[nick486]

I'm really surprised at the hurry. The EU, and many EU governments, have been ramming through deeply unpopular legislation at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately.

It feels like the last turn in a board game where everyone is busy taking points with no regard for the impact of the decisions on the theoretical next turn - because there is no next turn. Its really weird.

> blame-laundering mechanism

Also, I'm stealing this.

[sReinwald]

> at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately.

This isn't surprising to me at all.

The World Cup is on, and it draws attention away from politics. This has been a pretty common observable pattern for as long as I can remember.

[matly]

At least in some member states, that's a well used pattern when the soccer world cup is on (as in: people are focused on something else). Which at least has been going on in the last weeks.

[strideashort]

The reason is more than apparent.

So long freedom, it’s been nice living in STASI free society for a while. Too bad power attracts the people who will make sure they keep it in their hands.

[marginalia_nu]

Honestly where do you even go if you want to get out from under this? The US was the option, but is clearly circling the drain. The EU is democracy theater at best, a democratic mandate that can be set aside any time it's inconvenient for Ashton Kutcher, and speedrunning the rebuilding of a new Soviet Union. Feels like a matter of time until they start building a new wall to keep you from leaving.

[Avicebron]

In all these places I imagine the people making these decisions are members of the populace. They need to be gently reminded that they are not more equal than others and people do not like their decision-making habits. The way anyone else engaging in anti-social behavior would be reprimanded.

[bigyabai]

Are you going to take your phone and laptop with you? If so, then it doesn't really matter where you're going. You'll be populating multiple surveillance systems regardless of where you choose to live.

[Eueudhsbsj32]

Maybe Latin America. Their governments are generally less powerful and have less resources to enforce laws like this.

[tanseydavid]

> Honestly where do you even go if you want to get out from under this?

Mars is nice this time of year.

[lopis]

Whenever you see people complaining that the EU is "too slow", more often than not it's because they benefit directly from EU rushing things without thinking.

[elictronic]

Multiple active wars on the global stage, huge changes in tariff and job impacts, large scale shipping and oil impacts.

I’m not saying this legislation impacts any of this positively or negatively, but we can’t pretend the prior world order isn’t making some drastic changes lately. Governments are slow to change laws but I would expect much of the current push has actual ties to the larger global shifts.

[attila-lendvai]

for no apparent rason? the way they are preparing to bring the population into a war hardly can be any more apparent...

[bluescrn]

War requires industry. But we've deindustrialised and outsourced the manufacture of almost everything to China.

[throwaway27448]

Gee maybe they should prepare to avoid war then

[bluescrn]

They thought climate change was the next war-level crisis, and worked towards that. They didn't anticipate the Ukraine invasion, or the Middle East blowing up again.

[tetha]

> They thought climate change was the next war-level crisis, and worked towards that.

Did we though? At least in Germany a bunch of anti-climate-change projects and changes have been and are being canceled and we're going back to coal and diesel. It seems we're optimizing to have no results and negative progress at the moment.

[throwaway85825]

Germany dismantled their nuclear reactors because russia would always be a reliable partner. European leaders have been absolute traitors.

[ClumsyPilot]

> They didn't anticipate…the Middle East blowing up again

Yes, interesting that the People dropping bombs did not anticipate blowing up.

Our elites have revealed many flaws recently, but one I did not expect is that they have surprisingly limited intelligence.

[watwut]

EU did not dropped bombs.

[joe_mamba]

That's why the EU is a neutral pushover bowing down to the whims and tantrum of US, China, Iran, India, Turkey, etc. because a lot of their industry, energy, exports/imports are from those countries so any disputes would be devastating to the EU economy.

They're trying to avoid any conflict since they have no energy and hard power to counter any confrontations, so they smile and nod to anything happening worldwide or push some stern words about "monitoring the situation" to social media, depending on the situation.

[ClumsyPilot]

This narrative is a fabrication.

EU spends 33% of World’s military spending, once you exclude US. EU spends more on military than China.

How much do you need to spend to defend yourself, 60% of the world?

Mind you, many western weapons, like stinger and javelin, cost more than their weight in silver. Sounds like a scam

[joe_mamba]

Military spending != military capability and will to use force. For example, Germany spends way more than France on defense but has a less capable military and with no nuclear capability to boot.

From force projection capability, the EU is toothless and lacks the spine to twist some arms in order to see its interests represented on the world stage. It's a pushover despite all that military.

The reality is that you need to be willing to drop some bombs every now and then or at least threaten or blackmail those who threaten your interests and way of life, to be taken seriously and for other countries to never fuck with you. For example the Ukraine virtually admitted to blowing up Nordstream pipeline and sending Germany's manufacturing into the storage, just to disrupt Russia. Now do you think Ukraine or any other country, would ever dare to blow up a US pipeline or piece of their infrastructure? Probably not, because they'd get carpet bombed in retaliation and their leaders shot or kidnapped by delta force.

And since the EU never plays hardball like that it always gets taken advantage of by more ruthless and unscrupulous nations with smaller and weaker militaries because both its citizens and its leaders are too afraid to ever use force.

[ajsnigrutin]

And then stop people from being able to afford cheaper stuff from china (without european middlemen) by implementinh a 3eur customs fee on an 1eur phone case!

[budududuroiu]

That's a good thing. We complain about lack of industrialisation. China has historically protected their fledgling industries, if we want industrialisation back, we need to as well, to the detriment of mindless consumption of cheap stuff

[ajsnigrutin]

But we want cheap stuff, we don't have unlimited money.

This law didn't open a phone case factory in europe, it just made the 1eur case cost ~5euros (vat is paid on customs too). The only alternative is to go to a local mall and buy a case there for 10-15euros, and it's the same chinese case, just more expensive, but the reseller pays a lot less tax, since they can buy 100 cases for 1eur and still pay just 3eur of customs on them.

So I, the consumer get 300% customs on that 1eur case (+vat on huge customs fee), while the mall kiosk gets 3% customs fee, how is that fair? And how will that build a phone case factory in europe?

Why not build the factory first instead? Have it make 2eur phone cases, and then the price raise would make me buy the european one, but for now, it's just makes me pay more for the same chinese stuff, and I can't spend the leftover money for a local beer at a local bar anymore, so stuff actually made in europe.

[throw-the-towel]

That's what Trump says. You'll be tired of winning!

[AngryData]

Politicians don't gain their position by being smart and down to earth.

[greenavocado]

They will rapidly reindustrialize when the first shots are fired. The EU's goal is the strategic defeat of Russia. What the common people think or want is irrelevant. All environmental and climate legislation that gets in the way will be waivered indefinitely until the war is over 5+ years of drone warfare and 100s of thousands dead.

[bluescrn]

The drone war will be quite limited by chip production.

And once the chip fabs have been bombed, civilisation is set by by decades, and may end up fighting a lower-tech war.

[elictronic]

There are thousands of strikes per day today. The chips needed to control a drone are not the same high cost ones needed for data centers or otherwise. Older fabs work just fine and countries can just eat into their other industries.

Beyond this, if you start attacking neutral fabs you lose out on anything from them. Your expectations are quite a bit off if you think striking fabs stops a conflict.

[greenavocado]

There are many fabs using "last year's" fab processes for defense purposes. Wouldn't be surprised if they had quick and easy way to set up fabs for chip weapons production in bombed out buildings and warehouses. Defense doesn't need civilian fabs. In the end, we, the civilians, stand to lose tremendously.

[anonzzzies]

These chips are not the latest nvidia etc: false like this are relatively easy to set up compared to fabs that make the chips you seem to be thinking about.

[AngryData]

Once the chip fabs get bombed much of modern society collapses and insurrection and civil uprising becomes everyone's #1 concern. Politicians are just too stupid to realize this because they live in a protected bubble of fantasy land where nothing they do usually ever directly effects them.

[xorcist]

> The EU's goal is the strategic defeat of Russia

This does not even make sense as a conspiracy theory.

Had "EU" wanted to hurt Russia there were was a thousand ways to do that. But they didn't. Instead they traded and built infrastructure. Most EU countries saw Russia as a partner before they invaded their neighbour in the most gruesome way possible.

If anything, the EU should have reacted sooner. It was shameful they didn't. You can't really pretend like nothing while an all out war is taking place on the same continent.

[joe_mamba]

>They will rapidly reindustrialize when the first shots are fired.

By WHO?! Russia is still stuck in 1/4 of the Ukraine and fear mongers make it sound like they're about to reach Paris any day now.

[dismalaf]

War is less imminent now than ever. Ukraine has caused a ton of damage to Russia and at this point the Kremlin has more to worry about than EU countries (pretty much every Russian government ever is brought down from within).

No, leftist governments in the EU have failed to provide prosperity and failed in all their promises, now they're going for total control to try to stay in power.

Look at France, as soon as Le Pen was cleared to run for the presidency they start talking about anti "misinformation" laws...

[eagleal]

> War is less imminent now than ever

You can always make your enemy. Current rearming efforts really remind historians of WW1 arm races.

At some point once so much interests and offers are at stake, that creating the demand is inevitable and just a matter of time.

[throwaway27448]

It's true. Rearming and mobilizing troops will cause a reciprocal reaction in your neighbors. Whether or not war is or was imminent is irrelevant; europe will manifest it regardless.

[geysersam]

Are you calling Macron a "leftist"? It does help your argument because it's a tautology that "the leftists failed to provide prosperity" if the entire political spectrum counts as such.

[gambiting]

I don't share this outlook, sadly - given that military figures especially around the Eastern side of EU keep saying military conflict with Russia is "inevitable" in the next 4 years. Of course - they are in the military, their job is specifically to look at the worst case scenarios. But I wouldn't be so sure the risk is not there.

[dismalaf]

I do think there's the possibility Russia attacks a NATO country in an attempt to save face. I don't think they have the manpower or equipment to sustain an assault that would require any level of mobilization from EU countries.

[anonzzzies]

Apparent? Unless Russia attacks there will be no war, it is not the US who willy nilly attacks others.

[shevy-java]

> I'm really surprised at the hurry.

Well, once you realise that the so-called "EU parliament" is nothing but a lobbyist group (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...) it is no longer surprising. To me nothing here is surprising, neither the hurry nor any slowness.

Lobbyists are winning the war.

[quotemstr]

> ramming through deeply unpopular legislation at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately

It's only a matter of time before EU-skeptical opposition parties achieve absolute majorities in critical EU constituency states. They're aware of this fact and are trying to adopt as much of their agenda as possible in the time they have remaining.

[znpy]

My guess is that with non-left political movements on the rise better surveillance tools were needed to prevent them from winning the elections around europe.

I really don’t but any other reason, as other tools (legal and technological) are already in place.

[omnimus]

If you look at who voted for chat control approval you would find that it's majority the currently in power centre right parties. The more far right or left you go the more likely they were against. It's like the one issue where AfD, die Linke and Greens are aligned. That suggests that it's most likely hard lobby that bribes the established class.

Nt being able to scan personal communications would break big tech platforms main monetisation strategy (selling peoples data).

[dxuh]

None of these will be used to attack the far-right parties on the right though. They barely investigate those parties in the individual countries, but they focus more on the moderate left already.

[AngryData]

To me it seems like the minority would be far more interested in implementing surveillance tools so they can target the majority in order to try and gain and maintain power.

[coldtea]

>with no regard for the impact of the decisions on the theoretical next turn

They know the impact of the decisions: more power for them as bodies.

[HeartStrings]

The reason they do this is preparation for war. Also, foreign influence bots and hostile active measures.

[cess11]

It's a US data pump, and the EU is a bunch of vassal states. That's the hurry, shutting down the data flow because the permissive legislation runs out is not allowed.

[throwaway27448]

I think that's a little naive. This sort of legislation is much more useful in terms of managing the local population and what they are allowed to talk about than it is in terms of profit—except, I suppose, in the sense that holding companies liable for what is said with their software is unprofitable.

[cess11]

I didn't mention profit.

[throwaway27448]

Why mention the US if you're not referring to the GDPR?

[inferniac]

>for no apparent reason, lately.

for some godforsaken reason left-lib parties in europe think accepting infinity migrants forever is the most important thing to do

this is becoming more and more unpopular with the voters, leading to right wing parties surging across europe (Denmark, which has an immigration restrictionist left wing government doesnt seem to have an issue here, true mystery)

obviously the solution here is total control of the internet, so that you can suppress dissent

[dminik]

Denmark was one of the main countries pushing for Chat Control 2.0 ...

[Thraway198]

In Canada, there's been a lot of talk about how immigration, "broke the Canadian consensus," around immigration as a good thing.

The problem is, there never was a consensus around immigration. The Liberals own stats prove that. What there was was a consensus around multiculturalism and tolerance.

Immigration itself, was always split evenly among three camps in Canada: those who want more, those who want less, and those who think we have the right amount.

Trudeau & his fake leftist brigade many have ruined multiculturalism for a large portion of Canadians, permanently.

[spwa4]

The promise (for the non-insane majority) was that immigration was going to save our economic bacon. That's the orthodox economist viewpoint after all.

Well, it didn't.

The minimum anyone would have to accept is that the economy went to shit while mass immigration was happening ... (in both EU and Canada). So I guess you don't have to accept causation, but they were happening simultaneously, so this reaction by the population is justified in that sense.

[Thraway198]

I agree that it's justified. SOME immigration is needed in order to save "duh economy," but what we got instead was economic warfare against workers.

[modo_mario]

It's not even that some migration is need to save the economy. You'd need pronatalist policies or you're going to be doing that "some immigration" for ever and ever.

[Thraway198]

Hm well then perhaps it's time to focus on saving "people," over the economy. Perhaps...states are actually best used to serve their people, instead of endless growth.

[wolvoleo]

> for some godforsaken reason left-lib parties in europe think accepting infinity migrants forever is the most important thing to do

This is completely BS. Nobody wants to let in unlimited migrants. This is not a goal of anyone, including the left-most left. In fact on the left we are very aware that our welfare systems can't support unlimited people.

The left wing parties just wish to honour existing international treaties which we have signed to allow genuine asylum seekers. There's processes in places to determine whether they deserve this. The right just want to turn their boats back as they approach (pushback) which is literally illegal.

It's important to realise though that asylum seekers are not the root cause of most of our issues even though they are portrayed as such by the right in deflection from the real issues. For example here in Holland the biggest societal issue is the farmers who pollute too many nitrogen compounds and that causes housing projects to be put on hold. The number of asylum seekers has been steadily decreasing over the years.

But farmers make up a huge piece of the right wing so they'll never take ownership of the problem. Better to deflect on someone else.

[yolo3000]

Numbers are going down, but in my area there are now 4 buildings with asylum seekers. Started with a hotel, then an office building, then some newly built expensive houses that were first up for rent and now rented for asylum seekers, and now another office building. Honoring existing treaties out of principle can also be put on hold when the situation changes.

[sunshowers]

From what I can tell, a big part of the problem in Europe is that people seeking asylum are prohibited from making a living (due to widespread belief in the lump of labor fallacy) and so have to be dependent on welfare.

[wolvoleo]

Yes and when a government tries to do something about that (like Spain granting temporary permits so they can work and pay taxes) it angers the right even more.

[anonzzzies]

The issues here are the same as they have been forever in every country; Spanish people simply are not going to do the jobs the immigrants are doing. This is the same in every country I lived in or visited, including the US. In Spain, most my uneducated neighbours feel too high to even work in bars, let alone pick fruit, shovel shit, pick up garbage etc. So who is going to do that besides immigrants who are eager to do it; a few generations later, they will vote right and complain about immigrants and will say they are too good to shovel shit, of course.

[akimbostrawman]

>asylum are prohibited from making a living

This is exactly how we got here. We allowed them to work to make temporary asylum permanent migration.

[sunshowers]

Look, you can either let people make a living and manage their own lives while contributing to society, or you can not let them make a living and ensure they're housed and fed. You can't be angry at A and also be angry at B.

[wolvoleo]

If they are only asylum seekers, it means they are still in the validation process.

Unfortunately the hard-right has also defunded that process for many years, and have thus created this problem themselves. The agencies tasked with figuring out if asylum seekers have a legitimate claim are overwhelmed with all the work. This is purely a self-created problem (intended to gaslight the population in there being a huge 'immigrant problem').

[bluescrn]

> The left wing parties just wish to honour existing international treaties which we have signed to allow genuine asylum seekers.

But these are treaties are no longer fit for purpose, as can be seen by the boatloads of mostly young male economic migrants turning up in the UK to 'claim asylum'. People who've got thousands of euros to pay the small boats traffickers.

If they were refugees fleeing war or other dangers, you'd expect a lot more families - women, kids, the elderly - to be making the journey.

(Of course, legal migration to the UK is vastly higher than illegal arrivals. And this is the larger issue putting pressure on housing, healthcare, transport, and more. But the small boats are a glaring example of a broken system being exploited)

[graemep]

The UK's system for processing applications is:

1. highly inefficient: its slow and badly run. 2. seriously considers applications that clearly false - people from Canada and the EU do not need to claim asylum! Those numbers are tiny but it illustrates a winder spread problem. people who feel safe enough to return to the country they "fled" on holiday also clearly do not have a genuine claim. 3. It fails to provide a route for a lot of people who do have a genuine claim - e.g. religious minorities in the Middle East.

It is no longer true that the numbers of legal migrants are vastly higher because the government have decided that they need to cut the numbers of immigrants and the easiest way to do this is to cut legal immigration.

[wolvoleo]

Well, don't forget some of these wars are caused by us. The Western countries invaded Iraq under false pretenses so Dubya could make his Halliburton buddies happy. As a result and pure neglect to form a legit democratic government after the war a power vacuum ensued which caused the rise of ISIS which contributed to the war in Syria. Which directly caused the mass migration on foot from Syria.

In this way we do have responsibility towards them. The migration from Africa is a different issue but it is already possible to quickly reject asylum-seekers from known-safe countries.

> Of course, legal migration to the UK is vastly higher than illegal arrivals. And this is the larger issue putting pressure on housing, healthcare, transport, and more.

Well exactly but nobody is talking about that. Everyone is talking about the asylum seekers. Which are only a small part of the issue.

And the pressure on housing is very multifaceted. A lot of NIMBYism when it comes to new construction, and boomers who have invested in the housing market and don't want to see their investment evaporate by more supply on the housing market. So the parties backed by those with money are always obstructing new construction and other means to make housing cheaper. This is a much bigger problem when it comes to housing than those few apartments granted to asylum seekers.

[rangestransform]

Moral responsibility is not real responsibility that can be enforced at the point of a gun by anyone or any nation, and so this responsibility does not have to be assumed

[graemep]

> The Western countries invaded Iraq under false pretenses

True, but I would say the current refugees are not those who most need refuge. Religious minorities who are the most threatened by ISIS are under-represented.

> it is already possible to quickly reject asylum-seekers from known-safe countries.

It does not happen though. it happens in the end, but the system in ridiculously slow and inefficient.

> And the pressure on housing is very multifaceted. A lot of NIMBYism when it comes to new construction, and boomers who have invested in the housing market and don't want to see their investment evaporate by more supply on the housing market.

That is true.

[bluescrn]

Surely those who need refuge from the worst Islamic regimes are the women, not the men?

As for the housing market, yes, it'd still be in a bad state with zero migration. But at the moment, it seems that we can't build enough to keep up with the migration alone. And when we do manage to build loads of homes, we completely neglect most of the infrastructure needed to support them.

We haven't built a reservoir since the 90s. Transport is a real problem, with the roads overloaded and in bad condition while rail projects seem impossibly slow and costly (HS2 is probably the last one the UK will ever attempt?). And then there's the NHS, policing+prisons, education system, and so on.

[ClumsyPilot]

> at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason

So many reasons: unpopular wars in the Middle East, repeated embarrassments in international arena, domestic unrest, decadent elites…

[natebc]

Didn't Steve Bannon do a tour in Europe recently to dispense some of his strategy?

This smells like him, honestly.