[ngrilly]

> eIDAS exists since there are many conflicting standards for electronic certificates. eIDAS is an effort to unify those standards.

Did we need laws to "unify" all the standards we successfully use today, like IP, UDP, TCP, HTTP, TLS, Certificate Transparency, HTML, ECMAScript, CSS, DNS, DMARC, DKIM, SSH, etc.? Laws are not the right tool for this. And law makers don't have the necessary expertise.

[sshine]

It’s either laws or market forces, both have drawbacks.

While eIDAS seems like a great idea to coerce member states into adopting a common standard, it just also happens to sneak EU-centralist ideology in, and total digital surveillance is the 0th application of that ideology.

The big catch with EU is: once you opt in, opting out is very difficult.

[troupo]

There are also great many standards we use today that were unified and enforced through laws.

Open any law on produce, construction, cars, industrial equipment (and a million others), and you'll find thousands of specs and standards mandated by law, and for a reason.

[Serenacula]

I think ECMAScript my actually be a counter example, no? Isn't that also governed and funded by the European council?

[smarnach]

There definitely isn't a law mandating Javascript engines to follow the Ecmascript standard, which would be the equivalent of what's happening here.