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How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

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Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#81

Post by rjsw »

oblio wrote: post #30

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…

There are ALDI stores in France, I don't know which ALDI without looking it up. Carrefour has stores in Italy and Spain.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#82

Post by greenraven »

yardie wrote: post #29

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…

> 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

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#85

Post by dankben »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #70
jwildeboer wrote: post #48

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.

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 regu…

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"?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#86

Post by mrweasel »

khalic wrote: post #6

It's funny, because what's actually, literally killing people is pollution...

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#87

Post by Kenji »

ionwake wrote: post #69

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 i…

[dead]

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#88

Post by Xelbair »

yardie wrote: post #29

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…

>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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#89

Post by philipallstar »

troupo wrote: post #73
yardie wrote: post #29

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…

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.

> 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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#90

Post by throw-the-towel »

oblio wrote: post #30

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…

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?
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