Comment on European Commission rejects new laws for Stop Destroying Videogames
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days agoEuroparliament representatives voting has nothing yo do with the programs they get elected for.
When they present themselves to the election they show people a program. Then they do whatever they want, nothing to so with that program they were voted to achieve.
It’s a detached institution. People elected for the european parliament get outrageous salaries, and barely get audited.
I remember when chat control was being voted. I wrote my representatives, none of them answerer, none, not a single one. If they cannot even talk to me about things I worry sure as hell they are not representing me.
Jiral@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I thonk this is false on many levels. Party groups are acting largely within their programs. Topics like Russia, Ukraine, EU integration (pro/contra), environment, regulation vs fighting red tape, Immigration etc. were present in the debate.
It is not complete, after all coalitions need to compromise and also the other legislative chamber gas a say for good reasons but generally I don’t see more divergence than on national level.
What I do see however, when comparing to Austria is that MEPs are more approachable than MPs and there is a higher chance that they might be influenced by public pressure. They are also much more engaged in actual legislative work in committees and not just in rubber stamping in the plenum.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Did your representatives had in their program tariffs for AliExpress or Shein?
Mine didn’t, they voted in favor of it regardless.
Jiral@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yes national parties always campaign on the introduction of new fees and taxes and every new law is in every party program, naturlly also when coalitions govern.
That said, yes the tariffs on small orders are in line with the program of the party I voted for. They are also reasonable. Disposable fashion (and also other Chinese companies) platforms were systemmatically mislabeling shipments to avoid existing tariffs. Thanks to international agreements they can also ship at dumping prices (for less than the cost of a letter to the neighbour village within a country). Adding that tariff merely raises the shipping price to a level that is closer to domestic shipping. It also creates an incentive to not split up everything into countless part shipments, reducing the load on insfrustructure.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I didn’t see that explicit tariff on any program.
Their programa tend to be vague “supporting local industry” “protection from harmful foreign products”. But under those vague umbrellas they do whatever they want and then they job becomes to convince the people that what they decided to do is the good thing.
And in a democracy that’s not what should happen. In a democracy the people tells the politicians what to do. When the politicians tell by their own to the people what’s good from them it’s called enlightened despotism.
Also I do not see how it’s reasonable to ask for a 3€ tariff for each product category on any order. That tariff is obviously aimed to cut people from buying directly from china and just to buy the exact same product to a middleman paying way more. Products are still the same, guarantees are still the same, taxes are quite similar as this products were subject to vat. The only thing that change is you pay the extra tariff or you pay the middleman. Zero benefits for the consumer.