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.
Don't hold your breath.
How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
21–30 of 1001 posts
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#22What 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 p…
> 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
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#23What 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 p…
> 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
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#24The 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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#25It 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.
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?
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#26It 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.
You risk that someone wants to make an example of you. You might run for mayor and your past is dig up and exaggerated
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#27This 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.
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Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#28[flagged]
Given how fast your comment is being swarmed, I suspect so.
Also seems like exactly the kind of thing Elmo would fund.
EDIT: And now it's been censored. What a strange coincidence!
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#29One 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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#30This 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.
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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.
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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).