Nobody voted for paper straws, glued bottletaps or AliExpress tariffs. Enough people voted for this.
EU is hardly a democracy. More like an enlightened despotism. “All for the people, but without the people”.
We have a serious democracy deficit. And without democratic accountability, it’s hard to see a bright future for it.
The Commission is accountable to the directly elected European Parliament, by the fact that the latter can vote the former out of office anytime.
I get the feeling you are not really aware of how the EU functions. Despotism is absolutist rule, calling that the EU or any EU institution is pretty absurd and detached from reality. There is hardly a political entity, less centralised than the EU, still capable of routinely drafting common legislation. Also, while there is a democratic deficit (but hardly larger than in many other democracies nowadays), the Commission is elected into power by the directly elected European Parliament and can’t pass ordinary legislation without a majority in the EP in support of it and the latter having the power to amend the hell out of anything if it doesn’t outright veto it straight away.
Europarliament representatives voting has nothing to 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, untelated 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.
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.
Your example of chat control is actually confirming that. A majority conservative EP voted how on it again? MEPs were drowning in messages, I am not sure what you expected. The point was not for you to get back an assay but the drowning in messages was already the point and it worked.
Did your representatives had in their program tariffs for AliExpress or Shein?
Mine didn’t, they voted in favor of it regardless.
Yes national parties always campaign on the introduction of new fees and taxes and every new law is in every party program, naturally 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 platforms (and also other Chinese companies) 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. Last but not least, it reduces the incentive for mislabelling.
PS: I am shopping myself occasionally in China, so I know the practices and I understand the need for stricter rules.
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.
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.
Never had any faith in them anyway, just empty old suits that should have retired 20 years ago and now just want to get a bit more money before they keel over.
Best solution is to just stop buying games and go back to piracy, only way to keep your games these days.
The reason these games can be destroyed is that even piracy is often impossible. The ones you’re pirating are more often than not going to be the ones that were never at risk of being targeted by this initiative.
Then start considering buying games that you can also get through piracy, as long as you keep giving them money and allowing them control nothing will change.
Way ahead of you.
i’m planning to make sure my game is “piratable”… but shh 😅
:(
Cringe. The tentacles of Pirate Software are far reaching.
How obsessed can people get with one inconsequential guy for being cringe on the internet?
I see a lot of defeatist commenters are content to lie down and let this be the end result. I’ll let the man himself explain why this isn’t the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgoODQFrPgw&t=734s
tl;dw: There is a much broader support for SKG in the European Parliament, the other legislative body besides the EC. They can’t introduce new legislation, but they can modify existing legislation; specifically, SKG is targeting the Digital Fairness Act.
Definitely not the end of the movement, but it’s still disappointing that they reached anything other than the obvious conclusion with so much grassroots support.
Expected, though. The EC is not exactly known for having sensible opinions.
There is a much broader support for SKG in the European Parliament, the other legislative body besides the EC
Ah, the one that’s actually VOTED for (rather than appointed by “The Council”) is more responsive to the will of the people! Imagine that!
EU commission does what everyone expected them to do: Deciding based on what wealthy lobby groups tell them.
Hey, maybe it’s not that EU is a failed and totally corrupt state but they simply don’t care about video games that much? You know, with global economic crises on the horizon, new war in the middle east, growing threat from Russia and the collapse of NATO? Is that possible?
then why not do as people ask if they dont care?
Because they don’t care? They won’t spend time on it because it’s low priority?
Is it the same people that works with wars and video games? EU is big and they can work on many things at the same time.
EU has done improvements on our right to our hardware, which includes right to repair and software updates of the operating system for five years. Looking into the right to our software, including video games, could have been the next step of that.
Yes, those are the same people. Not the same people will write the whole bill but the same people will have to move it through all the legislative process and vote on it.
Yes, EU has done many improvements. That’s why I think it’s silly that everyone says they are corrupt just because they didn’t agree to work on video games. It’s like people can only see one thing at a time.
Many things can be true at once. They can have done good things, they can various opinions on topics, they can be busy with larger matters, and they can be corrupt!
Humans are really good at doing lots of things.
So they pushed GDPR through against the lobbying for Meta and Google, they pushed ICE cars ban against the lobbying or auto industry, they passed DMA/DSA against the lobbying of all the biggest corporations but on video games they folded immediately because EA and Xbox told them to. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what happened.
As much as I liked the initiative, it was always on shaky ground because games aren’t needed… now, if we could have tied it to the environment somehow (eg. hardware waste), or to the right of education (eg. safeguarding access to learning material), it would have stood a better chance.
The government does nothing. More news at 11.
I come to distrust the EU with opinions like this every day
Government will not do good things if you’re not organized enough that you don’t need government.
Bummer
“They say that existing EU consumer law “already provides for important safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers”, and note that video game publishers have to inform about “the duration and the conditions for terminating the contract before the consumers signs up for the video game”.”
Well that would be cool, but anything about the duration and conditions for terminating the contract i’ve ever read on boxes or terms of service is: " We can do whatever we like, whenever we like, just so we’re clear’ (im slightly paraphrasing). So it sound to me like the EC says: " Well these sellers said fuck you up front so they’re immune to any responsibility". Cool, cool. I saw a digital fairness act, but maybe we can hang something up in the mandated warranty tree? So if a game shuts down in 6 months barring you from playing, you would be entitled to some form of restitution instead of hoping the dev has morals.
Still doesn’t solve that corpo’s have their fingers over the killbuttons on our cultural heritage existence, so, you know, there’s a lot of work to do still.
o it sound to me like the EC says: " Well these sellers said fuck you up front so they’re immune to any responsibility"
Upfront? As in the UELA you get to read after opening the box, at which point you can’t return the game anymore?
EULA is not valid in EU. Contract terms that are unfair under EU law have no legal or binding force on consumers.
It’s a basic premise of European and EU legal systems that you cannot use a contract to subvert national or international law. I guess the difficulty is who exactly enforces the existing laws that are supposed to guard against consumers getting ripped off.
Its not the eu’s job to protect cultural heritage. What kind of nut job comes to conclusions like this?
here is a quote from the european commision:
the EU is committed to safeguarding and enhancing Europe’s cultural heritage.
Great rebuttal.
Well that’s a broad interpretation of a translation into a language no EU country officially speaks. So…
How fragile is your ego when you have to say “nuh uh” to something so unambiguous?
More fragile than you can possibly imagine.
L’Union européenne a pour mission de soutenir et de compléter les actions menées par les États membres pour préserver et promouvoir le patrimoine culturel de l’Europe.
Better ?
Well you can’t really argue video games are culture except the ones that are but they don’t count.
They’d be really upset if they weren’t monolingual.
They’re monolingual and anything written in English isn’t valid since it’s not the official language of any European country.
Checkmate!
also, i just wanna remind you, Ireland is an eu member state.
Yeah, well, I didn’t remember that when I said it. Doesn’t count.
lol, at least you tried
Out of all “internet commenters who could not admit they were wrong,” this is quite a high ranking in my memory.
I will remember you, friend.
😘
Dude, it’s ok to be wrong sometimes, no one would judge you :) In fact, it’s a sign of strength to be able to admit you’re wrong, and people will like you more for it. It’ll also be good for you personally as you will be more effective in more things :)
Fuck the Eu Commission. They are traitors to everything the EU stands for. They deserve to burn with every billionaire on this planet.
Uh, they are the EU.
Uh, they are not. It’s like saying the entire US government consists of only the members of congress.
The European Commission is one of two legislative bodies. It’s the one that can introduce new legislation. The European Parliament is where SKG has a much broader support, and they are aiming to modify the Digital Fairness Act.
I think you confused something here. While I agree that it is nonsense to claim that the Commission “is the EU”, it is not really a legislative body. While it is true that the Commission “initiates” legislation, it is an executive institution and such work is more in line with national governments drafting new legislation (even if there commonly Parliaments then rubber stamp a legislative initiative based on that). The two legislative institutions of the EU are the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (comprised of ministers from each national government), the amend, veto or agree on legislation together, with committee work etc, as one would expect from legislatives.
I probably didn’t translate that properly. I meant “one of the two bodies involved in lawmaking”.
In that case, if you choose to include the Commission, there would be three bodies. There is a reason the “trilogue” is called that way. The third body is the Council of the European Union which has basically equal standing to the European Parliament but represents the member states, while the EP represents the voters directly. Both can bring in amendments and veto or agree on a piece of legislation (while the Commission can’t, its influence is with initiation and the initial draft).
Wanted to say exactly that. The EU Commission is seemingly actively pushing against everything common sense EU citizens are for, while the EU parliament is busy rejecting the BS coming from the Commission.
TLDR “we have been successfully lobbied/bribed/corrupted into doing nothing (we may end up making it easier for publishers to do whatever they want)”.
Lot of EU supremacist/jingoist gamers gonna be feeling some serious cognitive dissonance tonight.
Lot of EU supremacist/jingoist gamers gonna be feeling some serious cognitive dissonance tonight.
Eh?
Realistically though, it can be quite a complicated situation. One I’ve written about numerous times before. Servers behind the scenes can be incredibly complex, especially when it comes to games that have DLC and micro-transactions. And then you have to add to that the licensing on music and other things. Plus various other things I’m not thinking of right now
Holy lazy writing Batman!
As if this all wasn’t adressed by SKG 100 times before. Did the author never hear about SKG before writing this article?
