I don’t think so. This is not first time euro bureaucrats pull off shit like this. Apply cutthroat regulations locally and push through cheap imports. Then cry about local industries struggling. Rinse and repeat.
I’m against similar trade deal with US too. Or pretty much any other country. At best some shitty lobbyists used it as a scapegoat to push through a bad deal.
To be fair, Europe is tired of its farmers rioting and the general public welcomes the trade deal. If the farmers are crying about struggling against competition, I have a tiny violin to play for them.
Maybe lift all the green deal stuff on our own farmers while at it? Let’s make it a fair competition.
What’s next, let in shitty US food?
I don’t see general public welcoming it. Most people don’t seem to even know about it. Out of those who do know, many don't seem to be happy about it.
Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do. It’s time to do opposite and double-down on sovereignty on all fronts. And food sovereignty was one of very few sectors where EU got it right. Our food is not cheap, but we got plenty locally and quality is pretty good.
I do not see any empty fields left and right. Despite farmers complaining since 30 years about every single trade deal. Honestly I have not seen an unused field ever. And as long the fields are producing food this is just a change in income or structure of an industry.
Coming from ex-USSR… I’m used to unused fields. Nowadays situation is better. Where soil is best, all (most?) fields are used. But in other parts of the country unused fields are not uncommon.
It doesn’t help that we are getting only a fraction of EU farming subsidies. While fancy machinery cost the same as for western counterparts. So Netherlands with higher wages are outpricing our farmers :D
I think it’s matter of time when more and more of those deals will reach the tipping point. And after that it will be very hard to restore local agriculture.
> Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do.
Everyone can solve this for their own farmers. Just buy local, problem solved.
Does that mean some things might be a bit more expensive? Yes, you're paying to keep them around just like you might want someone to pay for you to be employed.
If we don't it's a race to the bottom for everyone.
It works when eating at home and making from scratch. How about eating out? Good luck pushing cheaper part of the sector to buy local. And not just pay lip service. And reality is many many people will just buy cheaper option and won’t thin about the impact.
Eh. As a citizen of EU member, I’m not happy about Mercosur deal at all. Hopefully fellow euro electorate is paying attention too. But giving how EU bureaucracy is shielded from the feedback loop, I doubt any outcome in national and EP elections could change anything anytime soon.
I feel the same way about some euro leaders pointing to China as possible alternative to US. Fuck no. Sometimes it feels like some people here want to pull off the same shit that is going on in China or US and just wait for a good opportunity. E.g. legendary chat control. But many people pretend it’s all fine and dandy just because.
It is a trade deal. It is always bad for some, good for others.
We are at a crossroads if we continue with globalism in the remaining world or if everyone is on its own. I prefer the first. The EU, Canada, Japan/Korea/other Asian states form a great alliance not associated to China or the US. Will not help military wise, but will help market wise.
Trade deals with poorer countries usually hurt the working class of the richer countries and benefit the wealthy. It's basically freedom to perform labor arbitrage.
I’m for EU sovereignty. This deal seems to go against it. I don’t like double standards when local business gets green deal shenanigans, but at the same time doors are opened for countries where thigh much more questionable practices.
It depends on location. In my whereabouts banking and e-signing requires one of two 2FA solutions both are mobile-only.
Theoretically there is a third option with USB ID card reader to use certificate stored in ID card. But I never saw one used in practice. It’s a PITA to get those devices to work on anything beyond Windows. And they’re accepted in relatively few places.
Personally && in the new line seems to be much better readability. Can’t wait to use some smart cop to convert all existing multiline ifs in my codebase.
It's likely that you'd have issues in pretty much any country in the world with your conditions. For example many european single-payer systems have tons of exceptions. Covering only basic tests/procedures/drugs (premium available out-of-pocket only), queues (jumping queue is possible by paying out-of-pocket) and incompetent doctors (longer queues at the good ones). And you pay a huge insurance for this, so there's not that much money left to pay out-of-pocket for most people.
At the same time many families got a single room with shared anemities. Even people in skilled positions. Just because they got assigned to some factory which management didnt have as good connections. Or preferred to pocket more than take care of workers. Or didn’t ended up in some location where central government was putting in extra resources to make it more desirable.
Coming from ex-USSR, I can assure you that shortages and shitty quality was not because of closed garden. But because of politics (and corruption) first. And lack of meritocratic natural selection.
Many factories were building crap or wrong stuff just because somebody high up in the Party found it convenient for some reason.
Yugoslavia didn't have centralized planning for products, one could even argue it had a meritocratic natural selection (sort of) and there still were shortages.
Maybe the EU as a whole could pull off being 'fully independent' but it would require way more collaboration between countries than what we currently have.
And, compared to USSR, Yugos production was much higher quality and shortages were much smaller.
EU could become fully independent by simply taxing imports. Designated collaboration between countries would just lead to inefficient central planning style stuff. Which is how many trans-Europe projects died
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