complicated that requires you to roll your own packaging then you're responsible for the recycling fees but you probably can already deal with it at that stage.
tdeck
I imagine what will happen in practice is that the makers will simply ignore the law and hope not to get prosecuted or audited?
Freak_NL
No idea if this applies to the whole of the EU, but the government designated critters responsible for this in the Netherlands mention that business that ship less than 50 tons of packaging material, and don't use single-use plastics are exempt.
https://www.verpact.nl/nl/nieuw-bij-verpakkings-epr-zo-regel...
jcfrei
These blog posts often allude that the EU regulatory bodies are just slightly incompetent or short-sighted and these fragmented national models happen by accident. But unfortunately that's not the case: The EU pretends to be a single-market and almost mantra-like the EU officials keep repeating it. But the fact of the matter is that there is neither a single market nor is the European public ready for one. If there was a true single market (like the US has one) - then this would very quickly lead to massive changes in the labour market. Imagine all the Romanian construction companies suddenly building office buildings in Madrid. Or countless Polish architects suddenly undercutting the much more expensive architects in Milano. Whether they know it or not, Europeans would like to have all the benefits of a single market (mostly more competitive pricing) without any of the downsides (massive labour shifts) - but that option doesn't exist. So what they do is harmonize regulation for a few big corporations, while all the smaller companies (and their employees) still get to keep their national moats.
nonethewiser
>The EU pretends to be a single-market and almost mantra-like the EU officials keep repeating it. But the fact of the matter is that there is neither a single market nor is the European public ready for one.
There are several comments suggesting the EU did everything right and member states tanked it but this just feels like the EU operating as intended. The EU is comprised of sovereign nations. This is a normal outcome of what is essentially a P2P network. The central authority is illusory because the EU is not sovereign.
0x_rs
It's typical eco-suicide: give eurocrats more power and fake work to do, pretend most recycling regulations aren't scams, and practically destroy trade between countries in the union because you need one representative in every single country you want to sell anything in. As if adding a 5 (soon to become 7€) fee (plus tax) for every line of item (not package) outside the union wasn't enough. It is also quite obvious both must've been heavily lobbied by major retail groups through EuroCommerce.
Feedback for this utterly deranged regulation can be seen below, over 5k entries by many businesses in EU:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...
lucasRW
And don't forget to fill in all the administrative paperwork on how your business addresses climate change; LGBTQIA+ issues; men/women parity; etc !
A_D_E_P_T
Fortunately, generating this sort of annoying boilerplate is what LLMs were born to handle.
zarzavat
It is possible to ignore laws if it's too much bother to comply with them... it's hard to imagine the authorities will come after someone for mailing out 10 anti-static bags.
caseysoftware
That's a very American mindset. I've worked across both the US and EU at a variety of companies with customers, partners, etc and it's a clear pattern:
- Americans are usually willing to skirt the rules and figure it out later. This comes with risk but is ideal when you're early stage, low stakes, and you couldn't follow the rules anyway.
- Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book and will be shocked if you suggest otherwise. Being process oriented is great for high stakes industries where lives and safety are on the line but destroys startups, likely slowing or even killing innovation.
There is no floor to the level of "petty" that can happen here: the UK - granted, not the EU - goes after individuals who don't pay their TV license and determine the who by triangulating unlicensed TVs via radio trucks and inspectors looking in your windows.
pjc50
The TV license is silly but the detector van situation is bogus, at least in the present day; really they just blanket mail demand letters to every address in the database on the assumption that everyone watches TV.
> Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book
Again on HN, I don't think conflating Europe and all Europeans into a uniform culture works. This might be true of Germany but as you get further from Berlin it is .. less so.
(Famous story from the Greek debt crisis of using satellite photos to find swimming pools and therefore people who were probably underpaying income tax, which was at such poor compliance levels the state was struggling)
veeti
There's a famous website about it, I've been following since 2008: https://www.bbctvlicence.com/
caseysoftware
Yes, it appears the "detector vans" are an urban legend/propoganda.
Even more fun, in the lead up to Greece joining the EU, they had to get their government pay under control so they were given monthly caps on what they could pay people. No problem, they created a 13th month.
* As detailed in Michael Lewis' Boomerang: https://amzn.to/4cXJnjE - He's the same guy who wrote The Big Short and Moneyball
kakoni
Perhaps one explanation is personal bankruptcy? At least in Scandinavia/Finland this is an unknown concept. You mess up your business (Ireland has EPR fines upto 500ke) and end up paying company loans for the rest of your life.
fluoridation
Do they not have LLCs?
kakoni
Of course, but when getting bank loan(for the llc) to get started you have to give personal collateral.
fluoridation
I don't think any bank will give you such a huge personal loan that you could end up in debt for your whole life, since they typically want the loan repaid. The only way I can imagine that happening is if you're a sole proprietor and you get sued or fined. I can't think of another way to get exposed to that much liability.
kakoni
100ke might be enough. Once the debt is in enforcement (ulosotto in Finnish), interest can keep accruing at roughly 10%. If your earnings are low, you can pay for years without reducing the principal at all.
fluoridation
What are you doing taking on that kind of risk and starting ventures if your earnings are low? I'm sorry, but if you're a delivery boy living from paycheck to paycheck, you should be trying to get an education, not start a business. That's true in Finland and in the US.
veeti
I don't think you understand Finland at all ;-) Even the delivery boy has a master's degree, that's not the issue.
fluoridation
Should get a second one, then, if that's the meta.
Lumaestro
Depends on what Europe you mean. Europe can be quite different depending on where you are. I wouldn't say northern Europe wants to do it by the book all the time like the Germans.
Quite common to view Europe as all the same, but Europe varies much more than what US does.
maeln
I don't really have this experience. A lot of business I have worked with followed the "let's just do it and figure out the risk later" approach. In highly regulated environment it was different, but then looking for ways to squirt around the rules was the game. See for example the CumCum (don't blame me, it was called like that) tax-evasion scheme put in place by french banks.
dwedge
Most people are under the impression that those triangulating trucks can't detect anything and they're just an obvious looking enforcement truck used as a scare tactic, is that not the case?
gib444
> Europeans absolutely want to do it by the book and will be shocked if you suggest otherwise.
My experience working for small European companies is the opposite. Mostly companies run by kids of old money who truly believe rules apply to them
gib444
Don't apply* !
Always42
Do regular tv’s transmit?
caseysoftware
The old CRTs do, yes. Not so much with LCDs.
But unfortunately, I may be wrong and bought into an urban legend/bit of propoganda:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...
gib444
UK is really really good at propaganda so I don't blame you
ranger_danger
I find this hard to discuss among others as it often results in heated discussions, but in my experience, Europeans have a completely different understanding of what is considered "rude" so much that I struggle to work with a vast majority of them.
That's not to say that there aren't extremely nice people all other Europe... there are. But I'm still caught off guard when hearing them say some things nonchalantly that would get them fired in the US.
scns
> But I'm still caught off guard when hearing them say some things nonchalantly that would get them fired in the US.
I'm intruiged, can you give an example?
caseysoftware
Not sure if it's a pattern but when I interviewed with an EU company recently, they explicitly asked if I was married and if I had kids. They explained it as they had a "European mindset towards weekends and holidays" and they expected me to NOT be online.
I was fine with the mindset but never expected to get those questions in an interview, as it'd be illegal in the States.
mrguyorama
It had to be made illegal to ask in the states, because so many employers used that information in an adversarial way.
In places that don't have such a history, there's no reason for it to be taboo.
HeyLaughingBoy
To be clear: the question isn't illegal. What is illegal is using it to discriminate against a protected class, so as a result, no interviewer with half a brain will ask those questions.
ranger_danger
"you should lose weight"
Whenever I call out things like this to European friends they just think I am being an overly-sensitive American. But saying that to a colleague can absolutely get you fired in the US.
dragochat
wtf are u talking about? some examples would be in order...
FinnLobsien
The problem is that even this has a chilling effect on innovation:
1.It will dissuade some people from starting in the first place because it's one more hurdle. Even if in practice people don't comply, the existence of that complexity will dissuade some people.
2.Even if nobody is being prosecuted for mailing 10 anti-static bags, what is the number at which you do comply? And once you do, will you be held accountable for everything that came before?
lukan
Likely not, but would you want the extra risk and the stress involved, that maybe one day you will find a expensive letter in your box?
billyp-rva
It depends on how expensive that letter is.
matt-p
Maybe it's super convenient for you in the moment, but the aggregate effect is pretty bad. If everyone just ignores laws because they're too much hassle and they don't expect to get caught, enforcement becomes incredibly difficult. You end up with loads of laws that technically exist but are only selectively enforced, which is a pretty serious problem.
throw-the-towel
How would you then have backpressure against bad laws?
matt-p
Courts, lobbying (writing to your MP), campaigning, demonstrations, elections ideally. I know that non-compliance is the path of least resistance, it's just got really bad consequences.
throw-the-towel
But then you hit the same problem LLM slop exploits: the cost of refuting bullshit becomes way higher than the cost of generating it.
anonzzzies
Yeah, I always ignore them, first in my own country (NL) and after that in EU. Even if they fine (which they don't for small companies/persons), they will not spend money/efforts to cash the fine anyway, especially across borders. I had a few useless fines in the 35 years of my company, never will pay them.
dmix
Great way for larger companies to knock you their smaller competitors by hiring a firm to vet they follow the rules
bluGill
You risk that someone wants to make an example of you. You might run for mayor and your past is dig up and exaggerated
pelagicAustral
Don't hold your breath.
AndroTux
Sounds like a great opportunity for folks to sue you for exactly that. Same with the imprint requirement in Germany. There are people out there looking for small businesses without an imprint to extract some money from them.
9dev
As they should. As a customer, I want to be able to hold a business accountable, and the minimum requirement for that is being able to identify the legal person responsible for that business.
AndroTux
Yes, I too want the smallest Twitch streamer to have to put their exact home address publicly on the internet so they have no protection from weirdos and stalkers. If a post box would suffice, sure, I'd be down. But that's explicitly not allowed.
But regardless, kinda OT. I was just trying to make a point that ignoring a law isn't without consequences.
raverbashing
Yeah I'm betting on that as well
In the end, it's mail being sent.
ricardobeat
The idea that sellers, especially small businesses, need to pay a fee to compensate for their packaging is already an insult. We already pay 50%+ income tax, 19% VAT on every purchase, how come the costs are not already included in public services? What’s next, charging a pollution fee from bicycle riders for their rubber particles?
pkphilip
These sorts of regulations are killing not just companies in Europe but across most of the world.
Unless you are a medium to large-sized company, it is very difficult to remain fully compliant with the regulations in most nations now - across fields, from packaging, to agriculture, to food, aviation..
Scoundreller
As a small-time Canadian ebay seller trying to pivot to not-US... it's not a good time.
What I find funny is that all of my packaging is re-used. I guess it's still "bad" that I'm sending non-EU packaging to EU, but at a global level, I'm way ahead. Re-using >>> re-cycling.
martin_a
Newly established laws are always like a pendulum.
It swings to one side, overreaching and overcomplicating things, and then back to the other side where restrictions are loosened or removed.
Anybody remembers the EU platform for dispute resolution? It's gone after 10 years because nobody used it.
PPWR in 10 years will probably be something like: Sign up for a recycling system in your country and pay for the packaging you've brought into the market. Also have icons on the packaging so people know how to recycle them. (Except in France, they'll surely require some crazy stuff as always.)
Kudos
Anti-EU regulation sentiment really seems to have an uptick in line with widespread availability of LLMs.
The EU isn't perfect, but the catastrophising I read feels mostly like astro-turfing attempts at destabilisation.
It's probably more easily noticed from inside the EU.
Argonaut998
I agree. I say this as a eurosceptic myself. HN and Twitter make it seem like the EU is borderline third world that is moments away from collapse.
Germany is the third largest economy in the world. The EU as a bloc is the second largest economy in the world.
While lagging considerably behind the US and China in services, it still is among the leaders in energy and manufacturing.
It’s in decline, but it’s really not anything that can’t be fixed.
Certainly not anywhere HN/Twitter like to make it out to be.
The EU is facing a two-front information war. A strong EU doesn’t benefit the US, Russia or China. Having said that, a lot of US criticisms that are propagandised against the EU are mostly fair criticisms, the EU makes it easy for its adversaries to propagandise low hanging fruit (such as the bureaucracy on display here)
benoau
> feels mostly like astro-turfing attempts at destabilisation
Well it is certainly the perfect conditions for it, the EU is surrounded by friends and enemies alike who openly seek to break it up and the biggest companies in the world are doing everything they can to defy and undermine regulation efforts.
NooneAtAll3
Tech is an even field and had it been the primary cause, pro-regulation voices would be as prominent as anti-regulation ones
What really is happening is budget constraint - european 3-letter agencies don't get as much funding as US/UK ones and, due to failed geopolitic strategies, are spread over all sorts of vectors of internal sentiment defence - migrants, Turkey, ARTOS separation, etc
it isn't noticeable due to all the accumulated wealth, but european economies are being bled dry, but pretty much all geopolitical players. They stopped balancing between multiple centers of power - and now painfully pay the price of misaligned dependence.
21asdffdsa12
Stability - on the defense, is like goal-keeping in soccer. You can protect the goal 99.99% and still loose. And therein lies the crux! The EU does not attack, it seems to think that waiting for the old world to return is enough - basically a extended hibernation to another episode of good times.
But maybe this is it. Maybe good times, made via surplus bribery by innovation and innovators will not come around for a while. So what do you call a strategy that relies on something hopefully to come, that you are unable to produce or even articulate you need.
arjie
Everyone likes to think “it’s the bots” or whatever but GDPR came before LLMs and the reaction to that was the same. I think you’re probably seeing just the effect of a bunch of Americans on an American site in awe at the legal barriers in place in the EU.
Kudos
Troll farms existed before GDPR. What I'm talking about is the supercharged disinformation capacity LLMs brought to them.
myaccountonhn
Yeah any thread on the EU is full with that on HN.
shimman
They want the lifestyle of Europe but do not want the rich to pay more taxes to support it.
throw-the-towel
But don't Switzerland or the UK have similarly comfortable lifestyles with less absurd taxation?
jvwww
UK taxation is absolutely absurd. Kills the ambitious. Just look at what happens between 100-125k, both from the perspective of tax and loss in benefits for parents.
throw-the-towel
Well, as sad as it is, that's still better than what they have across the Channel. (You'd pay 44.4% tax on the equivalent of 125k GBP.) But thank you for correcting me, I wasn't aware of that!
jvwww
Yes, but you'd lose childcare benefits in the UK so it's much, much worse if you are a young parent.
Kudos
That's a leading framing, but comparing an individual country and a 27 member trading bloc in that way makes no sense even if it wasn't.
zuzululu
No, there was already a steady complaints against Anti-EU regulation from within Europe around the time Eurozone debt crisis introduced sweeping changes that ultimately centralized regulatory enforcement over sovereign interests of EU member states. I think anybody from Europe would know this is the focal point when anti-EU sentiments really ticked up.
There really isn't much of astro-turfing in non-EU parts of the world that would make little sense, your narrative might make more sense if there were any actual evidence or credibility behind the claims that non-EU states are engaged in anti-EU discourse that doesn't apply to them.
The complaints against EU is a lagging effect and what you see today is cumulative, one that all federated organization eventually face. LLMs have little to do with it and its just more visible as it is quite literally in global discourse
Kudos
> your narrative might make more sense if there were any actual evidence or credibility behind the claims that non-EU states are engaged in anti-EU discourse
The uptick I'm talking about is in the last 2 years.
At least one Israeli Minister has bragged about them doing it.
I don't think you need specific evidence of Russia doing it, it's widely believed to be happening by security professionals. They famously had troll farms of people employed to spread disinformation and that can only have been accelerated by LLMs.
zuzululu
Again the trope Russia did it is as ridiculous as Trump claiming China rigged US elections. There's simply no real hard evidence that can be examined without partisan bias.
I don't doubt the existence of troll farms either its just that the idea that you can influence online discourse in the manner claimed by both Democrats and Republicans and beyond in a left vs right rivalry is greatly exaggerated and carry their biases.
At the end of the day, you really can't change whatever beliefs that the crowd has had for ages. You can't astroturf Palestinians into changing their view against Israelis and you can't astroturf Israelis into changing their position towards Palestinians.
Kudos
You're basically saying that propaganda is not effective and then building a steel man to defend it, and I cannot take that starting position seriously.
cbeach
There's no "catastrophising" here. This is simply an article that rationally explains why the latest EU regulation is well meaning but poorly implemented.
It just so happens that the same is true for a lot of EU technical regulation.
At what point are we allowed to say "the EU is failing to regulate its members effectively"?
Or are we not allowed to say that because it would create some kind of catastrophe where the EU Commission loses its power over the EU27 and Russia invades (or somesuch catastrophising...?)
throwawayffffas
While I generally agree, the specific regulation case seems to be particularly egregious, the playbook for the regulation already existed through the VAT system. They deliberately chose to add to the single markets fragmentation. By adding additional bureaucratic loops to enter each individual market.
veeti
Somehow there is always an endless supply of coincidence theorists ready to hand wave away all criticisms of EU shooting itself in the foot. The TFA is from a seemingly legitimate Greek business with a 5+ track record of selling and publishing electronics content online. They obviously work with many others in the space and have come up with this plea for some reason.
And you are calling this astroturfing LLM based on what? It's really no different from calling tariffs so much winning and laughing at seething liberals.
unfamiliar
What do LLMs have to do with it?
Kudos
What do automated content generators have to do with astro-turfing?
fidotron
You really have to wonder what Xi Jinpeng thinks of all this.
The extent to which China can appear to do nothing while the west kills itself is just unbelievable. How could you possibly respect people that can't get out of their own way so repeatedly?
vachina
He simply doesn’t think about it. It’s none of his business and there are higher priorities to think about.
niceguy1827
I think it popped up maybe a year or two ago on youtube/reddit but there was this meme that goes: "China: do nothing, profit".
geremiiah
EU also recently introduced a 3 euro fee on all packages from China. Maybe well intentioned but it puts a huge markup, when a thinker wants to buy a very specific 0.05 euro spring from AliExpress or something along those lines.
Scoundreller
nonono, it's 3 Euro per tariff classification.
a 0.05 EUR spring, a 0.05 EUR bolt and a 0.05 EUR LED in the same package = 9 EUR fee
https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/ensuring-fa...
mbq77
The funny thing is that Lectronz is selling electronics, which already have to be compatible with WEEE (crossed bin icon), which is similar to PPWR, requires hefty fees separately in each member state, and CE (CE icon), which in turn requires expensive EMC testing and a shitload of paperwork. It can work in practice because the enforcement apparatus is almost non-existent.
IronyMan1
I believe the view layed out in the article is wrong. The German Wikipedia has an article about the PPWR. One Paragraph is saying: "The distributor must verify that the manufacturer and, where applicable, the importer have fulfilled their requirements, that all necessary markings are affixed to the packaging, and that the manufacturer is registered in the producer register pursuant to Article 44." That does not sound like you are responsible for registering yourself but you need to purchase your packaging from registered vendors and you need to verify that. Sound reasonable to me.
l-one-lone
Unfortunately, for direct cross-border sales, the regulation explicitly makes the seller the "producer" in the customer’s Member State, and requires registration there. Buying an envelope from a registered Greek supplier does not register the seller in Germany or France.
IronyMan1
OK you are right, i looked at a different regulation. But, i still do not understand why i cannot buy pregistered packaging for the whole EU? Or why i cannot register in one country for all Cross Border sales. I mean there are minimum standards imposed by the EU and the packages need to have a mark. So why is it like that? Even more 1 years after the draghi report....
Shihan
There is way too much regularization in Europe. I get it, we want to be clean, nice and modern. But everything has a cost, there needs to be some balance.
logronoide
As a retro hobbyist that sells worldwide I wrote about this mess weeks ago: https://sidecartridge.com/blog/2026/08/10/ppwr-eu-vs-small-c...
And I stopped selling to all eu countries except Germany and Spain.
leros
Laws like this really need to only be enforced for companies of certain sizes.
mortarion
In the EU some companies simply cannot grow because of laws like that. They might want to grow, but can't because of laws that says if your company has more than X employees you suddenly have to deal with a bunch of extra bureaucracy and reporting requirements. These companies purposely stay small, and basically has stopped hiring, even if they could use more manpower.
brohee
This has its own issues. Big bad actors can now split their activities between more smaller companies to avoid some regulation. I've seen it happening.
leros
That's the tradeoff for allowing smaller companies flexibility to thrive without being swamped in regulations and fees.
lukasbm
that's fair game though. Either way they waste money on administrative overhead, which seems to be the goal of this whole procedure
dmix
That would just add tons of extra paperwork and a much larger administrative system to vet all the sizes of companies. IRL they will probably not even be enforcing this widely (like GDPR) but the costs will still be imposed on any business wanting to sell in Europe.
SV_BubbleTime
Selective enforcement is a tyranny generator.
How about the law doesn’t exist if it doesn’t actually make sense?
some_random
Selective enforcement is just tyranny, but what I think they were getting at is a minimum size enshrined in law. I don't think it's a great idea, really highlights how arbitrary this all is and presents a risk of advantaging the worst actors more than real makers, but it's a valid way forward.
leros
Laws like this are a good idea but its too burdensome for small companies so it cripples innovations and small businesses. Only applying it to larger companies let's it apply to only the companies who have the largest impact and also can afford compliance, while not stifling small businesses. Not perfect but I think it's a decent tradeoff.
mmmpetrichor
there are many federal laws in the US (and im sure other countries) that only apply when your company reaches a certain size. This is the most obvious way to balance regulatory burden on new companies while still enforcing regulations on large companies that have enough resources to comply.
bluGill
The law makes sense, the details where things don't make sense
erlich
Australia has 28M people and isn't part of any supranational union. Same with many other countries.
Why are Europeans so obsessed with this integration?
Mashimo
Odd that there not already is a minimum threshold in place.
This would even apply when selling a few electronic knik knaks on ebay?
anigbrowl
A simpler solution (which the author doesn't seem to consider) is just putting hte cost on the packaging vendors, who will of course pass it on to their customers. So the price of a padded bag or whatever will rise perhaps 20 cents, but the person mailing goods from their micro-storefront doesn't have to worry about that.
TrackerFF
The workaround here tends to be simple: Don't sell stuff as a incorporated business. Only do that once you cross a certain level of revenue.
But as with anything here in Europe, check your laws.
KellyCriterion
In most EU countries law, this one is also considered as "solid business", regardless if you are incorporated or not:
If you are running on a level with focus one some revenue, if you are doing it somehow regularly and if you have at least some infrastructure to look like you are a corporate (billing system, customer care or similar), then you may fall under corp rules, even if you are not acting as an entity.
weberer
>Don't sell stuff as a incorporated business. Only do that once you cross a certain level of revenue.
Are you saying to sell as an individual? People don't do that because if you ever get sued, it puts your personal assets at risk.
sdfonw
I'm sorry I don't buy this. A "micro-entrepreneur" should be trusted to design a product complying with the regulations of 27 member states but cannot be bothered by the packaging requirements?
My guess is that most of the products on this website simply do not comply with the norms and regulations they ought to, thus why care if they don't comply to waste management either.
dwedge
You don't generally have to pay a bureaucracy tax to each of the member states to do business there. At some point we might as well just bring back tariffs and do away with the overhead of the EU
kazinator
> Introduce an EU-wide de minimis threshold.
You would think there de facto already is one?
A small time operator shipping a few boards here and there can do it completely under the radar, not even aware that these rules exist.
If it pops into my head to make a circuit board, put it into bubble wrap and mail it to someone, I'm just gonna wake up, take a shower, have a coffee and then proceed to do that, and not think about anything else.
komatsu
Sign a petition rising this issue: https://www.change.org/p/stop-destroying-eu-micro-businesses... (75k signatures already)
W3zzy
I feel like it would've been a better choice to start this petition on the EU's platform.
https://commission.europa.eu/get-involved/engage-eu-policyma...
capibara13
Yes it's about time that Europe becomes a little nicer to startups.
rrmdp
This is really sad to read :(
So many entrepreneurs (who can because software businesses) are leaving EU
podocarp
Being responsible for collection is such a dumb way to do it. Collection doesn't even occur. Can someone explain to an outsider what these laws are motivated by? They seem so far removed from reality. Isn't a flat tax on all packaging like plastic bags in supermarkets going to be more efficient?
motbus3
I understand the package complains, and I understand how it undermines the maker scenario. I think smartly using the scale of things might be helpful, but they are targeting Qualcomm and not Arduino users.
Unfortunately, because all of us have postponed thinking about solving the problem, now we have a problem and braking is safer than not breaking at all.
In my country we do have advanced collecting systems but it all falls apart when different materials can be prioritised. There were an interesting proposal of having the companies to buy back the recyclable rubbish but that was scraped.
I was up to this. Because they would need to emit in the docs the amount of money the package cost and how much they would pay back, it was possible to track the sources from a fiscal eyes.
I think it was scraped because people already thought on ways of breaking it, instead of giving better alternatives.
lores
These conversations about EU regulations, bureaucracy or general slowness and carefulness contrasted to American ease of doing business and raising capital always make me think "but... look at the state of America! Is it really something to emulate?"
planb
EU regulation is basically broken beyond repair. And I used to be the biggest proponent of it. When everyone was being angry that they are taking away light bulbs this was a kick starter for LED lighting and I guess Signify (formerly Philips lighting) and Osram wouldn’t exist today if they hadn’t been forced to invest into that field of technology.
Unfortunately the EU does not at all understand how the internet works, maybe even how the global economy works today. Their goals are very reasonable and I fully support them, but the legislation around it (DMA, AI Act, GDPR, this new packaging stuff, don’t get me started with whatever everyone calls the cookie law) is just out of touch with how the modern world works. Again, I don’t think this is out of bad intention (not even to give an advantage to EU companies, but that is up to discussion) but mostly just out of a complete lack of understanding of what would really benefit the common EU citizen. The just seem to listen to activist groups and lobbyists aiming for regulatory capture and when trying to find a compromise in between they chose the worst of both worlds.
jansan
I am pretty sure the reason for the ban lightbulbs was to push sales of fluorescent lamps before LEDs would finally take over. It came just when LED lamps were still too expensive to replace the light bulbs, so people were pushed into those crappy fluorescent lamps, only to have them replaced a few years later by the much better LEDs.
regularfry
If, in my outbound package, I include a prepaid return envelope with instructions to post the packaging back to me, does that get me out of registration requirements?
_the_inflator
I like the pundits, who sit in their office chair, who never did anything that involves business, not even organized a charity nor event, but want to lecture a maker about how wrong he is and how he can comply with EU regulation.
This is the trademark of the EU: free market means, guys in office chairs lecture makers, how to play their game.
Imposing more regulation is of course helpful, because it enables more state employees to lecture others.
This is so bogus and wrong, it is FBR.
The new EU regulation makes you track like a spy on a package in a foreign country and report about its whereabouts - while open borders and controls are very lax for other things.
Let that sink in: picture it that you personally watch and report what happens to every package you use. What a joke. How comes, human kind survived 100.000 years without the ingenious of the EU?
And the best part: Regulators tell the states to ignore their law...
What a place to be...
dostick
> Assigning an official PETI petition number usually takes several weeks. If this is how it works in the EU bureaucracy, then there’s no hope.
roblh
Is there room for a company in the EU to spend some time doing the research as to what packaging is able to be used across all the different countries, then selling affordable packaging that meets those standards across the board? And also publish resources for how to effectively package stuff? A genuine question, I’m not from Europe. It just seems like something that would benefit everyone and help make this less of an issue. Or maybe this is the responsibility of the postal systems themselves? If you’re gonna mandate a certain way of doing things, at least give people the tools to do it the way you want them to.
dgellow
Yes there are some middlemen , but that really shouldn’t be necessary. That becomes just a sort of racket business. The main problem isn’t what packages should be, it’s that businesses must get a license in every single EU member they want to send a package to. That’s just insane, and there is no unified portal. Some countries don’t even yet have a portal.
mcbg1541
This seems a bit too much. It would be better if it only applied to companies over a certain size.
PowerElectronix
You can't throw all that red tape and not expect to get a lot of folks tangled to death in it.
bryanrasmussen
it seems weird to me, because normally legislation of this sort has a minimum amount of revenue required, or company size requirements, but not this one? I mean reading the article it seems not, but if it was just some guy telling me this on the street I would naturally expect they were misinformed and there was a requirement for the law to apply that they had missed in their review of the matter.
thinking_cactus
Definitely believe regulation burden should be proportional to impact.
Also, for those small cases, why not put responsibility (for any harm) more directly into both the customers and producers? For example, if a producer of a new low-volume product somehow manages to get a lot of waste packaging into the environment, they could be held responsible and pay a fee, or probably who discarded was the consumer, so the consumer in this case should be held responsible. I get that large corporations should be held to higher standards, and take stronger preemptive measures and follow stricter compliance rules.
I think the same should apply for all sorts of regulations, like electrical safety, radio emissions, etc.. If you're designing and selling a small product, you can and should take responsibility for what happens to it (in the case it is found your device bad design/construction itself caused injury, of course). Maybe the only thing you should be obliged to do was put a large sticker like 'WARNING: Prototype-class device. By opening you accept some RISK OF INJURY from device. Return to source if terms not accepted: (...)' -- that is, both you and the consumer should share some responsibility for trying something experimental.
Probably the overwhelming majority are completely harmless low-voltage devices.
In general, I think outcome-based and performance-oriented regulation is something that should be more widespread. Like, there should be in the worst case two options: (1) You follow a strict set of rules and guidelines that dictate how companies in your industry type should operate (specially important for high-risk stuff like nuclear plants, large civilian housing buildings, etc.); (2) You (instead) take increased resposibility for outcomes of your activity (products, devices, etc.), being liable for any damage at an increased rate.
raffraffraff
How about adding a return packaging cost and have the empty package sent back to the country of origin so that you can drop it into your own recycling bin?
jurschreuder
I don't know but I highly suspect this law will mainly effect people drop shipping from China and will benefit companies like us who for moral reasons work to re-shore production.
When I get packages from Europe it's always is recyclable cardboard while from China it's always wrapped in plastic.
When I get packages from Europe or the USA it's always branded so the company responsible is always clearly shown, while from China it's usually brandless.
smarri
To comment on a narrow point, a friction point like this is an opportunity for an entrepreneur.
moezd
There is one thing European countries all agree on: Their lawmakers know it the best, thus all create their own carve outs and exceptions.
k310
Opinion: Big companies are (secretly) in favor of regulation, because it burdens small competitors to the point of failure.
Ain't it the case everywhere?
igsomething
Doesn't this new law overlap with the existing system? A manufacturer within the EU is already paying taxes, which in part should be used for managing waste. If they buy the packaging materials from another EU company, well that company is also paying taxes already. If they are importing from outside the EU, the packaging material pays taxes.
uxhacker
What is amazing is that this goes so much against the concept of the EU. The EU was founded on the principles of four freedoms, Free movement of goods, Free movement of persons, Freedom to provide services, and Free movement of capital.
The EU even have a SME Test to maker sure small business are not overburdened by regulations.
Also there are thousands of lobbyists fighting for small businesses. Yes, this law will probably eventually be thrown out for small businesses but after how many years is a big question, and how many small businesses have lost there businesses.
And the law was devised by Ripa di Meana, who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and the green party.
zoobab
"Also there are thousands of lobbyists fighting for small businesses."
I don't know on which world you live, but it's the opposite.
Big business buys influence, including buying the opinion of small companies.
And big business is all around Brussels, small companies simply don't have a 'lobbyist'.
KellyCriterion
Not quite exactly:
-- The EU was founded on the principles of four freedoms, Free movement of goods, Free movement of persons, Freedom to provide services, and Free movement of capital. --
If you take a look at first paragraphs of the EU contracts, they sate above all these:
-----------
Article 3
(ex Article 2 TEU)
1. The Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.
2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime.
3. The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.
It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child.
It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States.
It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.
4. The Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro. ... ----
So its only about free movement of people in the beginning, goods and services are much later in the docs
sajithdilshan
> And the law was devised by Ripa di Meana, who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and the green party.
how ironical
cobbzilla
It’s hard to overthrow actual free markets. Small business is too sympathetic.
But if you pass enough well-meaning regulations and strangle all the small businesses with good intentions, it’s much easier to overthrow a crony-capitalist oligopoly of megacorps, which is exactly the end game.
sajithdilshan
yes, and go back to communism 2.0. because that worked so well the last time it was tried.
raverbashing
> And the law was devised by Ripa di Meana, who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and the green party.
Why am I not surprised. But to me the worse is the 400 something rubberstamps this crap got
potatoking
The EU still believes in fair markets so I don't really see a valid suggestion in the article.. Every US or Chinese seller to the EU can be de minimus, etc, so the EU lowering its standards for consumers and the environment helps mostly foreign vendors who have lower standards to meet in employment, etc.
maratc
This could be easily solved if the EU sold tiny prepaid certificates-of-compliance that one could affix on the package itself (to show the fees were paid.) Larger weight package would incur higher fees. The post office then could stamp these certificates to prevent second use.
theplumber
The reason for this mess is because individual countries want to retain some kind of control over the whole thing such as VAT/tax investigations and implementation of the laws. In a way it’s the “worst” of both worlds federated and individual countries but somehow still better than the latter.
rjsw
The new EU regulation on Digital Product Passports may have similar effects on small businesses.
I was expecting that they would build the "passport" on top of existing design standards but that doesn't seem to be the case, the recent webinar on it doesn't go into much detail though.
charlieyu1
Is it actually a bad thing? From Asia I definitely see so much shady business practices from small businesses. Customer protection is non-existent. Keeping small businesses in drive prices down, but also drive wages down. I don’t think this is a compromise that many people would be happy with.
carlosjobim
You're right, and this is also why we should only allow accomplished piano players to play the piano.
delfinom
Small businesses result in innovation. There is little innovation from big business whose entire mission becomes profit maximization once sufficiently large enough. The little guys are that ones that come with new ideas and move fast to grow it. This is the entire story of startups in the US, silicon valley and more.
Big business also drives down wages way more than small businesses. When you are one of the few major employers in an industry, there is zero need to pay more while sucking in profit. Sure, maybe you could get an union involved but you are still subservient to the same employer who no longer has to respond to any labor market pressure other than quelling the union once in awhile.
runarberg
I am from Europe and I think this complaint is misplaced. Europe is currently speeding towards neo-liberalism at lightspeed and shows no sign of slowing down. The beneficiaries are primarily the CEOs and big corporations. The workers are certainly not the ones benefiting from the status quo, especially if you look at the stripping down of consumer protection which is starting to look like completely absent in the continent. And on top of everything you have mass austerity, stripping away any social safety net.
However I do not see favoring smaller entrepreneurs over the status quo as something which will improve matters at all. It feels saying our problem is that we have the wrong capitalists. We just need to swap out our old capitalists, get new ones in, and hand them the exploited wealth, and then everything will be good.
What Europe needs is a focus on workers. Enough with capitalism already.
Urahandystar
Workers need businesses or their is no work. Favouring smaller enterprenuers get more workers.
runarberg
Businesses need workers a lot more then workers need businesses. And Europes whole deal is to shift this power imbalance in favor of the the businesses. This has to stop.
cm2012
Is europe liberalizing its labor laws at light speed?
runarberg
I wouldn’t say so. Labor laws are still strong in the continent (at least in the more unionized parts of the continent), though salaries are very stagnant and not keeping up with the mountain rise in the cost of living.
Unions are still strong, but they have been focusing less and less on consumer protection, there are still some victories, like increased holiday/sick pay, parental leave, and gender equality. But compared to the rapid loss of consumer protection, these victories are coming to few and to far apart.
deliciousturkey
One additional problem is that this reduces options as a consumer in smaller EU countries. Smaller ships no longer are willing to take on the risk and bureaucracy of selling to smaller markets, meaning only a few, large players remain. Like Amazon, Temu, Aliexpress, or larger local companies.
raffael_de
isn't that what cyberpunk is in terms of a political something (as opposed to just an aesthetic)? f EU and its bureaucrats, f the corps and its shills ... about time we're going rogue now .. HACK THE PLANET!
gwbas1c
I would think that someone could make a business that sells "standard" packaging that's registered throughout the EU, and that a small business could use that packaging instead?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?
nickff
Each company is required to register and report to each country. If you’re a 2MM EURO revenue company (not that big), and you want to sell one $5 item to Germany, you must be registered, hire a local representative, and file the most comprehensive type of reports.
Using standardized packaging might make the reporting a little easier (because the information is nicely organized), but doesn’t help with all the friction and added costs.
xyzelement
EU has a double-whammy problem that the average citizen is old, and the more ambitious youth has moved to London, Switzerland, or the US.
So those who remain are statistically too old or non-ambitious to think regulatory friction applies to them, and they are right.
vibe_that_works
If you are a small maker and looking for the loophole here, this is it: "PPWR excludes an object where it is genuinely an integral part of the product, necessary to contain/support/preserve it throughout its lifetime and intended to remain with it."
alephnerd
It isn't a loophole - this was done on purpose.
De minimis and the previous packaging regulations were used as a tariff bypass by Chinese platforms like PDD and SHEIN, which led to their crackdown over the past 24 months [0][1]
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/067ba5bb-4da3-42fc-a57b-9dd27a8f9...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/eu-probes-shein-over-...
vibe_that_works
Let me spell out the loophole: Just don't use packaging. Redesign your product so it comes in a sturdy container that makes it integral part of the product itself and completely side steps the obligations here.
Scoundreller
I'm going to get a lot of packages packed in a cat box, aren't I?
st-keller
They don’t think, that they are killing innovation! I was told that they measure „innovation“ by „patents granted“ - and if you see it that way, only big enterprises can be innovative! And i bet most bureaucrats never worked at a startup!
blks
Are these rules actually that destructive, or are we witnessing astroturfing campaign?
Semaphor
My impression is that the rules make sense. For big companies. Sadly there are no limits whatsoever, so the same thing that’s easy for big companies, is essentially impossible for smaller ones.
I’ve seen several smaller bands in the EU stop sending merch to any country in the EU not their own, because they don’t know how to handle this.
akoboldfrying
TFA laid out exactly how destructive it is. It would wipe out the 50% of Lectronz sellers who sell < 10 items per year, and thus Lectronz itself, not to mention anyone else (e.g., artists) who only sell a handful of items a year.
What wasn't clear? Do you not find those claims plausible?
george_max
I run a small hardware startup, InfiShark Tech -- we sell affordable battery-powered cybersecurity hardware worldwide. Europe has been by far the hardest market for us.
The costs in this article are understated for products like ours. This is not just for packaging -- they have separate compliance schemes for electronics (WEEE). If selling products with batteries, you must comply with separate battery regulations. If you pass a certain threshold or contain specific chemicals within your product, you must also comply with the REACH regulation. They work almost exactly the same the article describes, but often with higher costs.
Additionally, you must have CE certification for your hardware product. There is no threshold. This means going to a lab and testing RF capabilities, and for wireless / Bluetooth devices it can cost $1,500-$8,000. You can self-certify but it is risky.
We pay 800-2,000 EUR per country annually for the authorized representative (AR) and producer responsibility organization (PRO) fees. The AR's task is to hold some documents and provide them to the government when requested -- but that's it. We can do this for free. There's no reason the costs should be this high -- and I see minimal reason why they should exist in the first place. But we must comply.
It is important to understand which regulations and which fees to pay for the product. Therefore it is important to use something like PRONEXA -- a "One-Stop-Shop for simple compliance management".
With them, we paid ~800-1,000 EUR per country as a one-off registration fee. Then we pay 975 EUR annually per country to keep compliance. Note that these costs are ONLY to PRONEXA, not to each AR or PRO. They are effectively the middleman between us and the ARs / PROs.
The fee stability is quite poor, too. We paid the 2025 annual fees roughly a month before year-end and were charged another full annual fee in February 2026. In November 2025, we paid ~500 SEK for Sweden, and in Feb 2026, we were invoiced ~15,000 SEK for that same line.
With all of this burden we only pay the countries ~0.5-50 EUR annually for the actual environmental fees. This only makes sense for the government if that number jumps up to the thousands.
I think this contributes to lack of innovation in Europe. Small startups can't ship there, and you are limited to large companies overseas. The fix is dead simple -- just introduce a threshold, or charge a recycling fee upfront with each parcel coming in, depending on the HS code. What they did with IOSS is great. You register with one country, and all parcels under 150 EUR can be sent to all of Europe while being VAT compliant. They could implement the same thing for WEEE, battery regulations, packaging, and REACH. Register with one country and cover the rest.
We are barely break-even on some countries, and others we are totally underwater. We decided to do it as a future scaling opportunity, but this first year is quite tough. We are debating if we should continue selling to Europe at this stage.
slow_typist
That’s what I thought, the European market is already very difficult for startups, market entry is overly restrictive and therefore expensive and time consuming. From this perspective, the new waste regulations are just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
maxerickson
What drove you to have an authorized representative in every country? Or is it a single entity charging for services on a per country basis?
cm2012
Thank for sharing so many fascinating details!
rramon
They'll get adequate feedback in the next elections If this doesn't get stopped, otherwise every business and their peers will likely vote for EU critic parties which means far left or far right.
seydor
The EU executive doesn't hold general elections
rramon
They're fanning Brexit-like situations all over the EU though. Those parties (e.g. the far right Afd in Germany) are EU critic and would rather have their own version of the EU with like minded countries. Or Varoufakis (far left, previously at Valve) in Greece for example, also EU critic.
andai
Hmm, I wonder who could have predicted this.
Maybe the corporations who pushed the laws?
I have no info here, just thinking "what would I do if I was a wealthy corporation?" Dig a deeper moat!
phazerfamza
aah Europe and the EU. If we don't know how to do something properly, we just create new rules and regulations, or simply just add another tax, that's the european way.
KronisLV
> a fragmented national model
These approaches will waste billions upon billions of Euros for no good reason. Having different VAT rates per-country already leads to overcomplication in so many places.
cmiles8
Europe would rather regulate companies out of existence than grow them.
antonvs
Option #1 seems simplest.
Option #3 discriminates against individuals who sell direct, without using a marketplace.
A possible option #4 is: establish EU-wide rules that can optionally be applied to cross-border transactions. I.e. a seller could choose to follow the EU-wide rules when selling into another country. This doesn't require countries to change their own internal rules.
enether
Sounds a bit like registering and reported to each country's VAT system, which almost no online creators do (even ones making hundreds of thousands of online subsription revenue)
hmpetleva
In my country I don't think you need to register until you make €85k for B2C for domestic payments.
If you need to register, all different VATs across EU are handled by a single VAT OSS registration.
My €20/mo accounting subscription includes it as standard (even though I don't need it).
dec0dedab0de
All regulations end up being scheme’s to protect incumbents. Especially when the incumbent is ostensibly, and loudly against the regulation.
tk781
Is this killing the makers or the marketplace? Can the micro-entrepreneurs still list/sell via larger marketplaces? I can see how this is killing the micro-marketplace though.
gekkekoe
full disclosure: I'm a micro-entrepreneur and I suspended all orders to other EU countries.
The PPWR is causing a lot of buzz, but they are missing the main point for a market place such as lectronz. PPWR is only for packaging and shipping material.
There's something similar called WEEE* for electronics. It's when you need to pay a fee at the end of the product life cycle. This is very similar to PPWR, you need to register in each member state to be able to sell electronics. The solution is also a one stop shop. But Lectronz fail to also mention this. I would argue that this is an even bigger issue than PPWR since it's already in place. Even if the PPWR is solved it's still nearly impossible to sell electronics to other EU member states.
Someone has been sleeping when these regulations were being discussed...
[*] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/...
_ink_
Is this not a business idea? Like register for packaging waste schemes in every country and sell it to small companies for some profit? Or doesn't it work this way?
kodoman
For any one interested in how deep these sort regulatory capture laws go in the EU, they can look at the deforestation laws on Agri. Pointlessly difficult for small farmers and medium and commodity traders to cooperate with demanding highly accurate coordinates for plots of land using specialized GPS devices and companies to plot the perimeter of the farm being very difficult to comply with getting the devices in place and plotting none of this actually stopping bad actors who simply lie about the origin of the commodities. I am some one who thinks environmental protection is important but these laws pretend to solve the issue while do very little and just add all these pointless tasks that become easy once you own lots of farm land like say nestle (though they pretend that it's the big players who are going to have a hard time). I deeply hate the EU but love Europe as a European, I hope Europe breaks from the chains of this pointless post war project.
darthcloud
Maybe we need to start charging the packaging materials explicitely on the invoice as individual items such as they become part of what the customer has ordered.
akoboldfrying
As TFA says, the packing materials themselves cost cents and aren't the problem -- the yearly costs of registering, etc., in each EU country are.
avereveard
not all regulation is bad regulation. micro packaging is waste, and waste is an issue in europe. the problem stem when you get conglomerate unfairly competing from deregulated countries, applying maximum legal optimization to skirt regulations that smaller player cannot evade. THAT is the problem to fix.
sajithdilshan
Sometimes I wonder if the lawmakers in EU are brain dead. The whole point of economic union is that free movement of goods without custom tax and this new rule is practically a custom tax for each country.
a34729t
The practical purpose of the EU is exactly what it appears to be: Jobs for bureaucrats and politicians.
A_D_E_P_T
Uh, guys, the EU left a huge loophole.
The law applies to all companies that "makes transport packaging available for the first time on the territory of another Member State, directly to end users." (I've checked and there's definitely no exemption for micro entities.)
The loophole is in the words "for the first time" and "another Member State."
So. You are in Italy. You want to ship a parcel to Germany. If you buy generic packaging off-the-shelf from a German supplier, and then you ship the parcel in that packaging, the regulation does not apply to you, as that specific packaging material was already "made available" in the territory of the destination Member State before you used it. Therefore you cannot be the party making that packaging unit available there "for the first time."
It was already available in that member state via a different company. You bought it. You used it.
You'd need to buy boxes and bubble-wrap from 27 member states and keep them inventoried, but that's pennies compared to actual regulatory compliance -- I mean, the paperwork and fees.
p0w3n3d
As usual, throwing babies out with the bath water
oblio
This is a direct result of national politics.
EU member states want all the benefits of integration without giving anything up, especially things that they consider aspects of national sovereignty.
* * *
I'll give you an example.
I'm from Romania. In Romania in 1990 there were no private enterprises, so everything was state owned. There was a HUGE demand for commerce/retail, so small local businesses popped up. They were very basic because everything was brand new and expertise was extremely scarce. No one knew anything about modern supermarkets, supermarket chains, banks, loans, credit lines, basically everything related to modern market economies.
As Romanian headed for EU integration, foreign invested started... investing. In retail that meant that because Romania is fairly populous by EU standards, everyone was tempted by a potentially big and growing pie that was almost void of serious competition.
So we ended up with Lidl (German), Kaufland (German), Metro (German), Carrefour (French), Mega Image (Romanian, bought by Delhaize: Belgian), DM (German), Cora (French), Auchan (French), Profi (Romanian, bought by Delhaize: Belgian), Selgros (Swiss), Penny (bought by REWE: German), etc.
I moved abroad somewhere close to both France and Germany. At a company I worked for, I had both French and German coworkers.
At some point the Germans were talking about Kaufland and I started chatting with them about it. Some French people mentioned Auchan and I replied to that too. After a few more replies about German and French supermarket chains, one of them said: how do you know so much about both French and German supermarket chains?
And I told them:
We're right next to Germany and German supermarkets stop at the border. There is no Aldi in France. Most French people in the neighboring French towns haven't even been in an Aldi.
We're also next to France and French supermarkets stop at the border. There is no Carrefour in Germany. Most German people in the neighboring German towns haven't even been in a Carrefour.
In Romania your big companies bought everything local (or displaced it), there are hardly any locally owned stores so I guess the upside is that I know all your supermarket chains.
* * *
Repeat this for banking, IT, whatever. Europe is super economically segregated even with the EU operating. Each country has all sort of hidden protections for its local businesses. I can't really tell you what they are exactly, but in practice you can feel them. Each country has its own version of X, Y, Z businesses. Small versions of everything, instead of few really big and competitive businesses at a global level.
This even impacts US companies. You can't get a European Netflix subscription. You fly from Romania to France and when you land and connect your tablet to the internet, your Romanian Netflix account switches over to France and they delete Mad Men from your downloaded episodes because Netflix France hasn't licensed Mad Men (old example).
DanielHB
Language, payroll-rules and tax-rules alone can be enough to prevent a business from expanding into a market. Even when there is no foul intent, just different set of rules.
I am from Brazil and it is not unusual for companies to operate only within certain states because of this. Even though Brazil is a single country with a single language and mostly federal rules about things, there is still enough variance of laws from one state to another to cause problems.
Then you hear about Canada which has tariffs between its own provinces, but not to the US. Meaning some products are cheaper across the US border than across a province border. Figuring out how much to pay in taxes alone can be a blocker...
This is not an EU-only problem, any large single market will have friction in its internal divisions. It tends to be worse in the EU because the countries have a lot more sovereignty though (enforcement agencies tend to be local, not federal for example).
soco
EU is for all practical means not a single market, it's a hodge-podge of rules much more integrated in theory than in practice. Which is exactly the thing causing problems here, and ironically this is exactly what the anti-EU folks complain about. Think about this disconnect: complaining about friction and requesting less integration.
oblio
> Then you hear about Canada which has tariffs between its own provinces, but not to the US.
Canada doesn't have, and should not have, the level of ambitions the EU should have. We're talking about EU 450 million people (500+ million if the UK rejoins at some point) vs Canada 35 million.
The EU should go toe to toe with the US and China. The EU is utterly dominated by US software companies and by Chinese green tech companies (batteries, solar panels, EVs).
throw-the-towel
I feel for you, but the points you're making seem to be contradictory. You don't like that European companies bought out Romanian ones, yet at the same time you don't like that Europe has small versions of everything for each country instead of big mega-corps like Carrefour and Aldi? Or perhaps you're OK with mega-corps, and just want some of them to be Romanian?
oblio
> I feel for you, but the points you're making seem to be contradictory.
No, that is actually one of the points, I'm glad someone noticed it.
I, too, want to have my cake and eat it, too. This is a contradiction that can't easily be resolved.
I'd want Romanian sovereignty AND the convenience of big companies with lots of economic power. I guess, to your direct comment, yeah, I'd be happy enough with a few European "champions" out of hundreds being Romanian.
Personally, I lean more towards EU federalism so this cognitive dissonance is probably 30-70 towards big companies, because I think otherwise the EU will be crushed by outsiders.
sajithdilshan
I think this is true for a lot of Balkan countries that joined EU. I was in Croatia recently and was super surprised to see Lidl and DM stores there. Even more surprised to see the prices of items in those stores were almost same as in Berlin
tietjens
Very interesting! Also, I would trade Aldi for Carrefour in less than a second.
ahartmetz
They aren't in the same category of supermarket though.
Anyway, your name sounds Dutch. Please bring Albert Heijn to Germany. I'm not even sure why, but it's my favorite supermarket I've been to so far.
tietjens
That's true. I'd trade Lidl for Carrefour then. I like Albert Heijn too. It's like a successful mix of the grocery store tiers.
vladvasiliu
Don't know about Carrefour and Auchan in Germany, but there are plenty of Aldis and Lidls in France, at least in the Paris region.
oblio
I checked some quick numbers and Lidl is around 10% in the French market, while Aldi is around 4%. They've both surged since Covid. In 2010 together they held about 3% of the French market.
So yes, there are more recent developments for supermarkets, but repeat the exercise for banks or other fields. How often do French people get services from German companies, for example online retail? Do they go to otto.fr, kaufland.fr, etc?
rjsw
There are ALDI stores in France, I don't know which ALDI without looking it up. Carrefour has stores in Italy and Spain.
oblio
> Carrefour has stores in Italy and Spain.
And Auchan has stores in Spain (Alcampo).
I'm not saying that the boundary is a 20km high wall of fire nothing can go through.
I'm saying that:
1. the direction is mostly big countries -> smaller countries, and very rarely big countries -> other big countries or even rarer, smaller countries -> big countries.
2. 20+ years after the EU has started, the level of high level integration is still pitiful.
rjsw
People don't want complete integration.
If I go into the Carrefour in Sallanches (FR) then I will buy a completely different set of products to those that I would buy in the Carrefour in Aosta (IT), the two are 80km apart, I have shopped in both multiple times.
I don't think the supermarket example really maps across to the subject of the linked article.
maattdd
There are a lot of Aldi in France (also Lidl, also Action (Netherlands)...) Not sure of your point.
dragochat
TL;DR in EU, "strong" countries protected their national companies; weaker or smaller ones didn't
=> short term gain, free profits for eg FR or DE companies being allowed to devour other smaller countrie's markets
=> big country corpos get used to "almost free lunch"
=> big EU corpos fail to innovated and become uncompetitive globally
=> US ans CN corpos try instead to come with their increased efficiency and innovation at the EU market
=> EU freaks out and throws random restrictions and fines and regulations
=> only the most aggressive and ruthless CN (Temu etc) and US companies get through
=> they mostly rape the s out of EU markets
=> EU tries to protect its markets but its institutions have been regulatorly captured
=> [dark spiral goes on and on...]
aristofun
Europe has been steadily eradicating freedom and entrepreneurial spirit for the past 50 years. They will suffer badly many years later. They are slowly walking to disaster, but nobody cares. Go on, downvote me for telling the obvious truth :)
Ylpertnodi
After so long living in each EU country, your 'obvious truth' is neither obvious or truthful..
aristofun
That is exactly why. You are blind to your own problems :)
Scharkenberg
This is very condescending.
aristofun
Sometimes truth is not sweet, sorry. And there is no point in sugarcoating even if I'm mistaken, we are all grown ups here.
If european innovative companies and small businesses flourish in 10 years - I'll be the first to apologize and admit the mistake.
But there are just no signs of it today. While plenty of signs and data supporting my point.
theonejvo
Australia is doing the same thing x100
forinti
These things are going to be sent by mail. You could just have the postal service charge a few extra cents.
Tomis02
It's worth messaging EU MPs or talking to them directly.
phazerfamza
as a european, the biggest problem with the EU is the actual EU, the core idea is good, but they have massive over reach and way to much power, they are supposed to be there for european countries, instead it's the other way around.
jwildeboer
FTR. The whole PPWR process started back in 2015, there was a public consultation period in 2020-21, the new rules were entered into force in February 2025 and now the general application happened. So there was plenty of time to prepare, as far as I can see. People that run a business in the EU and now claim to be surprised, they, well, surprise me.
dankben
You must be a fellow German. No where else in the world does the objection that bad legislation has been discussed (very negatively I might add, look up the results from consultation period you quoted) for 10 years have any merit on discussion whether that legislation fulfills its purpose.
So what if businesses "had time to prepare"? Its not the governments / especially the EUs job to waste the time of small businesses.
jwildeboer
I'm actually Dutch ;) And I have been following this and other EU legislation like DMA, CRA etc in similar ways. And also chatcontrol. As an EU citizen I take my time to keep up to date on laws and regulations that may affect me or my business, yes. I also write comments in the public discussion phases. Talk to the responsible politicians, depending on where the process is. Sure, I may very well be a weird exception, but being part of society to me also means trying to be part of the decision making process.
thunspa
Do you assume regular people spend time on EU portals reading legislation proposals?
throw-the-towel
MISTER PROSSER: But Mister Dent the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months!
ARTHUR DENT: Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention to them have you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.
MISTER PROSSER: The plans were on display.
ARTHUR DENT: Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office of an evening?
MISTER PROSSER: Er – ah!
ARTHUR DENT: It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye were they?
MISTER PROSSER: That depends where you were looking.
ARTHUR DENT: I eventually had to go down to the cellar!
MISTER PROSSER: That’s the display department.
ARTHUR DENT: With a torch!
MISTER PROSSER: The lights, had… probably gone.
ARTHUR DENT: So had the stairs!
MISTER PROSSER: Well you found the notice didn’t you?
ARTHUR DENT: Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.
baggy_trough
Yes, we are surprised to find out how foolish and counterproductive some legislation can be.
ToucanLoucan
It also surprises and bewilders me that businesses (usually tech or tech adjacent) apparently expect and have for some time expected the ability to do business internationally completely without friction. Which is less something I think is a good or bad idea, and far more just simply an unrealistic one. If you want to sell in a given set of countries, I would think it a given that you would have to deal with the regulations and business laws in each of those given countries. The fact that you want to sell hacker/DIY products to people in less developed markets is admirable, certainly, but it doesn't change that. It's an unsolved problem precisely because it's kind of a pain in the ass to do compliance work across a large number of them. It's why large companies have entire departments devoted to regulatory compliance.
As far as I'm concerned the only way you could say this is "killing" any business is if the business in question has, as you said, spent the last decade just assuming they could sell things wherever with no oversight.
dankben
What an interesting point of view considering the discussed post. One of the main pillars of the EU its is single-market policy, you would very well expect businesses to be built on the premise of frictionless trade within these borders. And im not sure which market exactly you're calling "less developed"?
dgellow
The whole point of the EU single market is to remove that friction
deno
If you actually sell electronics you also need to register for electronic recycling (WEEE or equivalent) in each member state you sell to and the costs are even greater than PPWR costs alone. Probably 5x more at least.
uehdheb
Yea. My guess is that the people complaining now are not in compliance with current regulations as well
rukshn
I feel Europe is a bubble waiting to burst.
Recently I was giving a lecture on digital health regulation and 90% of people were pro regulation in general not just for digital health.
It’s something hard for them to understand that too much regulation is not good and a balance should exist
bluegatty
Regulatory capture in this case.
They need proportionality and size/qty exemptions
philipallstar
Regulatory capture doesn't exist. Only corrupt and/or incompetent regulators.
dragochat
all people are somewhat corrupt or incompentent.
that's why it only makes sense so think in broader terms, and a broader level regulatory capture absolutely exists.
the problem is that to solve regulatory capture in the EU parts of governments would have so go to war against corporations on the part of SMBs. but... governments in Europe de facto don't even recognize the right to exist of SMBs, basically _nothin_ of the large swath of government contracts fall to misc small businesses that would be perfectly capable to deliver on them at even 4x the quality standard corrupto-corpos do... probably there's some positive counteexamples in the weapons industry recently since we've realized we really do need quality weaponry at great value "by yesterday morning", but besides that... govs _HATE_ both SMBs and startups-from-unkowns (god forbit bootstrapped...).
philipallstar
It seems odd to blame lobbying (which you could also "rule of the universe" out of existence by saying everyone lobbies to some extent) when you seem to actually be blaming EU governments for being so hostile to SMBs.
bluegatty
All regulations favour some groups more than others.
Exempting small business could easily be viewed as hostile / corrupt regulation disfavouring large entities.
These kinds of regulations are usually not even welcome by larger companies, but there is less pushback.
'packaging' isn't the place to use the c-word.
dragochat
makes perfect sense bc in a world ruled by big corpos, govs are captured and work in their interests, so they become hostile to SMBs.
> Exempting small business could easily be viewed as hostile / corrupt regulation disfavouring large entities.
then let's PLEASE have MORE of these "corrupt" and "hostile" regulations, it's clear that in a more and more chaotic global economy only a swarm of small players can change direction fast enough, with some support from big corpos providing economies of scale only in selected sectors (energy, resources extraction, hardware, AI deployment/inference optimizations, healthcare and just a few others)
dragochat
govs are hostile to SMBs as a result of lobbying
TheAtomic
Seems like a problem Lectronz could solve for its makers.
forinti
Unfortunately, "Lectronz now generates roughly the equivalent of one modest salary."
akoboldfrying
You mean their proposal 3?
I assumed that the reason this article exists at all is because that is currently forbidden for some esoteric reason.
giorgosh4
Yeah time for EU to change, all these legislation and rules never helped EU to grow. I guess it's up to Gernamy/France to finally figure it out
rdm_blackhole
France is about to have either a very far-right or very far-left president and neither party like the EU very much so I wouldn't count on that.
As for Germany, Mertz is disliked greatly and the AFD will most likely win the next state elections in the east which could accelerate his departure.
Finally Germany and France are both facing many internal issues including migration, debt and low economic growth prospects.
All of this to say that change will not come from there.
awigotsky
Will they allow AFD to win? Hmm...
shafyy
This is insane. I have following the PPWR for years now and it one of the most lobbied regulations in EU history (I was told by people on the ground in Brussels).
My company provides reusable ecommerce packaging to online shops. And in the last draft, they introduced an exception for the re-usable packaging for eecommerce for cardbaord. Like, really? Why do we have that paragraph at all if it excludes cardboard?
shevy-java
The EU is de-facto controlled by lobbyists. And they don't want the EU to be fixed.
diogenescynic
Same thing applies to California except at the most elite levels. Yes you can get your tech start up funded, but try opening a car wash... the taxes and regulations are overly burdensome for small businesses.
utopiah
How is CrowdSupply, US based, managing?
SanjayMehta
> He has just become a packaging waste producer in four countries.
This is the part which is confusing. If the EU was a real union, then this would not be a problem, the selling point would be it's a union, all countries are the same.
It appears from the outside that the only united thing about the regulation is that there is a regulation, and then each country goes off and does its own thing.
So why have an EU at all? Very strange.
brap
>A good idea, a terrible implementation
Idea is terrible, implementation is WAI.
emsign
There's one problem: Nationalist parties in Europe hate EU-wide solutions and they are becoming more and more popular. It will hurt our economies but these parties thrive on lies anyway and deep down voters their voters want to "see the world burn".
gryzzly
My father had to give up selling cat houses from one smaller EU country to others because of the new packaging regulations. Hard to believe the EU has not foreseen this being impossible to deal with for micro-businesses. Honestly his friend who is doing Photovoltaics is also now forced to stop shipments to most other EU countries due to this law. I assume we are talking about hundreds of thousands of small businesses.
alex_john_m
Oh boy, another LLM generated article posted here as part of an anti-EU astroturfing campaing everyone takes for truth.
Does anyone actually bothers to read the actual regulation these days?
Yes it start applying starting August 12, 2026, but let's review the bloody requirements AFTER READING THE REGULATION, shall we?
Let's see what it says about recycling: - All packaging must be designed for recycling by 2030. - Plastic packaging must include mandatory minimum recycled plastic content targets for 2030 and 2040. - Per capita packaging waste must drop by 5% by 2030, 10% by 2035, and 15% by 2040 (compared to 2018 levels).
All these are sensible and the darn paper gives companies time to get with the program. It says so in the regulation black on white! For all the makers, small businesses and so on: You don't make your own packaging, you buy your bags and boxes from a dedicated supplier or get them from the delivery companies you use. Buy them from someone who makes them or use a delivery company that provides packaging according to the new rules. You have until 2030!
I run a small business and It took me about 6 months to get into compliance.
- Dangerous chemicals like cancer-causing PFAS in food-contact packaging are strictly restricted. Duh! Do we really need to complain about this? Seriously?
- Packaging must be as light and small as possible, eliminating empty space and useless layers. This is the only thing that seems ambiguous, some things are fragile, some are not, but maybe companies should be more reasonable with package sizes. If your packaging supplies has only one package size, find someone else. A 5 cm trinket doesn't need a 5mx5m box. Yes I've used the metric system, get over it!
- Standardised labels and QR codes for material sorting and disposal take full effect by August 2028 This is meant to make sorting and recycling easier across the whole market and you have 2 years to get into compliance! In my case, all delivery companies in my area already solved this and I get the QR codes already printed on the labels.
Most complains I've read in these comments are weird, missing the point and just posted to say the same thing: EU bad, EU bad, America good! America good! They're the same complains I read In any thread around here when it comes to EU regulations. Maybe someone need to change their openclaw prompts from time to time!
watwut
So, the complain is that there is no harmonization and you want more centralized harmonization, basically?
dgellow
Yes, that’s exactly what we want. The single market should be finalized. And we should move towards having a European equivalent of Delaware corps, and unified systems.
oblio
Basically, yes. The EU needs a lot more power to force through an actual single market. Especially a single digital market. That's why the US is crushing EU tech companies. Licensing (especially content), patents, totally different tax systems, addressing all of the EU as a small company is basically impossible.
izacus
Except that US also has pretty fragmented state law, doesn't it?
weberer
Not anything like this. The closest thing is charging local sales tax.
izacus
Environmental laws ("The California Effect"), payroll laws, payment laws, rules about what to sell and where are also different, aren't they?
greatgib
This is with stupid half backed regulations like that that Europe industrial base is collapsing and that voters in most countries are turning their vote to nationalist parties.
Life is already difficult everywhere nowadays, and instead of having European institutions lifting weights on the citizen shoulders, like they did for the single space for telecom or payments a decade ago, they are now actively harming citizen with everyday new political regulations that are not asked by the population but mostly pushed by lobbies.
Like chat control.
Here, in this case, it doesn't look so, but a few big manufacturers and retailers like Amazon are congratulating themselves to have been able to ensure that there is a high barrier to entry to sell any product over there when it is effortless for them as they already have all the logistic and representatives in place.
abc123abc123
The socialist state of the EU is why god invented tax planning and the possibility to open your company abroad.
I've been doing business in the EU a long time, and in order to be successful you need to:
1. Never follow all the rules. Focus on your business and customers, and ignore/pay someone to deal with the rest if it ever becomes reality.
2. Start your company in a low cost, low tax jurisdiction. There are plenty of them in the forgotten corners of the EU, or why not a US LLC.
But I think the EU will implode in a decade or two and return europe to a state of innovation and profitability. The nationalist trend will lock any decision making in the EU, and the EU:s deep state will take care of the rest, enriching itself at the cost of the tax payer. The result... countries will leave or just silently start to ignore the EU rules, and then block any legal moves the EU tries to attempt at the EU level.
andix
This regulation is utterly broken. The only way for a small business is to ignore it completely and hope for the best.
jongjong
The problem here is that government regulations don't work. Only punishment works and punishment should be based on number of infringements.
So if some poorly discarded packaging is found in a forest by a government official, they can document it. At the end of the year, the companies involved in the making of the improperly discarded products would be fined some amount proportional to the number of recorded infringements and magnitude of infringements (e.g. total weight) to cover clean up costs pertaining to that particular source of waste.
Sol-
> A good idea, a terrible implementation
Story of European regulations. At some point you have to concede that they are incompetent and unaccountable. What do they care if they depress economic integration and growth in Europe? No one will ever be blamed for diffuse bureaucratic costs that drag down the whole Eurozone.
I even resent people giving them credit for "well, the idea was laudable..". No. Again and again they introduce make-the-world-a-better-place regulations, and whoever opposes these or asks about tradeoffs or whether they are meaningfully useful must be a crazed libertarian or industry lobbyist who wants to poison the people.
I remember how smug Europeans were about the American PATRIOT act. Who could be so stupid to be fooled by such propagandist framing of laws? Well, here in the EU that happens frequently. The commission just has to wrap its degrowth policy in saving-the-world names and off we go. (See also the EU Supply Chain Act, i.e. Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, aka expensive paperwork for a good conscience)
watwut
The article is asking for MORE regulation and MORE integration. As in, dear EU, please do not allow member states to make own rules about this, but make one from the central headquarters.
soco
As an American and probably as most Americans you are missing the point that there are no "Europeans", stop saying that. The EU is just a bunch of states which happen to do some things together. And all those "directives" are guidelines for the individual states, which may, and more often that not, may not, implement it that way. Usually they don't because "muh freedom" (I'm sure you get the reference) so it's a chaos EXACTLY BECAUSE no European state wants to submit to some European authority, and even takes pride in doing things DIFFERENTLY, whatever the costs (economical or political).
metalman
The new regulations and fee's are awsome good news, we need much more of the same, faster. Everybody needs to chip in and find new ways to regulate ordinary activities and charge fees for them, and to start with all contact or interaction with the goverment should be fee based with a minimum €100 base rate for calling a government number charged to your account as soon as the phone starts ringing, same charge for emails and each return email. Exemptions can of course be applied on a csae by case basis. * Only by working Together™ can we pull the roof down on our heads.
* completly serious, lets get it over with.
kmeisthax
> Exempt small-volume sellers and micro-enterprises from cross-border packaging obligations. The threshold would apply only to producers that are below a specific volume of waste and/or a specific yearly turnover.
AFAIK this exists SOMEWHERE in the PPWR regulation but it only applies for EU small businesses that are buying packaging from another business in the same country. If you're outside the EU you are expected to do 100% of the bureaucracy regardless of size.
My gut tells me that EU PPWR compliance will wind up having a cheap turnkey solution for small businesses eventually, but the way this regulation is written today seems to specifically foresee and preclude turnkey compliance.
like_any_other
Meanwhile you still can't buy most food without tons of plastic wrapping it, unless you go to a farmer's market. The only problem this regulation actually addresses is not enough paperwork being generated.
scotty79
> The main idea of EPR is sensible: businesses that place packaging on the market should help finance its collection and recycling.
Wouldn't it be better to put the burden on packaging manufacturers?
nelox
Seriously? You should only ever need to walk to the village market to buy anything, and walk back with your own bag.
varispeed
Isn't this double dipping? Consumers typically already pay for waste disposal to their local government.
That said, the EU and West in general through corruption like to pass legislation that ensures only big corporations can afford to comply with.
sunrising
my exact same conclusion
myst
Whining on the order hand is always easy.
cientifico
How much bullshit!
If you try to sell to China, Australia, UUSS and Colombia and Russia for example, you also need to comply with the regulations of each of those countries (and pay Tarifs in some).
To ease the collaboration between humans the European Union was created. But the European Union is not a country. Is the earth only collection of countries that agree to collaborate together to levels no other countries have in the world History.
It's success is so big, that people expects to act as an independent country, and complain when discovering Europe is indeed several countries. WTF!
Conan_Kudo
It's not the first. It's not even the first in Europe: the first was the UK, Belgium and Switzerland came after. There are and have been others around the world throughout history too: the CSA, the first USA, the USSR, the UAE, and the Arab League (just to name a few).
Most systems like the EU don't work well after a certain size. I don't know if we can say whether the EU has reached the point where it's unworkable yet.
lucasRW
The thing with the EU is that, worryingly, the less it works, the bigger it becomes (new memberstates, soon, Albania...) and the more power it takes on. This continent is heading for a catastrophic outcome and one must be blind to not see it.
cientifico
That is not what the numbers suggest. Europe still leads in median quality of life and more healthy markets.
If you focus only on economic exploitation: Of course, with customer protection, companies can't do whatever they want. Of course business will develop less in comparison to countries where companies are free to do whatever.
p1dda
The EU is fucking crap, fuck the EU, fuck von der Leyen
retinaros
at this stage europe is a machine for politicians to become wealthy through corruption, mass immigration, censorship, mass media control. that is why they hate X and are now fighting to ban it.
devld
Wait until Cyber Resilience Act kicks in.
tokai
Another daily round EU FUD.
lucasRW
This sort of BS - which is why the UK left the EU by the way, happens on EVERYTHING. By nature, the EU is an extra layer of bureaucracy which can only exist by: 1.hiring 2. producing regulations to justify its existence. I have quietly seen it dismantle anything that worked in European countries, all while being called a fascist or far-right extremist for doing so. Well, here is the result.
jongjong
My experience as a software engineer in EU was horrible. I wish I could say it was something out of a horror movie, but it would be too frustrating to watch.
I joined a major cryptocurrency project, saw its market cap briefly increase to $4 billion. I worked on it like crazy for 2 years whilst, unbeknownst to me, the founders began to sabotage their own project and ensure that it would slip out of the CMC rankings; I believe this was done to lower their public profile (and reduce scrutiny). But it all happened under the watchful, approving eyes of EU regulators. Also, the founders of that project defamed me and my team with outright lies to sabotage my spin-off project when we worked to improve the tech independently. I also witnessed other crypto projects which I knew to be scams receive funding from the EU commission, then the same founders raised money again after running the previous project into the ground with nothing to show.
snowpid
This thread at worst is a negative example of HN. The blog post is reasonable and constructive, the petition is reasonable, the EU 's packaging law is bad executed on this part (other parts are good like forbidding PFAS on food packages, you cant imagine, this was aloud!) but whuge amout of people (or are these bots?) freak out up to stupid conspiracy theories that EU politics want to beg down small companies with packaging laws(or something). HN moderation totally failed and repeatedly fails on EU policy topics. Sometimes I think these are paid bots by some SV dude, sometimes I think it just frustrated Americans who cant handle that Trump is failing and they become aggressive that US is not the best country or something. But the moderation failure is very very consistent.
quincy_jones
For the last time EU!= Europe, there are plenty more countries outside Brussels overach ffs
maestroquirk
"Since 1975, the US has created 7 companies worth over $1 trillion. Europe has created zero."
......... Yet most of the talent is here
timonoko
You voted for this.
And there no mechanism you can fix it.
If you now vote for something else, they just cancel the results and make you vote again.
gerikson
Unfortunate choice of words, implies these people are being literally murdered...
nbadg
Good post, bad title.
From the title alone, I'd expect a typical think-piece from someone (possibly outside the EU) about overregulation, "the solution is no regulation at all", etc. Instead, it's a solid critique of the recent packaging/packaging waste regulation debacle, from a constructive angle. The first section hits the nail on the head: "a good idea, a terrible implementation".
Unfortunately, this feels like a frequent refrain when it comes to the EU. And even more unfortunately, even just this ever-so-slightly-more-nuanced take seems to frequently be drowned out by the two extremes -- "all regulation is bad and we need pure unadulterated free market capitalism" or "all capitalism is bad and we need pure unadulterated regulation" -- which are by far the two loudest voices in the room.
The OP has some good suggestions about this particular regulation (which should definitely be considered! Fix things are broken; don't just throw the baby out with the bathwater!), but I'd personally be interested to see things that try to understand and treat the root cause instead of yet another symptomatic regulation. Maybe walking further down the path towards federalization? Iunno, but if I had a dime for every time I've thought "good idea, bad execution" as an EU resident... I'd have a lot of dimes.
lucasRW
Well, maybe if anything coming from the EU is "good idea, bad execution", the solution should be to get rid of this bureaucracy altogether then.
khalic
It's funny, because what's actually, literally killing people is pollution...
mrweasel
The idea isn't the issue, the implementation is. The EU did the same with VAT previously, where you'd have to register separate businesses in different countries, once you got large enough (which wasn't very large). Now there's a central system to keep track of what goes where and you can sell internally in the EU with no issues.
Something similar needs to happen here, where business report and pay to a central EU system, that then transfers the funds to each country. The problem is that the EU is smart enough to see the environmental problem, but forgets to think about ramifications and doesn't provide the right tools.
khalic
I was commenting on the title, the concept is sound yes, but doesn't call the initial idea into question, these measures are necessary to ensure a sustainable civilisation at this point, should be clear to every body really...
cm2012
In Europe air pollution, while much higher than the United States, is at a hundred year low.
khalic
slightly off topic wouldn't you say?
echelon
Is it literally killing the majority of Europeans? How many deaths comes from an Arduino box?
Europe's smart people are going to have to move to another country to be entrepreneurs. That's going to kill Europe faster.
khalic
> Europe's smart people are going to have to move to another country to be entrepreneurs
Watch the stats please, the contrary is happening right now, plenty of American talents coming to Europe.
throwawaypath
>Watch the stats please, the contrary is happening right now, plenty of American talents coming to Europe.
No they're not. Plenty of European talents are still coming to the US.
Besides, millions of MENA migrants in Europe are all doctors, engineers, and lawyers! No need for the Americans.
khalic
It's funny how racists are the most cowards mfs around, with their repertoire of 5 "coded language" stuff they repeat ad nauseam...
throwawaypath
>It's funny how racists are the most cowards mfs around,
The cowards are the ones banning any conversation around the problems the millions of MENA migrants have caused Europe. Stop projecting about being a weak effeminate coward.
>with their repertoire of 5 "coded language" stuff they repeat ad nauseam...
Nothing I stated was "coded language."
khalic
> Stop projecting about being a weak effeminate coward
hahaha, found the closeted femboy lover
throwawaypath
>hahaha, found the closeted femboy lover
You finally looked in the mirror, we're proud of you!
Caius-Cosades
Europeans have no right to exist, period.
thunspa
Please share said stats with us
khalic
https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/how-much-research-talent-co... for an analysis and https://www.euractiv.com/opinion/europes-battle-for-american...
Nothing definitive but it's still early in the exodus
thunspa
I'm sorry, not only is this far from definitive, it's not even a sign of an 'early' exodus.
There is not really any exodus, sadly. The US still is significantly more competitive and offers much higher upsides to talented people willing to take risks. I live in the EU and want us to succeed, but I'm skeptical about our ability to compete with America economically and technologically, because we foster a different type of spirit.
It would be nice if this didn't matter.
throw-the-towel
They're probably not coming to be entrepreneurs though.
I don't know if this EU regulation will work or not (most likely not), but I can share how it is done in China (where package volume is orders of magnitude higher).
China identifies "choke points" most packages pass: large platforms and logistics companies. Yes, Chinese e-commerce is more centralized on Alibaba/JD/PDD etc, but there are actually much more logistics companies in China than in EU.
They also do not introduce these regulations "from tomorrow" (well, sometimes they do, but it's a different topic). E.g. the non-degradable plastic regulation was issued in 2020 to come in effect in 2025. This gives time to prepare and implement (unlike EU border controls mess...)
So now if something is shipped in non-degradable plastic, the logistics company is fined along with the sender. This is much more scalable and easy to implement. Logistics companies might rise their prices a bit in light of expanded work scope, but it would be peanuts compared to every individual seller.
Could EU just ask DHL/Hermes/whatever to charge an additional €1 "for recycling"? Yes, but...
But of course EU is fundamentally different in a way that the politicians need to please the electorate, so nothing is really planned ahead.