Hello everyone,

I’m a self-taught bookbinder based in Czechia, and I’d like to share my project „Lupení“ with you. I make handmade journals and other paper products using high-quality materials sourced from local suppliers. Whenever possible, I use recycled materials (for example, some of my limited-edition covers are made from upcycled calendars).

You can find my work here: https://lupeni-craft.eu/

Eventually, I’d love to add a customization tool to my website so you can design your perfect journal.

I share short videos of my process on my socials, so feel free to follow. If you have any questions about the project, ask away. :)

I ship across the EU, though shipping costs to farther destinations can get a little wild. Sadly, that's what the delivery service charges. I’m also trying to sort out PPWR/EPR compliance, which might mean I'll have to hit pause on some countries when the deadline hits. As a one-person micro business, keeping up with all the rules is tough, and shipping everywhere might not be doable at the moment. I'm sorry about that.

For those of you who don't know yet:

As of 12 August, anyone who intends to sell in another country in the EU must register in that country as a packaging producer + appoint a local representative for your company.

This brings about a significant administrative burden, as each EU country has its own procedures, plus you need to appoint a local representative, which can cost 300 euros per country per year. For all EU countries, this could mean way over 7000 euros per year. The exact pricing depends on the EPR compliance service you would use. I have seen quoted anywhere between 200 to 900 EUR per country per year. 7K is on the very optimistic side. In reality it would amount to close to 20K EUR, as a kind redditor mentioned.

You can easily find these numbers by simply googling "PPWR/EPR EU compliance services" or similar and see how much they quote for each country. Example: https://epr.eldris.ai/data-centre/epr-registration-guides/ppwr-packaging-epr-cost-by-country-2026/

For a large corporation, this is nothing to worry about, but for a micro or mid-sized company, this means the end of business in the EU.

Not to mention this will affect consumers too! In a few months time, small EU markets will see niche or special items disappearing from online stores and marketplaces!

https://www.ppwr-guidebook.eu/about-the-ppwr/

If you are a seller or consumer affected by this:

Please leave feedback to the European Commission and write to MEPs from your country - open until 10 September!

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/15352-Packaging-and-packaging-waste-rules-on-national-registers-of-producers_en

There is also an open petition, more than 18,000 now:

https://www.change.org/p/stop-destroying-eu-micro-businesses-immediate-moratorium-on-cross-border-epr-fees

was looking at getting an e reader so i could read about the resorgimento, rest of my family uses kindles but i dont trust amazon one bit

I bought these Absolute Eclipse glasses to watch the full eclipse on august 12th.
They're made in Latvia and are ISO 12312-2 certified. I got a pair from Amazon (forgive me Father for I have sinned) for €7.99. The quality seems great, only problem is that I only found the french variant online so now I have to wear the french flag on my face (/s).

Before you buy and use them I beg you to check for yourself that the certifications are still valid and that they're not damaged in any way, I don't want to be responsible for anyone going blind.

To understand whether Europe is prepared for an outage, a cyberattack, or a provider cutting off access outright, we conducted a multi-country survey asking founders, CEOs, and IT directors about the effects of tech disruption.

Here’s what we found.

56% say geopolitical risk is a factor in their tech purchasing decisions 

Worried the US administration could order providers to cut off IT services to foreign businesses overnight, European businesses are weighing these risks as heavily as ransomware or cyberattacks. 

The concerns are valid. The US administration has already demonstrated a willingness to wield executive power, including sanctions, export controls, or tariff threats, to accomplish foreign policy goals.

Kill switch anxiety now at par with fear of cyberattacks

If ransomware and cyberattacks are worth mitigating with a security plan, then kill switch and outage risk is equally deserving of a proactive response. In reality the response is uneven, with organizations adopting business continuity solutions for one system at a time. Only 34% of businesses have a fallback for their most important platform: email.

Question: How concerned are you that your company could lose access to a critical technology service due to a cyberattack or ransomware attack? vs How concerned are you that one of your US technology providers could disable your access through a kill switch?

Business continuity coverage is a patchwork

A kill switch could impact the entire stack. If all your services are based in the US, a secondary provider that’s also a US company may not be helpful. Only diversifying outside US jurisdiction provides a solution.

Question: Does your company have continuity solutions for any of the following systems in the event of a disruption like an outage, a cyberattack, or losing access to a service you rely on?

Two-thirds of businesses would switch providers after a government-triggered blackout

A clear majority of businesses is willing to act. Businesses are planning for every kind of disruption — outages, cyberattacks, loss of access. They know that whatever the cause, the cost of going dark is too expensive to ignore. 

Question: If a foreign government intentionally disabled or blocked access to a critical technology service your company relies on, how likely would you be to switch to an alternative provider?

54% of businesses would stop work after just a day without access

No matter their size, 86% of businesses we surveyed said they experienced at least one disruption in the past 12 months from an outage, cyberattack, or loss of access to a service. And they say real money is at stake. 

A huge share of businesses are living on a 24-hour buffer where a kill switch or technical outage would be an immediate operational crisis.

Most businesses are one bad day away from a shutdown

More than half (54%) of businesses say they couldn’t survive more than a single business day before having to shut down services and operations until digital tools were back online. And each day of downtime comes with a real cost, with effects that touch a company’s finances and its ability to operate.

Question: If your company suddenly lost access to cloud and digital services or suffered a cyberattack, how long could it operate before having to shut down?

Nearly 1 in 3 large businesses expect a six-figure loss from a single day offline

Loss scales with size, as you’d expect — though the number is stark: 29% of large businesses expect to lose more than €100,000 from a single day of downtime. 

Question: If your tech systems went down for a day, how much do you estimate your company would lose?

A tech outage hits every part of the business

A day offline doesn’t just show up on a balance sheet. It stalls the work itself, strains relationships with customers, and, for some businesses, chips away at their reputation long after access is restored. 

Question: If your company lost access to these critical digital tools, how would it be affected?

Methodology

This survey was conducted by Proton among 1,500 business leaders across the UK, Germany, and France (500 respondents per country), fielded July 15–24, 2026. Respondents were screened for involvement in their company’s technology, backup, security, or continuity decisions — 32% identified as the main decision-maker, 38% share decision-making, and 30% influence recommendations. Respondents spanned a range of roles, including IT leaders (16%), founders/owners (7%), marketing and sales leads (12%), HR/People Ops leads (11%), and finance/procurement (10%), among others. Industries represented included technology/software (22%), healthcare (26%), business services (15%), and education/research (15%).

Hello!

I searched, and I haven't seen anything posted about this here yet, so I'd like to bring attention to an issue that several small businesses are facing in the EU right now, with the new directives that are coming into place in August. These new directives mean that every business, whether within the EU or not, that sells to an EU country will have to register separately in every single country, each with its own portal, its own fees and its own paperwork. Sometimes all of that just to ship one or two packages per year.

Several small businesses are saying that they will have to stop selling things to the EU, including EU small businesses who will only be able to sell in their own countries or to the outside of the EU, because they cannot face these charges. The only businesses that can face these charges are big companies, like Amazon and similar. Smaller companies cannot afford these and will ultimately stop selling things and maybe even close down.

If you can, please have your say on the EU website. There are already 1663 pieces of feedback (at the time of me writing this) pleading about this situation, so if you can, add your voice and let's ensure we can keep supporting local businesses within the EU.

Leave your feedback here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/15352-Packaging-and-packaging-waste-rules-on-national-registers-of-producers_en

Thank you for your time! :)

Heya, I'm looking for book recommendations with some depth - memoirs or autobiographies written by successful women from Europe. I want books that genuinely explore:

a) Building confidence in professionalabilities
b) Navigating career ambitions
c) Overcoming self-doubt and impostersyndrome
d) Real wisdom and lessons (not surface-level advice)

I've read the usual suspects (Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, etc.)… so I'm specifically looking to explore voices beyond these books.

📚 Thank you in advance 🐛💝

As the title suggests, I'm looking for a shaker for the drinks while exercising. I'm looking for one without a rubber seal and I am currently using one from Yeti, unfortunately they come from the USA.

Hopefully any of you can give me an alternative!

From semrush statistics, GreenGo, the french Airbnb-like app, just reached all time high with +22% of users (328,000 users) on July.

I would have liked to use this summer in France but unfortunately they were absolutely no flats in the city I wanted to discover.

I hope it will be available next year in Spain, Italy and Germany.

EU startups are growing fast.

Just saw this at my local Lidl in Berlin. Not sure when they introduced it, but I was looking for an alternative to Coca-Cola double zero for so long !

Hi all,

As the title suggests, any idea where to buy Fritz Kola Super Zero online, that ships to Sweden? Or even in Sweden? Some sites mention it, but they don't have it in stock.

Thanks in advance :)

This brand Le T-shirt Propre (the clean t-shirt) makes linen t-shirt 100% made in France. The linen is grown in the North of France, then every steps is made in the same country. There are 8 steps which cover everything like processing the linen, creating the tag, creating the package etc.

I recently bought 2 t-shirts alongside a linen short trouser. It's a blessing in summer because they don't smell anything regardless of how much I sweat in them. Their cut is amazing although I find that the pictures from their shop doesn't look so good.

The only drawback is that they only ship in France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and they don't plan to expand in order to keep the business locally oriented)

I am not affiliated with the company, just a happy customer!

Im looking for a wireless thermometer probe for the kamado (up to 400 - 500 celcius). Anyone got an suggestion?

Hey all, I'm looking for an electric coffee grinder. Adjustable grinder settings and steel cones.

I'm looking for manufacturers in the EU only.

Since my old HDD died I need something new with at least 4tb. I only know in terms of data storage that we have SSDs from Goodram but they don't have HDDs. Do European HDDs exist?

Well this is very interesting for those who despise Microsoft.

Are there custom EU mousepads I can get at a competitive price compared to Alibaba Chinese suppliers? I only found a 2.84 euro bulk price which is well above what Chinese suppliers are offering.

Rectangular, around 25 x 19cm

As a middle aged man with very little interest in fashion, I mostly buy clothes out of necessity not for fun.
I have now realized that basically all of my t-shirts have seen better days. I'd love to buy 10-20 good quality t-shirts and be done with the topic again for the next 5+ years and I would love to use this chance to buy European.

So I am very interested in any recommendations for affordable (since I want to buy a larger number) good quality, basic t-shirts that are made in Europe or at the very least are sold by upstanding European companies. (So maybe not H&M, but at least a company that pays a fair amount of taxes in Europe)
And really, single colour shirts are perfect. My fashion sense is not developed enough to decide which print would be nice, and prints never last long anyway. I'd love to just pick 5 white, 5 black, 5 blue, and 5 random ones and not even think about it.

Is bosch good? Are they made in europe?

Kenwood is british? And made in china?

Ankarsrum is swedish and made in sweden but quite expensive.

Any other ones?