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EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

693 points · 905 comments · hackernj

  1. neom · · focus · HN ↗
    No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)
    1. dmos62 · · focus · HN ↗
      > as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes

      EU has such a bad name in these circles. As a EU citizen, I cherish these same regimes.

      1. Autious · · focus · HN ↗
        Yeah, I'm curious about which ones are a problem. I could see there being some incompatibility, and the details are more interesting than sweeping statements.

        Some regulations would have to be normalized and agreed upon between the countries for trade open up. Can't have different quality standards and ways of evaluating and declaring them.

        1. graemep · · focus · HN ↗
          One I have actually dealt with was VATMOSS. Especially when first introduced it had very low ceilings for registration and actually deterred small businesses from trading across borders.

          I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.

          1. jeltz · · focus · HN ↗
            Having health with VATMOSS too my experience is that it was trivial to implement. Maybe your country fucked up the rollout? Here in Sweden I had zero issues.
            1. graemep · · focus · HN ↗
              Its not the country, its the implementation cost for small businesses. In particular the ceiling for registration was so low that even micro-businesses with minimal cross border sales had to comply.

              Its would have been trivial for a big business, but it was not for small businesses.

          2. fc417fc802 · · focus · HN ↗
            > too strict for small businesses and non-profits

            Maybe just calibrated poorly. Small enough and IMO the only important rule is no sharing with others. That should always be strictly enforced. But why worry about how some small timer handles my personal data or if I can make various requests of him? The stakes are too small to matter.

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