Comment on European Commission rejects new laws for Stop Destroying Videogames
Jiral@lemmy.world 3 days agoI 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.
Jiral@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It seems your beef is with democracy itself rather than the EU. Which party publishes an exhaustive detailed list of all coming laws with specific outlines for the coming legislative period, and of course predicting future coalition negotiations. You don’t see that your requirements are completely unworkable in reality, not just in the EU, anywhere, are you?
Party programs are simplifications out of necessity and they focus on specific topics, depending on the party. That focus itself is a strong reason why to vote for them. Those few Euros of tariffs on orders from China was indeed not a big topic. Immigration, Russia, defense and Integration were big topics, understandably.
3 EUR is not cutting off anyone from anything, especially as that is barely compensating the dumping prices on shipping. Or do you believe that 0 EUR shipping on a 2 EUR order is covering the actual shipping costs? Like I said, that shipping dumping is possible because of anachronistic international agreements that were never intended for what they are used now.
I know some don’t care at all about the environment or costs to society. That avalanche of tiny packages is a huge strain on our infrastructure and driven by unsustainably low shipping rates. That legislation will have a positive effect by incentivicing more consolidated ordering and shipping at prices closer to real costs.
Like I said, I am ordering myself in China and I support that. Chinese platforms will adopt fast when it is about money. So the positive effects will be seen soon. Maybe you don’t think as far but that shipping dumping is paid largely by us. At least everyone who is still ordering stuff also within the EU or paying taxes here for infrastructure.