Hacker News Reader

Comment by kubb | Hacker News Reader

It's similar to how people say "Europe does this or that". Basically the part of their thoughts dedicated to that part of the world is so small that all they can afford is a tiny box, and everything has to go in there, reality be damned.

View on HN

Europe at the very least has one parliament that sometimes passes laws that apply to almost the whole continent

Not really, it's not sovereign. The EU can pass laws that each European country chooses to implement. If they don't implement enough EU laws, they can get kicked out, which means more pieces of paper are written and some European countries might choose to afford them less privileges.

> The EU can pass laws that each European country...

Each EU member state, the UK, Switzerland and Russia don't really get involved

Those countries may also ratify EU laws if they wish. I think the UK has something similar to GDPR and Switzerland also picks and chooses which laws it thinks make sense.

No, they don't. The UK was a member of the EU when GDPR was passed, and chose to adopt it as law. When it left the EU it didn't repeal it.

They may both decide to copy, or imitate laws similar to the ones the the EU has, but they can't 'ratify' them.

No. EU laws are of two kinds: directives and regulations. Directives work roughly as you describe, while regulations have direct effect like regular laws.

Europe does not have a parliament. The EU does, but it is not even sovereign over the EU countries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com