This regulation is utterly broken. The only way for a small business is to ignore it completely and hope for the best.
How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
671–680 of 1001 posts
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#672Thanks 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 disc…
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)…
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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#673Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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…
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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#674I 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 intr…
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.
> CRA
Well, how small business can report anything during 24 hours through weekends, long weekends, 1-week Christmas, 3-4-weeks summer vacations?
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#675Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
"people had 1 year to protest this" this is terminal stage subjugation to bureaucrats
How long should we have to wait to hear objections to a rule before we can implement it?
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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Reichelt and Conrad in Germany. Digikey has logistics in Netherlands
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#678> 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.
Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#679Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mor…
Clothing, famously less important on Maslow's hierarchy of needs than semiconductors.
Well, clothing that doesn't last or made of plastic is indeed less important.