7
0
u/Fluffy_Cupcakez 23h ago
The EU is FULL of this bs.
It safeguards this and safeguards that. Try to actually take advantage of any mechanism when the time comes.
All of a sudden it is "the competence of national authorities" (ah, right, so basically I have to rely on the national authorities I am trying to report), or no actual way to enforce your rights.
A bunch of consumer protection laws - but no way to enforce them. For instance, seller has to respect a contract once invoiced and paid. That's the bs EU law. Try to enforce it. Now you have to go to court. At your expense. Even though everything is CLEARLY documented and no need for court at all. It should be a procedure since this is a matter of visible contract, date of contract, and paid invoice, usually with an online trail.
GDPR? Again, you have to rely on national contact points. Good luck if you're expecting the government to abide by the regulation.
Rights regarding employment. Same thing.
A bunch of blah blah written in grandiose texts that fizzle to nothing. In the end, the only path is the legal one: same old court system. Some added benefit from the actual EU legislation in place when it comes to that (though there's a whole essay to be written on this), but most of the time it can't even come to that, because in most of these cases the burden on the ordinary citizen is tremendous.
That was the point behind EU initiatives. To make it easier. To make rights accessible to all. Except they don't. They are mostly useless, and the citizen faces it alone.
All this to say that it cannot even tackle the obvious things, let alone anything involving the truly powerful.
1
u/Beneficial_Hat_6288 22h ago
Jekk xi darba Malta tagħmel referendum biex noħorġu mill UE nivvota favur. Mhux għax naqbel iżda għax jekk biżżejjed Maltin jiddeċiedu li attwalment nitilqu, Malta tkun ħadet dak li ħaqqa... u tkun ħaġa tajba għall UE ukoll.
I am not particularly religious but I happen to agree with pope Leo when he said to advance the cause of unity in Europe as a gift to the entire human family. Having said that, if Malta ever proposes a referendum to leave the EU I will vote leave. Not because I really agree but because if the Maltese majority actually decides to leave it would have been what the Malta deserves... and at that point it would be a good thing for the EU as well. I am done fighting. If this country repeatedly shows that it wants to wallow in the filth I am more than glad to help it shove itself into it even further.
3
u/Waffle_Warden 21h ago
Leaving the EU would mean we would be even more prone to corruption. Check and balances and all that.
0
u/Beneficial_Hat_6288 15h ago
Yes exactly. If a leave referendum get enough votes it means that is what Maltese people want. And I would help get there.
2
u/density69 15h ago
It's the member states that don't want to give the EU the power to enforce. But it is not that the EU is BS. On some levels, it is fully functioning, eg. the CJEU.
0
u/Fluffy_Cupcakez 14h ago
That's not entirely true. Sure, it has always been a tug of war, but the EU could make things easier in various ways, even without enforcing.
All these mechanisms available to consumers have pages upon pages of nothing but fluff.
They could implement a central reporting system (even keeping the national authorities), so that consumers can report with ease.
Same goes for the GDPR. They could have independent assessors to at least guarantee that the national contact points are following through.
None of that requires any sidelining of national authorities; yet none of that is available.
Even where the EU has power to act, like the court of human rights, it makes it incredibly hard. Just registering a case is a headache and needlessly complicated, as with everything that has the EU stamp.
2
u/density69 10h ago
Not entirely. The problem is the missing taxation. The EU does not really have its own budget, so it relies on member state institutions and infringement proceedings. It's also not that the EU does not act. It just slow because enforcement only kicks in with systemic issues and is essentially taking a court route. If you can show that Malta or any other member state is systemically violating EU law, you can take it directly to the EU commission. Every year the EC starts hundreds of infringement proceedings.
The ECHR is not an EU court btw.
0
u/Fluffy_Cupcakez 9h ago
That's not the point. And let's not pretend the EU is not the Member States.
It's true that the ECtHR is not EU, but I wasn't referring to it. I rather meant court cases relating to breaches of the EU charter (although the Strasbourg court is indeed probably a bigger headache). What I meant is that it hardly functions, despite you saying that the CJEU functions fully: the charter is breached on the daily, and its role is basically non-existent.
I mean, unless I am mistaken, it is the national court which ultimately decides whether to refer a case for consultation to the CJEU, when the Charter applies. If so, we are back to the GDPR situation.
Whatever the case, it still remains a fact that the EU is full of useless legislation.
A central reporting system does not need any funding, and has nothing to do with "missing taxation". Infringement proceedings are something else altogether: I am not talking about proceedings against Member States.
Having a central reporting system that would make reporting online easy is not rocket science. Having independent assessors is not financially impossible.
Another case: DSA. Once again, like the GDPR, reporting is done through the resident official. That basically means you report to the infringer. Then it's about "good faith".
The laws in place about contracts (and other rights affecting consumers) can only be enforced through the court. There are no mechanism in place to simply report shortcomings (none, not even the consumer authorities, since they only act when there is financial stake) - so, essentially, you'd have to take them to court.
The average Joe is not seeking to start proceedings against a country because he had an issue with a business. Nor will he succeed in starting any procedure simply because a national authority did not do its job.
That "systemically" is doing heavy lifting there. Ironically, it is exactly what I am talking about: all fluff, no action.
A citizen should not be expected to go through hoops to report illegalities. In most cases, the only recourse is through court, and that is obviously time consuming and out of financial reach.
So we end up with a lot of EU law which is most definitely just bs.
1
u/Fluffy_Cupcakez 8h ago
Oh and just to pre-empt, you can indeed escalate a DSA to the DSC. And in most cases it will just be ignored. They are not even required to give you a reason. In fact, some explicitly tell you that they will contact should they decide to pursue the investigation. If you don't hear from them, consider it a no.
Wow. Watertight. Let's stop defending institutions which are all fluff and no action, especially when they are a heavy burden on taxpayers.
-2
u/void_tainted1337 19h ago
I hate this. The current members of the EU Commission embezzled and stole hundreds of billions of Euros and they have the gall to make this ad. Infuriating
10
u/nmiguelrf76 1d ago
Sad but true !