The scary thing is that it's the EU doing this. Our national elected governments are not interested in actually fixing things like this because it doesn't immediately win votes, and there is only a limited number of national civil servants so nobody is working on this kind of thing on a national scale.

But put those civil servants in a committee in Brussels with not as much short term pressure, and they can work out regulations that achieve the right thing.

The "EU doing things" is not detached from your national government. In fact all EU legislation is being approved by your national government in the EU Council and the EU commission has to report there. (As well as the EU parliament, however the EU parliament is weak ...)

Edit: maybe as addition in the last point in parentheses: The EU parliament is purposely weak, as the EU is a union of states and the member state government want the power in the council and don't want to give up power.

Well said. I'd add that the EU has for decades been a convenient scapegoat for member governments to point to, when "forced" by the EU to do things that needed doing but are politically difficult. Think of all the national champions forced to live by market rules, like flag carriers, telecom monopolies etc.

I know that. What I consider "scary" is that the EU can only do this because they're aren't directly elected and so not as subject to the typical democratic pressures.

It points at a clear weakness of democracy.

Pressure your government to vote "no" on policies you don't like or pressure your government to initiate other legislation. They have the power and responsibility.

And yes, I personally would like to have a stronger EU Parliament relative to the Commission and Council. However there is no reason to let the national government escape with "it's EU law" after they approved it. (And yes, Council doesn't require unanimous vote for most items anymore since the Lisbon treaty, thus it is possible your government voted "no", but that then is democracy and they have to convince other governments ...)

(Just a side note: I like GDPR and think it is to large parts good and push my government to support it)

I think you misunderstand.

Almost all law coming out of the EU is really beneficial for the people, in my experience. Making a law like the GDPR and implementing it is hard work that doesn't grab headlines and first gives us a few years of annoying popups, but in the end it will actually improve privacy for EU citizens.

And national politicians can't do this anymore, because they have to be in the news each day and be in constant campaign mode because the next election may come sooner than expected. They need big words and shiny results.

If we make the EU more democratic, will it become less effective too?

> If we make the EU more democratic, will it become less effective too?

This is probably the first time I'm hearing somebody claiming EU was effective ;)

However you are right - the fact that there is less attention on EU legislation enables different dynamics.

However I think it is quite different between countries how well they do. Here in Germany I am quite optimistic that the new government will do quite a few good things ... but maybe I'm too optimistic, but lots of good signals from my pov

No it doesn't. Democracies don't do this because it's posturing designed to appeal to a particular kind of person (e.g. your kind of person).

Normal people don't care about cookies or consent popups and merely find them annoying/frustrating. I've never, ever heard anyone praise these popups outside of Europeans posting on Hacker News. That's a small community and it's a bubble convinced of its own purity.

Here's why democracies don't do this kind of thing: democratically elected governments are expected to generate economic growth and jobs by voters. Constantly levying massive fines on companies who aren't actually upsetting most citizens, via ultra-vague laws that create "tails we win, heads we also win" outcomes for the bureaucracy, is something that most mature democracies realized don't work out well in the long run. So they don't do it.

The EU has no such concerns because it's not accountable to anyone, for anything, despite what sometimes people like to try and claim. Result: a stagnant economy with an ever shrinking proportion of global GDP that tries to cover up its damningly consistent failure to produce successful tech firms by pretending it's too morally righteous to do so.

Signed,

A European. But not an "EU citizen".

> In fact all EU legislation is being approved by your national government in the EU Council

it's via QMV, not unanimity

so no need for "your" national government to approve it

Considering that almost all governments voted "yes" and only Austria voted "no" as they considered it to weak I think it is fair to say their government supported it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20171125221345/http://www.votewa...

In general you have somewhat of a point, but then it is democracy that the government would be responsible to argue for their point and convince others.

"EU did it" is a cheap excuse.

There's a bit of that. But I think a big part of the reason is that national governments can not address international issues.

The EU represents 300M people, and has the economic and political weight to make a dent.

The same goes for other international issues, such as climate change, corporate tax evasion, cyber crime, etc.

445 million people.

> Our national elected governments are not interested in actually fixing things like this

Data protection laws existed before GDPR. GDPR itself is not that different from Swedish data protection laws, for example.

Everyone ignored them for years (in case of French laws, for decades, apparently). So, the next step is to pass and enforce the law through the EU.

This is not really accurate.

The enforcement of GDPR is still up to national civil services/judiciaries, in this case it was a cooperation of multiple national protection authorities.

Even the legislation itself necessarily involved national governments and national civil servants in national ministries

GDPR being an EU level legislation has more to do with the absolute nightmare it would be for the internal market to have 27 different standards and the drastically lower leverage available for enforcement than disinterest in the subject

There's this:

• Austria: Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) • Belgium: algemene verordening gegevensbescherming / règlement général sur la protection des données (RGPD) • Bulgaria: Общ регламент относно защитата на данните • Croatia: Opća uredba o zaštiti podataka • Cyprus: Γενικός Κανονισμός για την Προστασία Δεδομένων • Czech Republic: obecné nařízení o ochraně osobních údajů • Denmark: generel forordning om databeskyttelse • Estonia: isikuandmete kaitse üldmäärus • Finland: yleinen tietosuoja-asetus • France: règlement général sur la protection des données (RGPD) • Germany: Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) • Greece: Γενικός Κανονισμός για την Προστασία Δεδομένων • Hungary: általános adatvédelmi rendelet • Ireland: An Rialachán Ginearálta maidir le Cosaint Sonraí / General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) • Italy: regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati (RGPD) • Latvia: Vispārīgā datu aizsardzības regula • Lithuania: Bendrasis duomenų apsaugos reglamentas (BDAR) • Luxembourg: règlement général sur la protection des données (RGPD) / Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) • Malta: Regolament Ġenerali dwar il-Protezzjoni tad-Data • The Netherlands: algemene verordening gegevensbescherming • Poland: ogólne rozporządzenie o ochronie danych • Portugal: Regulamento Geral sobre a Proteção de Dados (RGPD) • Romania: Regulamentul general privind protecția datelor • Slovakia: všeobecné nariadenie o ochrane údajov • Slovenia: Splošna uredba o varstvu podatkov • Spain: Reglamento general de protección de datos (RGPD) • Sweden: Dataskyddsförordning • The United Kingdom: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

This is just the translation of GDPR in the EU languages, did you mean to reply under a different comment?

If there's one thing you can rely on, it's an Irish enforcement body doing sweet feckall. No wonder they like to use the Irish DPC!

The EU is our saving grace far too often.

I would argue that many national governments (and local data protection agencies) are doing things, this was the Belgium national data protection agency. The issue is really Ireland, whose data protection agency has been twarting enforcement efforts. The reason why they are important is that they are technically responsible for enforcement against many of the big guys because they have their hqs in Ireland, which was also the reason why they didn't want to enforce, economic interests.

Remember you have MEPs representing you as well. European elections too often play a distant second fiddle to domestic ones but this really should not be the case.

Domestic politicians have the ability to instigate changes to legislation. MEPs lack that power - all they can do is block bad legislation from getting passed.

MEPs sit in the European Parliament, which is a talking shop, with very limited powers. It's hardly surprising that few Europeans know who their MEP is.

I don't really have a MEP that's "mine", it's proportional representation,not a district system.

No districts? Is this a national "party list" system?

Where is that (pardon my inquisitiveness, and feel free not to answer)?

Instinctively it feels wrong not to be able to vote for a representative you can identify; but I can't formulate a coherent reason why it's wrong.

In the Netherlands, in my case. Party lists, yes. Most European countries have that as far as I know, I thought the UK was an outlier.

I see. I wasn't aware that the UK EU constituencies were an idiosyncratic deviation.

Of course, we no longer have MEPs! I often forget this - that's how much difference the MEPs made to my life.

Europe is obviously walking very slowly towards federalism without saying it too loudly.

Germany and France are saying it fairly loudly - they've never hidden their intent to make the EU a federal, unified, state.

And with Brexit, the biggest obstacle to that has been removed - the UK never wanted to be part of a Federal EU (because we always considered ourselves part of the British Empire/Commonwealth). There are other EU countries who aren't wildly enthusiastic about a Federal EU too, but it was always the UK being the most loudly opposed to it.

It's true that the UK was always the biggest opponent, but don't kid yourself that the rest of the EU is on board with federalizing. There is no popular mandate for that whatsoever.

Just look at what happens whenever some EU treaty needs ratifying by national referendum.

> There is no popular mandate for that whatsoever.

that never stopped it before, just look at the "Constitution for Europe"

rejected by the French and Dutch electorates

it was then rejigged slightly and then pushed through as the Treaty of Lisbon (without pesky referendums)

The Lisbon Treaty did at least need a referendum in Ireland. It was rejected initially, partially as a warning shot to the then unpopular government between elections, and partially because of genuine concerns about the impact it would have on Ireland's military neutrality and for the concerns that the EU could then impose a minimum corporate tax rate on the country.

As a result, the EU agreed a set of guarantees [1] that the Lisbon treaty would not be used to do either of these things (to Ireland specifically), and only then did it pass in Ireland.

An EU army has more widespread opposition these days, so hasn't been raised since. Minimum corporate tax rates did not pass through the EU, though this year the US led an effort that is going to result in them globally via other avenues.

[1]: https://www.iiea.com/images/uploads/resources/230535195500_L...

> And with Brexit, the biggest obstacle to that has been removed

this is false. very few european countries want a federal, unified state.

so nothing of meaning will happen until a lot of things change.

Yes, of course, that's been stated as the end goal since the very first treaties in the 50s.

"Ever closer union"

Then vote for it!

Just kidding.

Then riot for it!

Maybe kidding? Seems the only way to get a single-issue topic on the agenda these days.

I do, as near as I can anyway. My government has been captured by the capital class and will be difficult to recover.

Why kidding?

Say you live in a two-party first past the post system. If what you want to express is "I like privacy regulations", the single bit of information that your vote conveys does a very limited job of communicating what issues you actually care about.

The signal in traditional voting is very diluted.

You vote on a person that you think supports some of the things you care about. You are not allowed to weight in on individual issues in a way that matters.

The person works for several years, and the only feedback you have on that process, the only tether that holds that person accountable, is whether you vote for them the second time.

How many EU countries run a "two-party first past the post system" nowadays?

If you are in a first past the post system, and in a safe seat, vote for one of the no-chance-of-winning candidates who best represents your views. Although they won't win, the fact that they are getting votes will be noticed and the main 2 parties will respond by adopting some of their policies. E.g. in the UK as more people vote for the Green party, other parties will become more Green to get those votes back, even though the Green party has only ever got a single MP.

Even in a decent PR multi-party system. Our green party for example is environment first, left wing economics second, public transit, pro-agriculture, anti-nuclear, somewhere down the list is internet privacy.

Or maybe I could vote for the labour party, which are centre left economics, pro-EU, pro-housing expansion, pro-healthcare investment, pro-environment, somewhere down the list is internet privacy

The idea that there's a party that (a) both has the same views on all issues as you do, (b) has sufficient votes to get seats and (c) orders issues in the same importance you do, for everyone, is clearly not valid. More parties = more choices, and this is often better, but ultimately we'd end up with de facto direct democracy to have a party with the exact views for every person.

Similarly, even for myself, I consider internet privacy important. Maybe I should vote the for the pirate party then? Except I consider the environment more important and our pirate party is so small that it hasn't even considered a position on non-privacy related issues, never mind have an adequate plan for how we're going to make a transition from a heavily fossil fuel based power supply. Even on that environmental issue, I think the green party's anti-nuclear stance has historically been a mistake, but if the others are just going to build more gas plants, I'll deal with it.

Because calling for a riot is likely sedition? (Depending on jurisdiction)

Because voting doesn’t matter when your choices are corporate stooge A and corporate stooge B.

I always think of South Park. It's always a choice between a giant douche or a turd sandwich.

More like if it was a choice between two, shitty giant douches and one was painted orange and the other was painted with a rainbow. They’re both the same thing with a different color paint.