How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs • Hacker News Board

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#781

Post by stnikolauswagne » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:12 AM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #773

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 (…

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#782

Post by shafyy » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:12 AM UTC

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?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#783

Post by deno » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:17 AM UTC

simgt wrote: post #738

fy20 wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 simila…

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.

If you actually sell intra-EU and deal with multiple currencies 200€/m would be cheap. I'd expect no less than 1000€/m.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#784

Post by imtringued » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:17 AM UTC

Huppie wrote: post #631

veeti wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gro…

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 blogpos…

>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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#785

Post by prolly97 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:18 AM UTC

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#786

Post by pembrook » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:24 AM UTC

m000 wrote: post #747

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…

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.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#787

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:27 AM UTC

m000 wrote: post #747

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…

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).

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#788

Post by victorbjorklund » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC

danielovichdk wrote: post #450

fallingbananna wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 materia…

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.

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?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#789

Post by stoltzmann » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:29 AM UTC

bitlad wrote: post #253

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 th…

>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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#790

Post by mbq77 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 8:32 AM UTC

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.