Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons.
I want more companies to not get exemptions and thus not offer law-breaking products. I LIKE that the government is saying, "fix it or don't bring it here" and Apple just has to live with it. I like that Apple also is refusing to just bend over to the EU. We need more of these types of conflicts so we can work out good regulations, and not just always bend over and take it from whatever party won.
While I like a lot of Euro regulations, some of the privacy ones go too far with the whole "we're going to enforce this on the whole world" crap. I like California's method of "to sell it here you have to have this but we're not going to sue you for selling a noncompliant product elsewhere."
I think the worst is hugely impactful laws for which exceptions are constantly carved out so nobody can truly evaluate whether the law/reg is a good one or not.
It's been a while since I left Europe, and I'm rusty on that particular layer of civics. Do EU voters actually have a say in this kind of regulation? Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?
Instead of banning plastic bottles or unrecyclable plastic-lined paper cups (or, as you mention, apple blister packs...what?) where the vast majority of plastic resides, we now have paper straws to deride. Each time you peel your lips off a dry paper tube, you're reminded of your personal culpability in the global waste shell game.
The only viable solution seems to be to stop consuming (see 'fantasy' in the opening line). I'm guilty as charged, BTW, but will politely decline paper straws (I have my own stash of plastic straw contraband).
To make matters worse the expected environmental impact is miniscule and the entire thing is predicated on a popular misconception that gained virality. It's a perfect example of the government failing to function well.
Well... your government certainly has a say in Brussels. Often enough, national politicians use "Brussels" as a scapegoat... nothing can happen in Brussels if national governments (or the Commission) don't propose it first, the Parliament has no right to initiative.
If people would stop electing dumb fucks to national governments or to at least hold their dumb fucks in national governments accountable (yes, it is possible, even Hungary managed to do so), you'd get a lot less "Brussels" bullshit.
(And yes, I am aware, this statement is particularly ironic given I'm German and we were utterly infamous for shipping off utter wastes of space to Brussels)
> and in countries with a "green" profiles, such as Netherlands it seems impossible to just buy one or two apples - you have to buy a emplastered six pack of apples (lots of waste if I just wanted one apple).
That's a Dutch specialty. Here in Germany, I can buy single apples, pears, bananas or whatever just fine if I want - although I don't because apples suck.
If I were to guess, it's a logistics thing. Sixpacks of apples are easier to handle and transport than a bunch of loose apples.
Barely.
>Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?
It's decided by a mix of unelected bureucrats and opaque procedures people track even less than their national politics.
= We don’t have a say. We voted NO to the new EU treaties in 2008 and the new president decided that electing him meant that we approved the same treaties.
They only let us vote when we agree, anyway.
Where do you get 4th level of deriviation exactly?
And the unelected bureucracy, careerists, and 2-3 big country interests pressuring others under the table, are driving the show...
One comedian: LOL they only killed them to make you think it was valuable.
The Internet: (sagely) What a wise assessment by a wise man of wisdom.
EU voters don't have any saying in any EU level regulation. The EU regime do basically what they want.
Besides given the amount of lobbying in the EU institutions, it's obvious that citizens don't have a chance against corpos with infinite money.
MPs can't therefore repeal laws; they can at most ask the Commission to set themes on the program. The Commission is therefore strongly dominant, as it is composed of career unelected officials who can wait for a compliant Parliament to pass the laws they want and target MPs in negotiations. This is what they do with ChatControl.
Of course there are no checks and balances for the Commission officials, who are bureaucrats with an opaque agenda. The EU is a weak form of democracy, which is geared toward bureaucratic capture and legal inflation.
If it werent for the EU, the companies would get away with all sorts of shit.
Is as if people forget companies are evil by nature and will fuck you any chance they get.
Yeah, like those blasted cookies!!! Thankfully, now we have banners on every website, I have never felt more protected!
That's been true from day one. So the question is, did you come up with the FUD yourself, or did you believe someone else?
But I agree, that's probably not what OP meant.
This OP article doesn't really go into it, but they did actually propose a solution to the divide, they just needed more time to develop it. The Reuters article is reporting on one person's response to the proceedings, which involve more details than this particular article covers.
For instance:
> To address those concerns, Apple designed a system called Trusted System Agent, an intermediary that would let competing virtual assistants safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI on EU devices. Apple also proposed launching Siri AI in Europe while rolling out the Trusted System Agent gradually over 18 months. The European Commission rejected both proposals, and according to Apple, did not agree to any alternative.
https://thenextweb.com/news/apple-siri-ai-eu-dma-delay-ios-2...
Care to explain? EU is also a jurisdiction, so why would EU law be legal in other areas than EU?
Imagine there is a law in your jurisdiction saying if you hire a person there are rules A, B, C which are a bit inconvenient to you, the employer. What if you incorporate in a different jurisdiction where the salaries are higher but there are no rules B and C, but there are rules B and D. Then this incorporated entity offers to hire people in your jurisdiction, but not offer the higher salaries of the other one.
Which rules should apply? The answer, as usual, is -- "it depends".
If the law makes sense, that I cannot judge in this case.
As a citizen, I find it both fascinating and disturbing that this is even a thing. Of course companies have to follow the law. Why is this even a thing? If the product fills a real need and the externalities are acceptable, that will be a demonstration that the law needs an update.
The idea that there is such a thing as "law-breaking products" when consumers ACTIVELY CHOOSE TO SPEND THEIR MONEY ON THEM is insane to me. This is authoritarian nonsense.
It is not the state's place to tell people what they should or should not be allowed to buy.
You will always find people willing to spend money on anything. The whole point of politics is that we have to draw a line between what people want to do and the effect that it can have on other people. To put it simply, if your freedom affects mine, then someone needs to decide how far you can go and how much I have to accept.
We commonly accept that scams are bad, even though someone might participate willingly, just because it is much more likely that someone is taken advantage of in a way that most people find immoral, for example. Even in bastions of free speech such as the US. That someone somewhere knowingly gave money to someone else is neither here nor there.
The most extreme example could be the legislation on weapons. A less extreme example could be legislation on food additives or PFAS.
Those numbers make withholding "risky" products a no-brainer strategy. Also, those numbers put a hard limit of how much Apple will want reevaluate their general strategy of tightly integrated first-party software.
> The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a 1998 United States copyright law
The DMCA is a law in the United States, it's not related in any way to Apple's decision to not roll out Siri in the EU.
Edit: 26% of their net sales comes from Europe for Q1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2026-q1/FY26_Q1_Consol...
The 7% probably comes from a Daring Fireball article, based on misunderstanding some Apple communications, and which Gruber later had to backtrack
https://medium.com/luminasticity/when-smart-people-cant-reas...