This is such a shame, we should be looking to source and produce things globally and find better ways to improve the logistics and efficiency world-wide. Why would the EU take such a protective stance which only enforces isolation and increases cost?
Edit: Thanks for the responses, I am still looking for a signal that tells my post is sarcasm multiplied by cynicism.
Why? Because it's reacting to the current US trade policies.
The EU is realizing that one of their major trade partner, who they trusted with critically important goods and services, might pull the rug under their feet.
Not to mention that the EU in itself is already a huge achievement in terms of free trade agreements between EU countries.
That doesn't really work as long as you have legislation like the CLOUD Act, which means EU-based businesses have to think twice about using any US providers, especially if they handle sensitive customer data and also since the DPF is on the way out.
Only because the US refuses to properly protect consumer privacy and seemingly can no longer be trusted at all. If Trump forces Microsoft to turn off Office 365 for example for the EU, or blocks AWS, GCP or Azure from doing business with the EU then European businesses are screwed. We’ve now realized these risks are potentially real and European countries are scrambling to look for alternatives (and realizing that they don’t really exist).
Considering the PCLOB has lost some of its members, it's questionable whether the DPF can continue to exist in its current form. If it does go out the window, then Trump won't need to tell AWS/GCP to stop doing business with the EU, since European companies wouldn't legally be allowed to transfer data to US companies anyway.
I expect the EU commission will take a _very_ long time to actually act on this tho. Maybe we'll see Schrems III first.
Right now directories like this are getting popular mostly because they offer alternative to US products. Pretty sure Europeans would be happy to use a Canadian alternative to a US service.
But not alternatives to Chinese products? China’s human rights, environment, currency manipulation, tariffs, IP theft — some people seemingly unify as anti-Trump, but ignore China?
This tells me the resistance isn’t principled at all, but simply grandstanding.
The situation with China hasn't fundamentally changed in the last two months. People operate under the assumption of some kind of stability in this relationship. The West imports and exports products from/to China, with some restrictions: critical infrastructure like antennas cannot be built by Huawei in many countries, for instance. People in the West wouldn't use a Chinese email provider, etc. Today China is not an ally, but not an enemy either; rather a partner. There is no reason to expect a change in behaviour right now. It doesn't mean that the West agrees with everything that China does, of course.
Now regarding the US, it has fundamentally changed in the last two months. From the US government threatening to invade allied countries to actively destabilising them through people close to Trump downright making nazi salutes. On top of threatening militarily, the US is attacking its ex-allies economically with tariffs. The people in power in the US are explicitly talking about destroying Europe, and the US is now becoming an ally of Russia (which again makes it look like an enemy to the West).
Two months ago, people were operating under the assumption that the US was an ally. Now it's a partner that is going down the slope of becoming an enemy. Go ask if Canadians or Europeans feel threatened by China right now. Ask the same question about the US.
So yes: people are more scared of the US right now, and the US look more like enemies than China right now.
> This tells me the resistance isn’t principled at all, but simply grandstanding.
TL;DR: It is obviously resistance, against the US becoming an enemy. There are two obvious reasons for finding alternative to US products:
1. If it hurts the US economy (and therefore the US citizen), the hope is that maybe they will realise that Trump is not helping them and push for stopping this madness. The US won't get back to beeing trusted allies anytime soon (that ship has sailed), but they could stop from becoming enemies of the West.
2. National security: the US cannot be trusted, so it is very urgent for the West to turn to alternatives and run away from the US as fast as they possibly can.
Yep it isn’t principled at all. This is just making clear that Canadians and Europeans are willing to openly support a communist dictatorship. I guess that sort of aligns with the trend in these countries away from Democratic values like free speech. But it is still disappointing.
Apparently unreliable partner just means “not being taken advantage of”. If stopping a waste of American taxpayer money results in this reaction, it’s clear the countries looking to decouple were never really partners of the US.
If you want to go theoretical one would argue that this effort is precisely what you ask for: one link in the global chain has become inefficient and this page is the result of the system routing around it.
It's to discourage the US from escalating the tariff war, which in the end always hurt consumers. People in the US are already paying that insane choice, but I don't hold my breath waiting for GOP voters to reconsider their choice: propaganda is a powerful weapon, and we're struggling against it also over here.
That's why I mentioned the escalation. We already had tariffs against China to protect internal market and bring prices on par to have fair competition, just like the US already had, but Trump wanted to go full berserk, and here are the results.
Yes, and ideally we would have no wars, either. But because of fucking psychos like Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping and many more, we do. Therefore, unfortunately, it makes sense for EU to decrease their economic dependence on outside players like the US and China.
I think it's important that we _do_ also include China in this. It's not just that Trump has demonstrated that the US is unreliable. We have also seen (again) that sociopaths in charge of authoritarian regimes can do things that are perfectly capable of acting against their own economic interests for political, cultural, religious reasons.
Depending on global interconnectedness of markets has not and will not save us. We need to divest and disconnect from all economies which are not reliable liberal democracies which broadly share our values.
I would include in this Hungary: We should be giving serious thought to how to kick them out of the EU.
But we have huge economic dependence which could also be used. We need to wean ourself off the Chinese supply chain. This will take decades, but the lesson here is that it will be used against us in future.
Europe is big enough as an internal market to sustain a good quality of life for the majority of the population — even if our 1% are disadvantaged relative to those in US, Russia. We have the capital and resources to defend ourselves too. We can open outward to Canada, Australia, democratic parts of Asia, Africa. But we need to avoid any dependence on powerful authoritarian regimes like China, India, the US, Indonesia etc.
I understand that but what's nagging at me is this: I think civilisation is about building dependence really.
Civilisation is organising in larger and larger groups - everyone becoming more dependent on each other and having laws and so on to resolve problems instead of fighting.
.....so somehow, for the sake of making Star Trek and all those wonderful science fiction stories possible.....we have to get that dependence back somehow. I'm joking but not joking. Some Americans are reasoable and somehow, for the world to survive, we have to find some way to help reasonable people all over the world to work together. So we can reach the science fiction future.
That sounds great. I'm just not sure it's compatible with current nation states.
As a first step we could perhaps agree that individual people could come and live in Europe and participate in our democracy?
I think physical presence is actually quite a good precondition for participation. At least people physically present have some skin in the game.
With a transition period, I'm not sure I'd have a big problem cutting many other links with non-democratic countries. I agree with your ideals but all evidence is that trading and communication links and other sources of interdependence will be abused. We need to have policies which respond to that.
> I understand that but what's nagging at me is this: I think civilisation is about building dependence really.
As it looks now, there might be a limit on the scale of global collaboration. There's nothing that says that the trend of global depenence and collaboration will continue (in fact, it is reversing now).
So Romania should be kicked out as well? They’re denying ballot access to a candidate that has broad popular support. Is that democracy when the people can’t vote for a candidate of their choice?
Possibly. I'm ignorant of Romanian politics. But the idea that EU should strengthen policing of democratic norms and sanction members who don't conform to them is important.
In this case, no I don't think Romania should be kicked out. Restrictions on party membership are complicated, but it seems here the courts have applied Romania's electoral law. We are going to have to be smart to avoid situations like this in other EU countries, where Russian, Chinese or US money are used to support non-democrats.
Are you seriously asking why? If you've paid any attention to the news in the past few weeks, you couldn't have missed the daily efforts by Trump and his cabinet to isolate the USA from its allies. In the past, European countries have trusted that the common values shared by the Western countries will ensure mutual cooperation now and in the future. Now this thinking has proven naive, as Trump has threatened Europe with, e.g., shutting down technological services if it's in his interest to do so. It doesn't seem to matter whether Europe pays for these services or not. Therefore, it's paramount for Europe to not vendor-lock themselves in American companies, as they can't be trusted anymore. It's sad and shocking, but Europe has been backed into the corner with this one.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but it's not part of the EU. It was originally part of the EU (back when it was the EEC) but voted to leave in a referendum in 1982, officially exiting in 1985. Today, Greenland has a special status called Overseas Country and Territory (OCT), meaning it has trade deals with the EU, but EU rules don't directly apply there.
Edit: Thanks for the responses, I am still looking for a signal that tells my post is sarcasm multiplied by cynicism.