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Comment by anonyonoor | Hacker News Reader

I've seen several European initiatives similar to this before, and the same question is always asked: what does this actually do?

People (at least on HN) seem to be in agreement the Europe is too regulatory and bureaucratic, so it feels fair to question the practicality of any American initiatives, as we do for European ones.

What does this document practically enact today? Is there any actual money allocated? Deregulation seems to be a theme, so are there any examples of regulations which have been cleansed already? How about planning? This document is full of directives and the names of federal agencies which plan to direct, so what are the actual results of said plans that we can see today and in the coming years?

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I, for one, dont't agree with the idea that Europe is too regulatory and bureaucratic. I welcome my rights as a consumer and human being being safeguarded at the cost of a small amount of profit.

Registering a company in Germany: you must visit a notary in person with your incorporation documents, and sit there while the notary reads aloud your incorporation to you. This is to "ensure that you fully understand the contract" even as a foreigner who doesn't speak corporate-legalese-German. Minimum capital deposit of €25,000.

Registering a company in US (Delaware) can be achieved in as little as 1 hour.

Getting married in Germany, particularly between a German and a foreigner, is anything from a 6 month to 2 year process, involving significant expenses, notarization/translation of documents. Some documents expire after 6 months, so if the government bureaucrats are too slow you need to get new copies, translated again, notarized again, and try to re-submit.

This isn't protecting human rights, it's supporting a class of bureaucrats/notaries/translators/clerks and making life more difficult for ordinary people. It's also a form of light racism that targets foreigners/migrants by imposing more difficult bureaucratic requirements and costs on them compared to by birth citizens.

Registering a company in Estonia: Three clicks with your e-resident ID, available to anyone.

Europe isn't just Germany.

Estonia is specifically known as one of the easiest EU countries to incorporate in. And I'll note that Estonian e-resident ID requires collecting physical card from inside Estonia or a local Estonian embassy.

Europe isn't just Germany, but the process is nearly as bad in France and Italy too, and together that's over 50% of EU GDP suffering from intense domestic corporate bureaucracy.

I'll add that in Estonia you can also get married and divorce entirely online with a few clicks. No need to show up anywhere, no need to wait for a long time. More and more countries in EU are getting easier in that sense - Malta has many online-everything facilities, Ireland as well. The big countries such as France, Spain, Italy seem to suffer from corruption and bureaucracy, but smaller countries tend to do a lot better - Scandinavia, Baltic countries, etc. Though of course in most places you have to become a resident, or at the very least be a EU national, as only Estonia has e-residency, as far as I know.

Just like Delaware is specifically known as one of the easiest US states to incorporate in. Your point being? It's not like you need to be Estonian to start an Estonian company.

In Sweden registering a company is as simple as filling out a form online. Same goes for taxes, my partner is from US and each year filling in taxes is a headache. Here? Two clicks and I'm done.

That's a Germany issue. Getting married in Denmark is straightforward and registering a company in Lithuania is also straightforward. There's nothing European about that issue - it's just how Germany handles this stuff.

> It's also a form of light racism that targets foreigners/migrants by imposing more difficult bureaucratic requirements and costs on them compared to by birth citizens.

How is having a different process for foreigners racist? Criticize it if you will, but calling it racist is crazy. Even "light racist" - whatever that means. Bureaucracy in Germany is notoriously slow for all people. Foreigners going through a different process makes it worse. I understand that. Nevertheless racism is a problem that exist and is prevalent (Germany is far from an exception here) and IMO you make it more difficult to improve in the right direction by (seemingly) calling every problem of foreigners racist.

I may be extrapolating here, but the part in the comment you're replying to that says

>so if the government bureaucrats are too slow

I wonder if there are certain types of names that make the bureaucrats work more slowly.

Is there ANY substance behind such a hypothetical question? If not, I don't want to hear about it. It's a sensitive topic and you're doing no one a favor.

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