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Comment by Qantourisc | Hacker News Reader

Personally my biggest beef with the EU seems to be the lack of optional participation.

Some rules just work better if applied to the entire EU, but it's not essential for a lot of rules. Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU?

There are of course rules that would require everyone to participate to work.

Also IMO a country should be able select which parts of the EU they wish to participate in: monetary, military, schengen zone, product safety rules (and thus easy in and export...), ...

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If I would build vacuum cleaners, I would rather build one type and sell it in 28 different nations then producing 28 different models.

When I want to buy a vacuum cleaner, I want a good choice between different models and good prices.

So whats wrong with the EU regulating vacuum cleaners in a common market?

The only thing wrong with is the enforcement, at which point do you value sovereignty over common market ?

(Everyone should still implement this of course.)

But having the ability to say no is still nice.

About the models, well normally most countries will apply the rule anyway, as such the vacuum cleaners you will be able to get will conform anyway.

(And the vacuum cleaners was an example.)

Bus as stated it's mainly about sovereignty versus unity. Also I am not sure if optional parts would help keep the EU together: on one side you feel less forced, and more invested. On the other side it diminishes to effectiveness of it.

And I think I mainly fear the EU becoming the the USA. I do not think many people in the EU are keen on seeing that happen.

> Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU?

If you want to sell them in the EU common market then yes, they do need to enforce standards for the sale of vacuum cleaners.

If you want to build vacuum cleaners that don't meet those standards then you can still do so within the EU and sell them in the USA, Canada, Russia... assuming they too don't have standards you need to meet.

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