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.
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.
It points at a clear weakness of democracy.
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)
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".
it's via QMV, not unanimity
so no need for "your" national government to approve 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.
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.
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.
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
• 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)
The EU is our saving grace far too often.
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.
Just look at what happens whenever some EU treaty needs ratifying by national referendum.
this is false. very few european countries want a federal, unified state.
so nothing of meaning will happen until a lot of things change.
"Ever closer union"
