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Comment by jkaplowitz | Hacker News Reader

I get your comparison to the TikTok ban, but not even noyb is questioning the legality of transfers outside the EU to countries in general, whether pursuant to an European Commission adequacy decision or pursuant to Standard Contractual Clauses.

The problem is specifically that US law and policy will make both of those options unviable to guarantee the rights GDPR requires with respect to transfers to the US, once noyb gets the EU courts to state this clearly enough and invalidate the Commission’s adequacy decision for businesses which participate in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. (In the meantime, EU companies are allowed to rely on that decision.)

There are several non-EU countries with adequacy decisions whose validity nobody is questioning, including Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. Many more countries can adequately be handled through Standard Contractual Clauses. The problem is very US-specific.

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I mean look, the details may vary but the core holds. The businesspeople running EUs communications are directly involved with the openly hostile US government and directly try to influence politics and create rage with the European public.

The current open markets model is not working, time to copy from the success stories: Ban foreign ones or force them to become local.

The current politicians are still in denial but as things deteriorate things will have to happen. Unlike US, European politics are not just two parties having about the same support.

Things can get very spicy very quickly. You think the anti-establishment ones are pro-American? The most pro-American politicians are those in power or those who recently lost power to the anti-establishment.

Pretty much non of the anti-establishent are pro-American(with the exception of UK with Farage) and with Musk targeting Farage I'm sure they took a note on how transactional their relationship with the US anti-establishment is.

Whichever factions and sentiments gain power in the EU, there's only so much they can do before hitting the major factor that's usually not spelled out explicitly in polite company, but generally understood: the US has nukes and aircraft carriers. We don't - or at least not enough to replace US in the role it plays in Europe's security.

I hope they won't be crazy enough to just bludgeon through that anyway, as past that, hic sunt dracones.

"As of July 2023, France possesses approximately 290 nuclear warheads" how many do you really need?

The answer is none.

AFAIK there are no simulations in which nuclear war works. I am not convinced nukes would have helped Ukraine.

EU+UK has nukes and Aircraft carriers and even though minuscule to US, has the capacity to build more as the US security is no more.

Also, as it was revealed with the war in Ukraine, the Americans spend crazy money on their military but they don't get the best value for it. They failed to provide the Ukraine the necessary ammunition and apparently the costs were multiple times higher with no better outcome compared to the Russian ones.

In addition to that, the warfare changed significantly with the drones and its the Europeans(Ukraine + Turkey) who have the most experience with those - both in use and production.

Mentioning Turkey, it's actually one of the most formidable militaries with very capable military industry complex. Although it has it's differences with EU, it is an EU candidate country and its economy is fully integrated with EU.

Later on when things calm down with Russia, EU-Russia is actually a very fruitful relationship because Russia and EU are perfect match(one has the resources, the other has the technology) and that's why Europeans didn't want to believe that the war is possible.

There are many more reasons not to be pessimistic about Europe too.

> Although it has it's differences with EU, it is an EU candidate country and its economy is fully integrated with EU.

What is "fully integrated"? It's not on the Euro, for example.

Many EU countries are not in the Eurozone.

Turkey and EU have a longstanding relationships with Turkey taking part in many of the EU institutions, like the customs union for example. In many ways Turkey acts as an industrial base for EU, many many EU companies have facilities in Turkey that serve EU.

Turkey is also in the Council of Europe, is in the jurisdiction of European Court of Human Rights(pays a lots of fines, unfortunately), European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Turkey implemented GDPR compatible privacy laws, it has its infrastructure compatible and integrated with EU etc. Roads, electricity, gas, trains - everything is by the EU standards and integrated within the EU. Environment protection and worker rights are also not that far off. Turkey and EU fell apart only on political level and things like the upholding of the rule of law. In fact, Turkey is one secular government away from being full EU member.

For comparison with US, Turkey exports about $140B to EU and only about $14B to US. No matter the politics, it's EU what matters to Turkey and US is a distant 3rd with being only about %8 of the Turkish exports(Europe is %58).

> Many EU countries are not in the Eurozone.

Well, 6 aren't. But then I wouldn't say their economies were "fully integrated".

7, and living one of them, I don't see any obvious signs of incomplete integration.

> EU-Russia is actually a very fruitful relationship

That's a few decades away, at best; have to wait through Putin's death, the collapse, the post-collapse warlord era, and the reconstruction.

"That's a few decades away, at best; have to wait through Putin's death, the collapse, the post-collapse warlord era, and the reconstruction."

Why? Germany already pushes for reconciliation, as they were hit the most.

For other countries in Central and Eastern Europe it doesn't matter who rules in Russia, as Russia interests are shaped by much grander forces, and those interests are opposite to those of Finland or Poland.

Let's stop looking at world through Marvel-like glasses. There are countries and nations, each with different interest shaped by the world and geography around them.

"EU-Russia is actually a very fruitful relationship because Russia and EU are perfect match"

And this shows limitations of any political analysis that operates on the concept of EU.

Poland, Finland and Baltics are all in EU, and their relationship with Russia cannot be changed - core interests are completely opposite. The fact that these countries may buy russian gas if they need it doesn't change that.

I don't see how banning foreign entities or forcing them to become local would help: many of the disruptive entities in Europe are locally owned.

Bolloré owns some major influential right-wing media in France, Axel Springer does the same in Germany (and even in the US - Politico), and so on. Axel Springer is also quite pro-American as well as being right-wing, and Bolloré is quite aligned with the North American right wing, both the anglophone and (in Quebec) francophone varieties. Plus the US Republican Party and the Conservative Party of Canada have major ties to EU member state Hungary and the current Orbán regime, which controls much of the media in that country.

All of these entities feed and profit off of rage, despite being EU-owned.

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