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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

#861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Overhead means it's gonna cost more than a few cents each.

Just get some VCs to take the losses for you for a few years /s

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Competent at getting votes (and taking them away from competition) and incompetent at leading and being in power.

What is the alternative that you are proposing? When I read something like this all that comes across is a strident desire for totalitarianism.

The alternative in this case is fewer politicians. European countries don't need another layer of politicians on top of their local institutions.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CRA Well, how small business can report anything during 24 hours through weekends, long weekends, 1-week Christmas, 3-4-weeks summer vacations?

Those will obviously be exempt?

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#864
post #721
post #532

>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.

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.

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#865

Earlier 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.

Maslow's Hierarchy has been revised: https://www.adipsys.com/en/wi-fi-customer-experience/maslow-...

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems you have an issue with representative democracy.

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.

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#867
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?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#868
post #77

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.

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 business…

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.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> "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.

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%.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.
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