My hot take is that this is a signal for Trump. We play nice with you, you play nice with us.
Big tech is well connected to the current US administration so if the EU were to make theses changes, then they will appease big tech (a little bit) and therefore by extension Trump.
I (like you) don't think that these regulations are the reason the EU doesn't have home grown hyper-scalers a la AWS or GCP or Azure.
I think the EU just fell asleep at the wheel for too long. It basically outsourced its defense to NATO, its tech needs to the US and its manufacturing to China and for a while it worked perfectly.
However the world is changing and the EU is simply in my opinion not up to the task. It's too slow, bureaucratic and messy to be able to adapt rapidly and it lacks the vision necessary to remedy to its weaknesses.
1. We really have no realistic threat on our borders. Russia can't even cope with Ukraine alone in conventional warfare. Who do we have to defend from? And there are way bigger militaries than Ukraine in EU alone, let alone as a coalition, such as Poland.
2. Would like to remind you that article 5 has only been invoked by US and we lost many lives on something that wasn't even relevant to us, let alone the other wars in africa or central asia that we joined. So far, it's been Italian and Polish blood falling to comply with our North American ally, it hasn't been the opposite case for decades.
3. I think the European commission is simply corrupted, and when it comes to this data stuff, please notice how many dozens times Thorn and Palantir and many other US security companies have lobbied EU commission members, and those are just the registered meetings, you don't need to record phone calls or out-of-office encounters:
I'm quite convinced Ursula von Der Leyen is corrupt and is selling out Europe and keeps engaging in anti European policies.
4. EU would be fine, if it was able to pursue a coherent foreign policy. Instead you have 20+ countries where the occasional Hungary can veto anything. It should be given more power on many fronts. We shouldn't have 20+ privacy agencies, 20+ ways to register a company, 20+ different legislations on this and that.
5. There are politicians with the right vision, such as Macron, but most politicians have to live election by election, so it's very hard to pursue long term strategies. To be fair though, US is showing the same symptoms with one executive undoing what the previous has done from a bit.
>1. We really have no realistic threat on our borders. Russia can't even cope with Ukraine alone in conventional warfare. Who do we have to defend from? And there are way bigger militaries than Ukraine in EU alone, let alone as a coalition, such as Poland.
Reality of the situation is that in 2025 Ukraine IS the most combat ready army in Europe, and by far.
Russian army of 2025 is not the same as it was in 2022 too. It takes over a month to transfer military equipment across Europe /even without war going on/, we are SEVERELY unprepared.
Are you sure you meant to respond to me? I agreed with you on most of what you said regarding the regulations but just in case let me respond to your points:
> We really have no realistic threat on our borders. Russia can't even cope with Ukraine alone in conventional warfare. Who do we have to defend from? And there are way bigger militaries than Ukraine in EU alone, let alone as a coalition, such as Poland.
Is that a counterpoint to my NATO comment? If so I agree, I think that the EU countries should exit NATO and form their own military alliance. However it is very clear that investing in military capabilities is not the priority of the EU countries as only a few of them managed to spend the required amount each year as per the NATO treaties. Most likely such alliance will be dead in the water.
> Would like to remind you that article 5 has only been invoked by US and we lost many lives on something that wasn't even relevant to us, let alone the other wars in africa or central asia that we joined. So far, it's been Italian and Polish blood falling to comply with our North American ally, it hasn't been the opposite case for decades.
Again I agree with you. I think that the US has caused much suffering by invading Irak and Afghanistan and then Libya (with the help of other countries), thereby causing the refuge crisis and then leaving the EU countries alone to deal with this problem.
> I think the European commission is simply corrupted, and when it comes to this data stuff, please notice how many dozens times Thorn and Palantir and many other US security companies have lobbied EU commission members, and those are just the registered meetings, you don't need to record phone calls or out-of-office encounters: https://transparency-register.europa.eu/search-register-or-u...
I'm quite convinced Ursula von Der Leyen is corrupt and is selling out Europe and keeps engaging in anti European policies.
She was not elected to be a good politician.
She was a terrible politician in here home country. There was nothing to expect from her at any level and so far she has not disappointed. Her secret deal with Pfizer and her missing text messages are just the tip of the Iceberg.
> EU would be fine, if it was able to pursue a coherent foreign policy. Instead you have 20+ countries where the occasional Hungary can veto anything. It should be given more power on many fronts. We shouldn't have 20+ privacy agencies, 20+ ways to register a company, 20+ different legislations on this and that.
That is never going to be the case because all EU countries want different things and for very good reasons. They have different needs and different economies.
So the German government will keep selling out its EU "partners" as long as they can keep selling cars in the US. France or Italy would have done the same.
> There are politicians with the right vision, such as Macron, but most politicians have to live election by election, so it's very hard to pursue long term strategies. To be fair though, US is showing the same symptoms with one executive undoing what the previous has done from a bit.
I disagree with you on Macron. Macron has no vision besides a "more" federal Europe. The details are not very clear and his policies are constantly changing depending on his approval level in the polls. His promise when he was elected was that to put the far right out of business by the end of his presidency, the reality however is that the far right is now the biggest party in France and is in very strong position to win the 2027 election.
> That is never going to be the case because all EU countries want different things and for very good reasons. They have different needs and different economies.
That's quite of a weak argument, every state or county in the US has conflicting interests too. But there has to be defined boundaries in what is the business of EU and what is the business of single states.
I would say that matters like digital data privacy should have one common policy, not 20+ agencies.
My hot take is that this is a signal for Trump. We play nice with you, you play nice with us.
Big tech is well connected to the current US administration so if the EU were to make theses changes, then they will appease big tech (a little bit) and therefore by extension Trump.
I (like you) don't think that these regulations are the reason the EU doesn't have home grown hyper-scalers a la AWS or GCP or Azure.
I think the EU just fell asleep at the wheel for too long. It basically outsourced its defense to NATO, its tech needs to the US and its manufacturing to China and for a while it worked perfectly.
However the world is changing and the EU is simply in my opinion not up to the task. It's too slow, bureaucratic and messy to be able to adapt rapidly and it lacks the vision necessary to remedy to its weaknesses.