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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

Isn't ASML [0] the leading manufacturer of photolithography machines? They are dutch.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding

Yes, as a European, the past two decades were maddening. Europe had no vision concerning strategic industrial assets. Advanced steel production was sold to India. Key assets in the energy sector were pillaged by GE. The UK sold a leader in chip design to Japan and despite having ASML being at the forefront of photolithography there still is no credible fab in the EU. The pandemic really highlighted some major shortcomings regarding the EU production capacity.

These are major failures. Hopefully, as this was mostly due to constant sabotages by the UK, the situation will improve now that they are gone. Sadly, their constant push for enlargement can't really be undone and might still doom the union in the end.

Can you elaborate on "UK's sabotages"?

But certainly, the UK has been against any kind of concerted efforts by the EU which might go further than the single market for as long as they were a member. They lobbied heavily to be left out of the common agricultural policy and tried to diminish as much as they coud, were against Maastricht and were not a member of the Eurozone, pushed heavily for enlargement ensuring they would be no political cohesion in the union. Leon Brittan as a trade commissioner was a staunch opponent to any kind of state aid in the 90s and single handly significantly weakened the European industry.

Don't get me wrong, I like England. Great country, nice culture, shit partner. As far as I am concerned, Brexit is probably the best thing to ever happen to the EU.

I agree. The UK never really wanted to be part of the EU. It only wanted to cherrypick the best parts and nothing else. Once they decided to leave I wasn't thinking a single thought about the EU crumbling but rather "good riddance". Other than the northern Ireland dilemma it is a win win situation.

Of course the UK will take a hit in the short term but failing to prepare for that is on them. It was their decision.

> the UK has been against any kind of concerted efforts by the EU which might go further than the single market for as long as they were a member.

Conservative politicians were the driving force behind the creation of the single market in the first place

> They lobbied heavily to be left out of the common agricultural policy

the UK is still part of the CAP

> were against Maastricht

which is why the UK signed it

> pushed heavily for enlargement ensuring they would be no political cohesion in the union

this is a common conspiracy theory, but it has no basis in fact

> Leon Brittan as a trade commissioner was a staunch opponent to any kind of state aid in the 90s and single handly significantly weakened the European industry.

yes, you make your industry stronger by protecting it from competition by providing it with taxpayer subsidy... right?

I'm not 100% on this, but I've heard it said that the UK was often a 'shield' for the more frugal EU countries (mainly the Nordic countries), as they often voted with us. As we were the bigger country, we were usually seen as the 'bad guys' though.

UK was in a lot of ways not a great fit for the EU sometimes but sometimes I do think it was good to have a larger player in the UK take a different position. I'm a big fan of the EU but they do seem to make mistakes, and completely ignore certain problems (like immigration).

Beat me to it. Also Sweden is leading in tech, how exactly?

They have number dispensers at the meat or bread counters in supermarkets which is quite neat. You do not have to wait in a queue and can do your other grocery shoppings until the display shows your number. ;)

We have that in Germany as well in some places (CITTI Markt, Northern Germany)

Yeah but CITTI is the only one to actually do modern stuff (although coop/Sky tried out a few as well, but that ended with the REWE acquisition).

And outside of SH, it's even worse.

There is a rewe here using e-ink price signs. But it’s privately owned so that doesn’t really count ;)

And at least for my normal rewe, it would make no sense to have those numbers, the average is below 1 person who’s in front of me at the counter.

lol

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