5/23/2026 at 11:21:37 AM
> However, stopping working with Microsoft and other US tech companies is not an option in the short term, he told the magazine.> Van der Burg is currently grappling with the issue of Solvinity, a Dutch cloud service provider which is widely used by government departments including the Digid identity system, and which is on the verge of being sold to a US company.
> The Dutch tax office is also currently switching to Microsoft systems, despite MPs’ concerns.
They all talk about the importance of European digital sovereignty and then continue to do the exact opposite behind the scenes.
by petcat
5/23/2026 at 11:28:58 AM
They all talk about the importance of European digital sovereignty and then continue to do the exact opposite behind the scenes.To be honest and I say this as a Dutch person, this is typical Dutch (government). Basically two rules in Dutch politics: (1) always choose the option that pleases the US the most; (2) always postpone solving issues to the latest possible moment (US dependence, nitrogen deposition, childcare benefits scandal, gas-induced earthquakes).
France, Germany, etc. are much better examples when it comes to sovereignty.
As an aside the parliament wants to stop the Solvinity acquisition or stop renewing the contract with Solvinity. But the VVD (one of the parties in government) is always going to choose what is best for big business (the party is one big revolving door) or the US.
by microtonal
5/23/2026 at 11:46:08 AM
It's not only Dutch. Instead of building sovereignity, the EU thought they could regulate their way and force everyone to bend the knee because of their share as a trading partner. This started 20 years ago. However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumbling, but the politicians have hard to grasp with the reality they could somehow dictate things globally. AI will only further accelerate this.Only way to have control is to have domestic actors you can push around.
by miohtama
5/23/2026 at 12:42:57 PM
Europeans (and not just the EU) think they still have the influence on the world they had in the 1980s when their economies were a much larger proportion of the global economy. Europeans have no idea what the world looks like from Asia which contains most of the world's population and generates a third of global GDP.by graemep
5/23/2026 at 12:52:24 PM
Americans (and not just the US) think they still have the influence on the world they had in the 1980s when their economies were a much larger proportion of the global economy. Americans have no idea what the world looks like from Asia which contains most of the world's population and generates a third of global GDP.by ffaccount2
5/23/2026 at 1:01:14 PM
It is a general western problem to some extent, but the US has a a faster growing economy than any of the big European economies. It is still a super-power.by graemep
5/23/2026 at 1:48:41 PM
The "faster growing economy" is basically 100% AI speculation now. If that gamble pays of the US is still in trouble (as is the rest of the world), as there doesn't appear to be even a hint of a plan of what a post-AI society looks like for anybody but the top 0.1%.by vanviegen
5/23/2026 at 2:06:09 PM
I don't think the top 0.1% has a plan, either. From my personal interactions with them, they are mostly just excited they can talk to a chatbot on their phone all day, and then make questionable decisions from that - to use a recent example, deciding to be their own general contractor and make a house remodel cost an extra million and take an extra year to do.by trollbridge
5/23/2026 at 8:08:26 PM
The money and time to pursue any passion or hobby they wish, or simply travel and enjoy the world's leisures. They can run a small company, never worrying about profits to survive because their interest will keep them afloat.And instead of delegating or relaxing or honing a talent, they still have this need to pretend they are a craftmen and waste everyone's time, instead of playing Factorio or Stardew Valley or X Simulator like the rest of us plebs do to scratch that itch. What a waste.
by johnnyanmac
5/24/2026 at 6:52:46 PM
It's both maddening, but at the same time, such people are usually more eager to pay asking prices and doing the jobs is easier, so I just do them.Getting to design a kind of fun home-automation project, actually, since he decided not to just go with a more-expensive all in one system and keeps piecemealing it, and now he can't figure it out, so I'm doing it all.
by trollbridge
5/24/2026 at 10:53:46 AM
its been true for decades:https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2024...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024...
> if that gamble pays of the US is still in trouble (as is the rest of the world)
Which will probably strengthen the relative position of the US.
by graemep
5/23/2026 at 2:12:29 PM
Well, Musk for one is promising not universal basic income, but universal high income. In a country where a lot of people don't even have health insurance. Let's see how that will work out, I'll believe it when I see it...by rob74
5/23/2026 at 2:26:43 PM
Does anybody honestly think that guy is gonna willingly relinquish any of his fortune?by alistairSH
5/23/2026 at 3:28:05 PM
After the eradication of humanity as we know it, a few survivors can start their own country with a law defining the term high.I don't believe it when I see it. I call it poppycocks. Because if you do want to argue such, you need to define the path to get there. Without that, it sounds like a pipe dream. Akin to say Leninism.
by Fnoord
5/23/2026 at 2:31:35 PM
>The "faster growing economy" is basically 100% AI speculation now.True, however, the US does more export manufacturing than the EU and at higher profit margins to boot. So even without the AI industry, the US is still in a far stronger place economically than EU.
The EU's massiv offshoring efforts, lack of innovation investments, red tape, environmentalism and high energy prices have left its domestic industry weaker and more vulnerable to foreign competitors and malicious foreign dependencies it can't control since it doesn't have any hard power to use as leverage to protect its industry.
Sure, the EU started to remilitarize and move away from fossil fuels to renewables, but this titanic effort is gonna pay back and maybe restore balance in 5-15 years time, and it remains to be seen if by then its economy will have just fallen further behind, since investors and the world aren't standing still waiting for the EU to catch up with them, but are instead exploiting the EU's current weakness to pull further ahead.
Like Germany's exports are now back to 2006 levels, and its domestic giants like BASF is further downsizing operations in Germany and building a massive 10 billion $ factory in China which is totally not gonna make Germany's policies tied to the whims of the CCP the same way they were tied to Russia's gas. BOSCH just announced 20k more job cuts in Germany and moving abroad till 2030. etc
Remains to be seen if this damage can be undone in the future, as things are currently patched up by massive government spending to cover up the private industry lack of spending, which isn't sustainable and eventually the cracks will get bigger.
by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 2:24:44 PM
I would consider bonds and treasuries a stronger signal than any lack of "post-AI" political vision.China's security establishment has gone public with the view that their purpose is no longer to find answers to the question 'how do we survive the US?', but instead to something like 'how do we manage the US?'.
In the coming years US power projection is not going to look anything like the stuff we grew up with, that social and military influence just does not exist anymore. Right now, things are pretty good, compared to what they'll be in a year or two. It's likely we'll get a brutal el Niño, fertilizer and lubricant shortages, gnarly energy prices and more, all at the same time. The US is closing down food production at a rate that would keep me up at night if I lived there.
by cess11
5/23/2026 at 3:54:34 PM
It’s fine, you don’t have to be the fastest growing economy in the world to be a meaningful global power and a good place where to live, get education, work. You need some level of growth, but it’s ok to no be at the top of the charts. The US has been the capitalist leader in the world for a long time and isn't going well at all, the country benefits its population very little. It’s not like only the actor with the top economic growth wins and all the other countries are losing.The EU has some issues, the economy isn’t the most dynamic, but the quality of life is great and has been improving. It is a large global market and has cultural influence. Our democratic institutions have survived ok so far. I think we are doing quite ok. We will see if we can deal well with issues caused by our aging population, that’s pretty challenging but I think we are in a reasonable position (and actually a more than great position if we compare worldwide)
by dgellow
5/24/2026 at 11:03:19 AM
It agree that global power and the wellbeing of most people are not correlated. I think the common people of the UK were better off without and empire than with one. Many small countries with no global power have high standards of living.However, the comments I replied to above were about digital sovereignty and soft power.
I am not convinced the future of the EU (or Europe in general) is as assured as you think it, but that is another discussion.
Americans do have a high standard of living in general and a very high median income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
They have two big flaws in their system, both failures to provide security for the poor and for people who suffer misfortunes: wealth distribution and the lack of universal healthcare.
by graemep
5/24/2026 at 3:43:43 PM
Americans do indeed have high standard of living, and the median income is high in absolute value, however the country has way more than 2 big flaws. US households have a high level of debts and a rate of personal savings trending down. The government is following an explicit inflationary strategy by actively devaluing its currency and applying tariffs. The national debt has been increasing very significantly without any plan to ever pay it back.That’s without taking in consideration all the political instability caused by Trump administrations: the destruction of US soft power worldwide, anti-science stances, rise in theocratic and fascistic ideologies, imperialistic tendencies, institutionalized racism making a come back, human right violations, war crimes, the normalization of blatant corruption by the country leadership, etc.
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 4:30:37 PM
As much as people complain about the EU, its the last western polity that is functioning to some degree of normal.To put it politely, America is just not, at this moment in time, with a predictable actor with rational self interest.
If things continue to fail, then its simple to assume we return to the spheres of interest stage of things, at which point the EU still functions as a bloc which everyone trades with.
Plus, American GDP figures are matched with a K shaped economy, and a population with a deep sense of unease and unhappiness.
by intended
5/23/2026 at 5:32:38 PM
The EU is curiously a block that countrirs want to joinby Muromec
5/24/2026 at 11:08:27 AM
its second biggest economy left a few years ago, a number of smaller economies which collectively are much smaller want to join. Negotiations with by far the biggest of those economies have been started over 20 years ago and have been frozen for a decade.by graemep
5/23/2026 at 1:23:16 PM
The other year the US was beaten by a starved little country on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, and recently by a somewhat large country by the Persian Gulf. Currently their only real ally is getting beaten by FPV drones handled by a guerilla force.The US has very little influence today compared to a decade or more ago. To the extent that the world at large cares about the US it's because they are committing genocide and destroying global trade logistics. All of their former allies are trying to substitute them out, or at least hedge with other international relations.
As far as I can tell, outside certain parts of the Occident, no one cares about new US movies or television series anymore. The Oscars gather some interest because some people want to know if any entertainment industry people will go against the regime and say something negative about mass murder of children, but that's about it. Future generations will be shaped more by chinese and indian movies than usian ones.
When apartheid South Africa was about to crumble it also initiated nasty military campaigns and faked political and military supremacy for a while, as did Idi Amin's Uganda. I'd bet something similar is going on in the US.
Some people are still stuck in the late Cold War, notably EU politicians like von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, as well as most swedish top politicians. They cannot imagine a world where the US is not calling the shots and will drag Europe further into global irrelevancy by idiotically paying tribute and kneeling for the US. Pretty much the rest of the world is disgusted and horrified by the bumbling nastiness of contemporary US empire.
by cess11
5/23/2026 at 11:40:09 PM
If both of these views are true (and they appear to be becoming more true every day): what happens?I find it a little hard to believe that Russia or China or whoever in the East or South is quietly puppeting all the bullshittery happening now. Maybe a little less hard to believe that the West has just collectively decided to huff lead gas fumes and lose our collective minds for a generation.
Maybe this is just how corrupt capitalistic societies die and the East is happy to sit back and watch us burn ourselves to the ground.
by vitally3643
5/23/2026 at 2:59:19 PM
But they do and you are bitter and sad that you can’t do a thing about it.by gyanchawdhary
5/23/2026 at 1:35:02 PM
They also came to realize building, operating and maintaining a military force is extremely expensive. Free healthcare, 7 weeks of vacation, 36 hr work weeks, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, etc etc is all great when you don’t have the financial burden of protecting your home.by tedggh
5/23/2026 at 1:47:29 PM
USA has said they will not support Europe in a military conflict so now you can slash your military and fire all those soldiers and have free health care etc. No? Sounds like ”protecting” Europe wasn’t what stood in the way of free healthcare, vacation, etc.by victorbjorklund
5/23/2026 at 2:04:43 PM
Nearly half (about 47%) of healthcare in the U.S. is government-paid, although via a variety of different programs. The USA also has quite lavish benefits in a variety of other ways.Of course, that is mostly paid for via massive amounts of debt, not from savings of military spending. But government spending on healthcare is more than twice (2.5 to 3 times) that of military spending. So slashing military spending to zero would just mean the amount of government-provided healthcare spending could go from 47% to 56% or so. (Not taking into account that a lot of "military spending" is actually healthcare spending!)
by trollbridge
5/23/2026 at 1:44:16 PM
Total EU defense spending is around $450M USD. The US defense budget, prior to 2027, is about $950M USD. Are you saying the US could have all those social policies for $500M USD?by tanaros
5/23/2026 at 1:58:54 PM
The US could have those benefits for free.Single payer would be drastically cheaper than the current system.
The other benefits are just policies that slightly reduce GDP per capita based on a first order analysis.
We are able to afford so many other subsidies, so unclear why housing would be different.
by avidiax
5/23/2026 at 1:56:20 PM
The US could simply give away $1 M per resident, removing the need for social policies and it would still come out cheaper.by rescbr
5/23/2026 at 2:56:56 PM
Where does this ~$350 trillion dollars come from?!by sokoloff
5/23/2026 at 3:32:14 PM
Exactly where all the dollars came from :Dby jbverschoor
5/23/2026 at 2:59:39 PM
The US has around 340 million people. Giving a million dollars to each one would be 340 trillion dollars.by ImJamal
5/23/2026 at 7:57:21 PM
That sounds like a great idea.It would devalue the dollar a bit but you can print new price tags.
Just create a new similar shit coin
by econ
5/23/2026 at 1:51:29 PM
You aren’t counting the VA in your spending. That’s another 450 billion.by kasey_junk
5/23/2026 at 11:55:07 AM
> However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumblingUh, no. The US soft power is turning to dust whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin.
What has happened the past ±30 years is that most EU countries cut spending on their militaries to the bone, because big brother USA would take care of it anyway. Now that we are returning to a multi-polar world, suddenly the EU is left scrambling for hard power that it doesn't have. That's why they can't play hardball when the US does a new ridiculous thing, because they simply lack the hard power to back up Ukraine.
The US is sorely going to regret their antics though. Long term, the EU is going to switch to their own stacks, both for military but also things like cloud and other tech. It's trillions of $ the US economy will be missing out on. And voting in a Democratic president, senate and house is not gonna change a thing about it, because the US has proven itself to be a fundamentally unreliable, if not outright hostile partner.
by jorvi
5/23/2026 at 12:16:48 PM
The US alone spends 1.5x as much on consumer goods (yes, adjusted for PPP) and nearly 2x as much on R&D as the entire EU. It’s very sweet that the EU is trying to decouple itself from the US economy, but I highly doubt its ability to become “leader of the free trade world” when it has so little money to throw around.by rafram
5/23/2026 at 2:52:54 PM
Yeah, we'll just up our EU debt to about 40 trillion USD, make up some money and continue. Sounds a lot like US right? Living in perpetual debt as a nation.by ejpir
5/23/2026 at 5:58:55 PM
> The US alone spends 1.5x as much on consumer goods (yes, adjusted for PPP) and nearly 2x as much on R&D as the entire EU.Given that by PPP the EU and the US are about the same, that necessarily means the EU spends more on other things.
by ben_w
5/23/2026 at 12:23:27 PM
"the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin"At its usual pace ... do you know when the negotiations with Mercosur started? Year 2000. Only now we have an agreement. Still, better than not doing anything at all. But I wonder how many of the original negotiators are still alive.
It also yet remains to be seen what happens if China puts a real pressure on us. Our list of allies is now somewhat thin and we have to cozy up to India, which indirectly funds the Russian war against Ukraine by importing Russian weapons and Russian oil/gas, the latter in huge quantities. Still, better than cozying up to China, because the possibility that Beijing teaches Brussels some cool tricks to keep the population under perfect surveillance scares me.
by inglor_cz
5/23/2026 at 12:55:11 PM
>Still, better than not doing anything at allHow is Mercosur better for the EU citizens?
by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 2:09:34 PM
German car companies get new countries in which to see themselves destroyed by China?by CalRobert
5/23/2026 at 8:32:46 PM
Super wealthy people in developing countries will still buy high-end Porsches and Mercedes G-wagons instead of Xiaomi EVs. For now.But the EU makers likes of VW are fucked since they sell Chinese quality cars at premium prices and German union workers expect six figure salaries for a hard 35h week of bolting bumpers to cars.
by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 12:23:26 PM
[flagged]by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 1:11:09 PM
>Uh, no. The US soft power is turning to dust whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin.To quote when harry met sally - I'll have what she's having.
by ReptileMan
5/23/2026 at 2:04:03 PM
He's having a dish called "Watching Trump from a distance", you should definitely try it.by SiempreViernes
5/23/2026 at 2:17:20 PM
It is amusing what he inflicts on USA and I thoroughly enjoy it ... But the idea that EU is taking leadership in this chaos is somewhere between laughable and delusional.Actually EU is getting fucked on every possible turn. We are the ones that pay trough the nose for all his follies. We are weaker than ever and we have delusional commission in charge.
Compared to Ursula Trump is the reincarnation of Richelieu and Bismarck with a pinch of Disraeli
by ReptileMan
5/23/2026 at 2:43:26 PM
I can’t believe people even think that the EU is coming out ahead of this in any sort of way. It’s really delusional.by tchalla
5/23/2026 at 6:24:22 PM
I think you’re framing it the wrong way.Who is self harming more more aggressively, the US or the EU?
That’s the way I see it.
by lostlogin
5/23/2026 at 12:11:56 PM
It is difficult to think of an economic region that is more opposed to free trade than Europe (that isn't a comedy country). Possibly some countries in South America?Trade within Europe has massive restrictions. I have no idea why, given the stated aims of Europe...we are posting this on a post about the Netherlands trying to protect office software ffs, people think this isn't the case. One of the reasons why the EU created a trade bloc, and the same reasons why you see the same attempts in areas of the world like South America, was to limit the impact of free trade. This should be completely obvious given that the EU is not competitive in areas where they lack the ability to limit competition.
Also, I will point out: US policy is for the EU to do exactly the thing that you are suggesting. This has been the consistent position of Trump since 2016. The main blockers for this have been politicians in the EU. I am not sure how you equate being unreliable with subsidising EU defence spending to the tune of multiple trillions so that EU countries can spend on welfare either.
The EU self-image is totally bizarre, it is so out of touch with reality. Hostile to all forms of change and innovation: actually one of the greatest free traders there has ever been. Xenophobic and hostile to certain countries: possibly one of the greatest allies to these countries ever. Never gets any support on Ukraine, would be a leader if the US weren't such bastards: spent multiple decades fuelling Putin's state.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 12:31:11 PM
> Hostile to all forms of change and innovationI don’t understand how you can believe that about the EU. The union has been evolving so much since its creation. It is itself one of the greatest innovation in governance ever created. GDPR is an innovative framework making the EU leader in privacy protection. European open banking initiatives/frameworks are unique and have been leading the way forward for the past 20 years, and we are now reaping all the benefits with the latest payment system developments (PSD2 and others were already awesome but the payment standard is what makes the day to day citizens actually see the results). The 28th regime[0] in development is innovative. Schengen/TFEU Art. 45 is such an innovative policy. Where else can you move freely between so many countries?
That’s only from the top of my head and the few examples I’m familiar with
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 3:26:35 PM
These innovations don't count, since they didn't create any new oligarchs.by karmakurtisaani
5/23/2026 at 5:09:02 PM
GDPR is innovation...I assume you don't live in the EU either...yes, there is an absolutely huge industry behind it, that is why it passed. Companies have to employ data protection officers, effectively a no-show job, and there is a whole industry of people connected to governments that facilitates this. And that also protects existing companies from competing because it is so expensive to handle customer data...as you need to employ an EU bureaucrat who is the equivalent of a CCP party official...that you have to pay for.
The weirdest thing is that the EU is maximally corrupt, and people are unable to see it because they are so enured to the corruption. It is all corruption. GDPR does not increase productivity, it is tax on consumers to produce something that is required by government with the surplus being passed to insiders (civil servants, unions, and billionaires).
Also, the per capita rate of billionaires in countries like Germany is higher than the US...this is whilst they have a population that has the same net financial wealth as Greece. In Sweden, 60% of total GDP was produced by companies controlled by one family until the 70s. The whole system is based upon large government in concert with large businesses and large unions. If you are in the club, you get a lifetime of free money. If you are out of the club...well, good luck competing with the migrants they are flooding into the country.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 6:26:52 PM
> GDPR does not increase productivityOf course it doesn't, because the whole point of having GDPR is preventing companies from doing some productive stuff that would involve collection of personal data.
by throw-the-towel
5/23/2026 at 7:35:31 PM
> well, good luck competing with the migrants they are flooding into the country.Just couldn't have a rant without bringing up immigrants. Classic.
by karmakurtisaani
5/23/2026 at 8:45:24 PM
> Companies have to employ data protection officers, effectively a no-show jobNo… an employee of the company can be designed as the data protection officer. Do you have literally no experience working in the EU? If yes you have really strong positions for someone that misinformed. Where are you getting your information from?
I can tell you that if you work in a large company with sensitive data it’s definitely not a no-show job, that can for sure be a full time position
> .as you need to employ an EU bureaucrat who is the equivalent of a CCP party official
Either complete lie or you are delusional. Wtf are you talking about
> GDPR does not increase productivity, it is tax on consumers to produce something that is required by government with the surplus being passed to insiders (civil servants, unions, and billionaires)
Ok, I think you’re completely out of your mind. The thought process makes absolutely no sense. Now I feel bad I have wasted my time engaging.
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 12:32:39 PM
The only people that think global free trade is a good thing are the top .001% net worth individuals which use it to wield power.Trading blocks (like the European single market) are specifically designed to protect their members from shit that global corporations or other nations attempt to get away with.
I'm not sure what "Trade within Europe has massive restrictions." means without context. Compared to some Randian capitalist utopia where there are no rules and no governments? Or compared to before the creation of the European single market?
by phatfish
5/24/2026 at 11:11:52 AM
> Trading blocks (like the European single market) are specifically designed to protect their members from shit that global corporations or other nations attempt to get away with.Most of those global corporations are in favour of these trading blocks - they are the best placed to take advantage of them.
The EU is far more than just a trading block. The trading block is the countries they have free trade agreements with - the EEA,, plus the UK, plus Turkey. The EU is a political union.
Global corporation can lobby far more effectively than anyone else at the EU level.
by graemep
5/23/2026 at 12:41:59 PM
> I'm not sure what "Trade within Europe has massive restrictions." means without context.We actually do have a good amount of issues regarding internal trades, according to https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/7792....
“The International Monetary Fund estimates that the persistent barriers to the EU single market still represented the equivalent of a 110 % tariff on services.”
There is a good amount of work to be done to complete the single market, what we currently have is way too fragmented
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 12:45:40 PM
That is politically impossible. Everyone knows it is impossible because if you open up some countries to free services trade then the political basis for the EU and the traditional governing countries would collapse.The limitations on trade within Europe are intentional design. The attempts to stop the economy from collapsing with these massive government spending packages are the death throes.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 12:51:14 PM
I mean, it is extremely difficult, but the whole union was seen as impossible the last century. With strategic developments over decades I don’t think it’s impossibleby dgellow
5/24/2026 at 11:16:25 AM
The European Coal and Steel Community was established over 74 years ago.The idea of Europe as a nation goes back to the early to mid 20th century, at least. One example i can find a citation for (but it was far from the first): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_a_Nation
by graemep
5/23/2026 at 12:58:13 PM
What you said comprises the exact error in logic that people make. Because we did this, this other thing is possible.The EU was a certainty in a region that is hostile to change, wants big government, wants centralization, is suspicious of democracy, etc. Free trade would be a massive change, that is why it hasn't happened. The EU is basically the logical conclusion of European forms of governing.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 1:24:11 PM
> The EU was a certainty in a region that is hostile to change, wants big government, wants centralization, is suspicious of democracy, etcI don’t understand how you can say that with a straight face, it’s such a contradictory statement
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 5:22:21 PM
I have no idea how you can be aware of the history of Europe or the people involved with the EU and think this. It is incomprehensible. One of the most bizarre aspects of the EU is that has become a religion for people who have no idea that the basic principles of the EU are everything they oppose.But the EU started out as an industry group, the ECSC, to limit competition in coal and steel (with the helpful side effect of making German industrialists who did very well under Hitler even more rich).
If there is any founding principle of the EU, it is that competition should be limited because the view of people who founded the EU was that economic competition caused WW1/2 (a very generous interpretation of Germany's role in events but one that was used because there were a lot of wealthy Germans who wanted to use the EU to limit trade...btw, the situation today is beyond their wildest dreams, it is has made a small handful of German billionaires very wealthy for no effort).
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 5:49:34 PM
The ECSC was about creating a common market. So we are talking about free trade within the community. Which is the literal opposite of what you’re describing? We are talking about a trade community that is literally about blocking countries from introducing discriminatory policies. I assume you see the EU as anti-democratic somehow? You seem to have pretty much everything backward. The ECSC is something covered in school as a teenager, it’s not a secret or hidden history you’re somehow finding out. Yes after the world war there was a huge push to get neighboring countries to compete in a local free market instead of via military expansion. And yes that eventually served as a framework to develop EU institutions. And yes some people in Germany and other countries made quite a lot of money from the trade. How do you arrive to the conclusion that the region is hostile to change, wants big governments (we are talking about a region split in multiple countries, each with their own political systems, multiple of which are federations split in states that have their own autonomy and political systems. Somehow this huge community of small political entities becomes a huge government?), want centralization, and are suspicious of democracy?Somehow whenever European powers collaborate together it is framed as anti democratic, anti innovation, anti trad. Complete nonsense
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 6:04:36 PM
I wish European countries would love big government and centralization just as much as EU detractors say. We have way too much fragmentation, the overhead of coordinating so many small entities is just so high and a wasteby dgellow
5/24/2026 at 12:16:17 PM
Yup.My hope is that eventually the "fast ring, slow ring, adjacent ring" system of the EU becomes a thing. I then imagine BeNeLux, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, maybe Czechia entering that fast ring. And as they synchronize their business and tax laws and capital markets, it'll show such an acceleration of growth that almost immediately more EU countries will want to go in on it. The nice thing is that because the "fast ring" would be more of a gentleman's agreement than a true EU institution, it wouldn't be bogged down.
The only hair in the soup I see for the start is that Denmark and Sweden would have to join the Euro, but their currencies are already effectively pegged to it anyway.
by jorvi
5/24/2026 at 6:13:36 AM
Frankky, you have no idea about how Europe before the EU looked like.by watwut
5/23/2026 at 12:43:35 PM
Services trade within Europe is often less free than services trade outside of Europe. The reason why is because there is a strong political constituency within Europe to ensure that certain kinds of sinecure jobs are not impacted by competition (and yes, as you helpfully point out, to blame that on "global corporations"...and people wonder why Europe had such a long period of dictatorships in the 20th century, "globalism", right? wink, wink).by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 1:54:13 PM
They're letting Chinese cars in when automobiles are there last remaining mega industry.How can you take them seriously?
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 3:39:18 PM
FWIW our local car industry had decades to prepare to compete in the EV sector and decided to do pretty much nothing + train China how to take over their market. We’ve been way too protective of that industry, I’m personally happy they finally have to face some real competition. Protectionism has its place in global trade but it should be with a very specific goal in mind, such as giving the companies some room to breath while transitioning to new technologies and avoid a complete disruption of your economy. You cannot do it just to keep a dying industry alive. But you’re supposed to replace the external economic pressure with internal political pressure (or similar), otherwise corporation just go with the status quoby dgellow
5/23/2026 at 5:44:56 PM
Giving industry "room to breathe" means cutting regulations, including what many view as worker protections.I don't know if there is the social inertia yet on the ground for "screw the benefits, I want to save the ship".
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 8:40:55 PM
That’s just one approach, you have others. Removing competition is anotherby dgellow
5/23/2026 at 12:25:25 PM
There are still some protectionist issues on the single market itself.For example, Poland defends its rail operator, PKP Intercity, against foreign competition by a series of dirty tricks, including "just never registering a sale of a depot to a competing corporation in the land registry".
by inglor_cz
5/23/2026 at 12:38:03 PM
Almost every major EU country, has implanted some domestic protectionist rules to protect some of its politically well connected lobbyist industries or jobs from cheaper or more efficient intra-EU competition buying them out. The restrictions almost never are in reverse.by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 3:36:36 PM
> whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpinIn the same way America is stuck in its military heyday past, the EU is stuck pretending its brand of multilateralism is still a thing outside its own borders.
by JumpCrisscross
5/23/2026 at 4:06:07 PM
What? In this case the problem isn't that EU wants to dictate things globally, but US laws that do just that. EU laws just apply to Europe. As time goes on and European agencies get their shit together and actually start to follow their own rules, it will mean a shitton of business will leave US companies.by yxhuvud
5/23/2026 at 4:44:57 PM
The problem for the EU is being so consumer centric but having a weak currency and diminished manufacturing (thanks to Russian invasion).by iwontberude
5/23/2026 at 11:58:27 AM
> always postpone solving issues to the latest possible momentGermany has the exact same issue. Always looking to keep the status quo for as long as possible. It’s really a structural problem, it’s the result of the political system, elected leadership, demographics (mostly the voting population aging rapidly). I expect the same issue is shared by most Western European countries
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 12:14:38 PM
Isn't this simply a "human thing", keeping the status quo for as long as possible? I see the same European country I'm from, where I'm living currently, the South American country my wife is from and every single country I visit.Maybe another framing, is there any countries where this isn't true? Where truly the default is to go against the status quo and continuously improve no matter what? I know there are a few countries people think are like that, but when you start reading about it, turns out to be kind of "hyped" and not matching reality.
by embedding-shape
5/23/2026 at 5:05:44 PM
It's a manager thing, something you learn in business school and from airport-lounge management lit. "Decide at the last responsible moment" has its place but managerial types often undeservedly elevate it to a general principle.Technical people are usually not like that. If anything they fall into the opposite trap: Always chasing the latest and greatest and wasting all their energy on novelty churn.
by weinzierl
5/23/2026 at 1:36:49 PM
People talk like "status quo" was inherently a bad thing, and that any change to it is good by default. On the contrary, "status quo" is usually a hard-won place, a foothold against strong tides, a position that you try to preserve while carefully considering your next step, because a careless step will just send you falling back down to whatever hellhole reality your predecessors dragged themselves up from.Status quo is not a stable state, it's a state you defend.
by TeMPOraL
5/23/2026 at 1:40:23 PM
The problem is defending a status quo adapted to a past reality that doesn’t make sense anymore. You need change to adapt to an evolving world, with new challenges, new alliances, new industries, etcby dgellow
5/23/2026 at 12:45:26 PM
Some countries with different politics like China do not seem to suffer the same issues, or at least not yet. Or maybe the country is defending a different status quo (the mono-party)? But they seem to be eager to develop the infrastructure and country as a whole.Not that I would want to live under their political system, to be clear. I wish we could have a democratic system AND also be eager to develop our regions instead of being so protective of everything
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 1:25:34 PM
I don’t think it’s different politics directly in China. The people believe that change means change for the better. In the west people have lost all hope for progress.by legulere
5/23/2026 at 3:35:10 PM
The people of China don’t have much say, I’m not sure what they believe matters too much, the government has a strong control over the media and can and will silence dissenting voices.In europe we’ve been generally pretty bad over the past decades at presenting positive arguments for liberalism, which is a shame. Similarly the EU is notoriously bad at communicating how it benefits the people, most of the communication assumes people already accepted it was a positive thing and already bought into European values, isn’t of arguing why they matter. The fact EU members blame EU institutions for their own local issues whenever something goes wrong doesn’t help…
by dgellow
5/23/2026 at 8:16:45 PM
The Chinese Government isn't like Russia where power is mostly legitimised by having power, like the law of the jungle. A big part of its legitimacy is from economic growth and lifting people out of poverty.by legulere
5/23/2026 at 8:42:52 PM
Sure, I’m not sure what point you’re responding toby dgellow
5/23/2026 at 2:07:30 PM
Not to mention being overrun by Dodge Rams that do not meet EU safety roles but come in under a loophole. I like living here mostly but a lot of what makes it nice is threatened by the US.by CalRobert
5/23/2026 at 1:28:27 PM
This is part of the point of Carney’s Davos speech. Us middle powers need to de-Americanize together or we don’t stand a chance at succeeding.by Waterluvian
5/23/2026 at 2:05:09 PM
Which might be impossible given that sacrifices will have to be made in the interim, and people already riot if you even hint at moving retirement age up a year.by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 2:49:30 PM
The problem is the government treating people like the enemy drowning them in paperwork. Western governments believe they can create the perfect citizen if they just surveill them and regulate them enough.by throwaway85825
5/23/2026 at 12:13:59 PM
Don’t forget that they’re in the process of letting our digital government identity being managed by a US company. It’s absolutely ridiculous.by stingraycharles
5/23/2026 at 1:44:21 PM
Another way to look at it is that things just move slowly in government land. The tax office moving towards Microsoft has probably been in preparation for half a decade... And do you really believe the government is technically capable of switching DigiD to a different provider on a (relative) moments notice without causing large scale outages?We'll start seeing government bodies moving away from US IT suppliers in a couple of years.
by vanviegen
5/23/2026 at 2:03:26 PM
The actual question is if (capable) SWEs will choose working for (or be a founder of) Dutch/Euro tech companies over US ones, or even leave the US to live there.Europe is an excellent value prop if you want to be a bartender or baker. Its decidedly less so if you want to be a white collar/gold collar worker.
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 5:12:08 PM
> Its decidedly less so if you want to be a white collar/gold collar worker.If you want to earn big money, you're better of in the US, for sure. Quality of life though, as a white collar worker?
That does probably have its effect on economic growth..
by vanviegen
5/23/2026 at 5:42:09 PM
>That does probably have its effect on economic growth..Yes it does, it has kept the US economy growing and relevant. Europe has been economically stagnant and resting on its laurels for 30 years.
Also QoL in the US is high, you just need something like an SWE job to access it.
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 7:21:29 PM
I left the US in my 20's to live in Europe and I like raising kids here (I'm now in my 40's) but honestly... it was a stupid thing to do. Meanwhile, my in-laws, who stayed in the US, are now retiring to France in their 40's with a few million dollars.The opportunity cost of living in Europe is absolutely enormous. You're basically lighting $1-2 million (or more, perhaps) on fire for every decade you're here instead of the US.
Though I don't find myself wanting to move back to California any time soon...
by CalRobert
5/23/2026 at 1:34:33 PM
> France, Germany, etc. are much better examples when it comes to sovereignty.France maybe, Germany most definitely not.
by weinzierl
5/23/2026 at 2:03:09 PM
No, not France either. It used to be, and some inertia from the Gaullist past remains, but the current leadership is as useless as everyone else.by Georgelemental
5/23/2026 at 11:25:20 AM
Rather like pre 2022 Russia, governments get warnings that something bad is going to happen that it would be expensive to prepare for, and put off preparing because you don't get political rewards for that.by pjc50
5/23/2026 at 12:17:00 PM
The reason Germany didn't prepare for it was because multiple leading politicians were bought and paid for by Russia. Be totally clear about that. Former German president was working for Gazprom on the project whose stated aim was to facilitate an invasion of Ukraine at some point (which Trump pointed out, and EU politicians literally laughed at him).The issue with the EU is that they lack the capacity for any kind of strategic thought. There are multiple reasons why but the underlying cause is that it is possible to move into local minimum where there is a very strong disincentive for any kind of change. Countries in the EU have generally been in that place since before the EU...that is why the EU was created, to limit change. It is isn't political incentives, it is a fundamental aspect of the political culture. If you also look at the stuff that has changed, this only becomes more strange (i.e. government intervention, immigration, regulations). Change is limited to preserve control.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 12:28:06 PM
> The reason Germany didn't prepare for it was because multiple leading politicians were bought and paid for by Russia. Be totally clear about that. Former German president was working for Gazprom on the project whose stated aim was to facilitate an invasion of Ukraine at some point (which Trump pointed out, and EU politicians literally laughed at him).To add to your point, despite this the German population seems to strongly believe there is no corruption in their government. Local minima, everything is fine, there is no fire, I'm going to make some tea while the tables turns to ash under the pot.
by bob001
5/23/2026 at 12:41:12 PM
As the other answer says, surely this would always be the case. People do not deal with government regularly and there is a strong disincentive to report upon this.I think you see the same thing in every Western democracy where people believe there is no corruption or believe in rather comical forms of corruption, but the corruption is actually systemic and a function of some political configuration that can't really stand change. This is certainly the case in Germany where you have this odd alliance between unions and billionaires that has basically led to, despite the amazing talent of their people, amazingly poor policy delivery.
by skippyboxedhero
5/23/2026 at 2:11:21 PM
They also work 400 hours less per year than their US counterparts and 1000 less than their Chinese counterparts.You might be comfortable in that life, but you won't be competitive.
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 3:34:03 PM
And pray tell, what does the American or the Chinese worker in this case get out of their higher productivity and competitiveness? Because it really seems that it's not quality of life, that's for certain.More money and material comforts? Well perhaps, but then again, I do wonder just how many would willingly take that rather than for example a proper work-life balance or clean environment. And we'll probably have to rethink the relationship of our societies with material consumption etc. in the coming decades anyway due to the climate emergency, and so maybe it'd actually be better for the US or China to adopt our "less competitive" stance rather than for us to try to agonise on trying to get ourselves competitive with them.
No one has yet figured out just what one's material possessions will do for them after they're dead. At best you can pass them to your next of kin, but that doesn't need the kind of hyper competitive, hyper capitalistic mindset espoused by the US or China.
by sham1
5/23/2026 at 12:33:14 PM
[flagged]by joe_mamba
5/23/2026 at 12:28:42 PM
It takes time. Hence whey Microsoft has a stranglehold on big gov. customers in other countries.From my own experience, big changes can take place in smaller gov. organizations, and pretty fast too. I've worked at a place where we swapped out all Microsoft and commercial products to open source alternatives in just a couple of weeks. But it was a smaller and specialized part of an organization, with 30 users.
Trying to do the same change, where there are millions of users involved? It will almost certainly take a decade or more.
The only thing that would accelerate such a process, would be Microsoft shutting down services at the command of, say, the US president. But that would only be the case if said country ended up being sanctioned by the US.
by TrackerFF
5/23/2026 at 12:32:28 PM
> It takes time. [...] It will almost certainly take a decade or more.> The Dutch tax office is also currently switching to Microsoft systems
They're not even trying though. They're not even starting the clock. They are actively going in the opposite direction.
It will never happen.
by petcat
5/23/2026 at 1:22:01 PM
European politicians and bureaucrats are just full of shit and extremely unwilling to make any kind of effort beyond talking.by PowerElectronix
5/23/2026 at 1:56:27 PM
European politicians are usually not backed by anything even close to a majority, so they need to talk and compromise.by vanviegen
5/23/2026 at 7:22:10 PM
Bert Hubert makes an argument based on Palantir: it's not simply the software. It's like a million dollar a day marine crane which comes with a crew. To put it another way, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce licenses are a tax compared to what is spent on consultants and integrators. That army knows a particular tech stack and also the relevant players.by m3047
5/23/2026 at 11:43:23 AM
Ironically GOP talks about European sovereignty over their own defense, but economically want to treat them like a vassalby softwaredoug
5/23/2026 at 12:50:51 PM
This is by the way how the defense was treated for decades as well. US resisted the EU from building a formidable army, instead they preferred a vassal state defense, enough to deter others from messing with Europe, not enough for Europe to be independent, and buying almost exclusively from US defense companies propping up US military R&D and financing factories during peacetime.Now that the US has pivoted to Asia since Obama, they expect the EU to fill the gap they leave behind. But that’s new, the US wanted it exactly like it was pre 2014 or so.
by NoLinkToMe
5/23/2026 at 2:14:36 PM
Reading this is like when you hear fat people talk about how all these corporations just keep forcing them to eat junk food.Meanwhile you live in the same society and eat healthy without issue or expense.
by WarmWash
5/23/2026 at 2:23:47 PM
Who are you in this comparison?by BDPW
5/23/2026 at 11:58:55 AM
If you think about it in terms of game theory that is actually a fair approach - you have an ally, you propose a best-case path forward for the alliance where both members are strong. If the ally don't want to take that path then you exploit the ally instead since a technically incompetent ally is a liability who needs to be kept under tight control.by roenxi
5/23/2026 at 1:57:52 PM
[dead]by sieabahlpark
5/23/2026 at 11:27:41 AM
Because there is no punishment for lying in politics.Look at the Trump, connected to p*dos, instead of stopping wars, started a war, betrayed MAGA, but still no action taken against him, because there is no legal action for lying to become a politican
by throwaw12
5/23/2026 at 2:55:00 PM
Indian tax departments use EXCEL VBA and force users to.use licensed microsoft excel to run the utilities so tax returns can be filed.The reason given "for your own safety"
At the same time, the public tendering process makes no mention of the tools. The L1 uses excel and that inturn FORCES thousands and thousands into using paid excel.
I use masgrave but thats irrelevant. I also use libreoffice which works most of the time but yeah
by 2Gkashmiri
5/23/2026 at 12:06:10 PM
US tech companies pay well, the cost of living is increasing, so politicians have to think about the future.by hulitu
5/23/2026 at 11:31:54 AM
There are many different tracks underway in government in different branches. Completely vetoing everything to use Microsoft is a difficult decision as it also stops a lot of features that depend on it, or were made to depend on it, such as updating tax codes. Therefore it is a risk/benefit assessment rather than outright lying. (The latter also happens obviously but just wanted to state that reality is more gray than black and white.)by spockz
5/23/2026 at 12:35:40 PM
Greed is the easiest way to compromise anything.It is a central theme covered in too many sources to list, but it is always a deal with the figurative devil, treason, betrayal of not just oneself, but everyone else who trusted you, lifted you, and relied on you.
It is why treason is such a pernicious and evil act even when one is ignorant of perpetrating it, because you may personally advance your own position for a moment by making a deal with the devil, but the real price is always immeasurably greater.
It is also why no one hates the traitor more than the devil himself, because he knows best what a vile and untrustworthy traitor the person is that would betray his own people. Even the devil cannot even respect that, hence why the only thing one can be sure of when making a deal with the devil is that the devil and his children will always stab you in the back.
It is the existential question all of “the west” is wrestling with right now. Whether they can stop the traitors among them who have long ago made many deals with many devils and his many children…or will they personally “profit” in the short term all the way to figurative hell.
by roysting