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Comment by cruzcampo | Hacker News Reader

EU is just being handed soft power wins left and right these days.

I think the EU has been handed a lot of opportunity but they still need to seize it. I would like to see EU alternatives to the major American sites (google, instagram, tiktok, whatsapp, etc.)

However, while the EU appears to be the good guy in this case, it is also notoriously anti-encryption (as is the UK), and these economies are also notoriously difficult/bureaucratic to start businesses in, so my hopes are not high for Europe's resurgence as a global technology leader. Without changes, I think Europe's best ambition will be self-reliance rather than projecting global soft power through owning the means of internet publishing

I agree with you on the anti-encryption stuff. Thankfully, so far, there has been enough pushback from civil society to prevent anything too bad from happening.

Regarding starting a business, Estonia has made it really easy with its e-residency: https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/

Historically, _the EU as an institution_ doesn't have a particularly coherent view on encryption; the EC periodically tries to push anti-encryption stuff but gets slapped down by the parliament and/or ECJ.

(This happens particularly _visibly_ due to the EU's weird structure. In most democratic states, there are consequences for the executive trying to do things that the parliament is definitely not going to allow them to do (in some parliamentary systems failure by the executive to get something through tends to result in the executive becoming an ex-executive), so if the executive has something it doesn't think it can get through, it keeps quiet about it; it may talk about it in private but is unlikely to risk a defeat by parliament. In the EU system, there are no consequences, so you do tend to see the EC pushing things that have little realistic chance of getting through the parliament quite often.)

Yeah I guess the EU is too broad to comment on bureaucracy, but for core markets like Germany and France, I've seen lots of discussion on HN from people who started businesses there. The consensus was that there's a lot of red tape, but that there are a lot of Pros to starting a business in the EU as well.

Yeah, I would definitely steer clear of Germany and France for starting the business. Thankfully, the Estonian option gives you easy access to the Single Market without worrying about all that :)

Vulnerability database is a great example of something that should be IMO democratized, blockchain-based or otherwise, and never allowed to be politized/militarized/weaponized, as in the end, there's vast potential for ordinary citizens to suffer if it ever happened.

The opportunity is there not only for the EU, but pretty much anyone who demonstrates good will/intent. I hope we end up with a consensus on something that won't be abusable by individual countries

Trump actually working for EU confirmed

Trump is Russia's plant to move to the "multipolar world" Putin loves to talk about. For this to happen, the EU has to become its own pole.

If Putin or Xi were installed as President, it’s difficult to see what we’d be doing differently in respect to foreign and economy policy other than our sanctions directly and tariffs directly on them.

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