Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

The US supreme court is correcting the lies the American government made when they assured the EU and its citizens that they can be trusted with their data. It's not just the EU lying, both sides are awful at this.

I don't know why the EU wants to trust the USA so bad, it's clearly unwise. It makes sense, because banning EU companies from using AWS/GCP/etc. would bankrupt the EU into a recession, but the way they're going about these things is very annoying.

That said, if the USA would actually keep its promises and adopt legislation that solves the reasons why the EU cannot give out a decent competency decision, the problem would go away entirely.

The Biden administration set up a precarious body within the government to resolve the issue rather than go through the normal lawmaking process, probably because it wouldn't go through.

View on HN

> don't know why the EU wants to trust the USA so bad

Because not trusting them is very expensive. But unfortunately, it's necessary.

> I don't know why the EU wants to trust the USA so bad, it's clearly unwise

We are too afraid of change and having to take responsibilities. Delegating to the US worked for decades, and it’s very hard to accept that we’ve done a mistake and need to take some risks ourselves. I feel it’s the same issue we have at European countries level.

But also, the EU is still a patchwork of entities that do not have a common vision of what the future should be. Hopefully losing our largest ally will push towards a closer, more federalist union. There is still so much work to do to unify the single market. I’m watching closely what is going on with the 28th regime[0] for that purpose

0: https://the28thregime.eu/

> the EU is still a patchwork of entities that do not have a common vision of what the future should be

For many, that's a feature, not a bug. The EU follows a democratic system consisting of many different countries with different types of government and different ideologies. It's not a unified federal government, as much as some people would like it to be.

The whole 28th regime concept seems extremely flawed to me. I understand the desire from a business perspective, but as a citizen I do not want a company to opt out of national legal protections and obligations by operating under some fantasy government. Unless this concept will be subject to the strongest, best-enforced regulations and tax rates equivalent to the highest tax rates within the Union, I do not want this project to happen, and I predict I'm far from the only one.

> but as a citizen I do not want a company to opt out of national legal protections and obligations by operating under some fantasy government.

There is no opt-out, if the proposal is accepted the country members would define a new legal form. You would still have national oversight, legal obligation and protection. But you would get access to a new company form that is recognized in and common to all member countries.

But yes, if you do not want more unification then it's likely not something you want to see. I personally believe that we are currently handicapping ourselves with the current, unfinished single market. I want to see an actual EU federation, where we develop a share vision, take risks together, and simplify the flow of capital and people between country members.

The other concept I'm following with interest is uniting European stock exchanges

> We are too afraid of change and having to take responsibilities

It's unclear whether Europe can continue to exist with its current social guarantees without American security guarantees. It isn't a matter of subsidy. Just scale. Building a parallel security establishment will leave America and Europe poorer. But Europe's cost will be its welfare state.

Maybe, we will see. I'm doubtful we need to fully replace the US. I don't believe that we will actually see Russia do a ground invasion of the EU, so for example the massive militarization Germany is going for doesn't make too much sense IMHO. If things continue to go in that direction that will indeed be ruinous. What we need is more, better coordination and team work between the member countries

> The US supreme court is correcting the lies

Nah. They are simply giving more power to Trump, power that he did not used to have and should not have. That is it. Supreme court is are advancing their own ideological goals and rewriting parts of constitution they don't like.

It has a tendency of doing so, but in this case the body that was supposed to patch over the requirements for EU data transfer was flawed in its design.

The reason this house of cards was necessary in the first place is that the American government does not want to grant foreign citizens the rights necessary to ensure the privacy guarantees the EU requires.

American courts deciding that institutional independence is bad now is awful for American citizens, but it's not supposed to be very relevant to the EU like this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com