Europe’s addiction to rules is no secret. They love to regulate, even things that don’t need regulation, like mandating USB-C chargers and limiting vacuum cleaner wattage. And when they regulate something worth regulating, like privacy, they make a mockery of it.
Remember their flagship General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), meant to protect consumers online? It has proven to protect nothing. For example, it should protect the identities of the beneficial owners of companies, but it doesn’t.
The EU argued in this case that transparency is more important than privacy. The only thing GDPR accomplished was ensuring an annoying cookie banner pops up on every website you visit.
It has caused us to become drones programmed to click “Accept All” to get to a website. And since almost everyone accepts all the cookies, the only thing the EU accomplished with GDPR is making the internet more inconvenient.
The EU wants to dictate how technology should work, markets behave, and companies operate. And they’re proud of it! This despite the fact that their zeal for regulation is now threatening their economic and technological future.
The US and China are both lightyears ahead of the EU in tech. I can’t think of a single device, app, or service that I use on a daily basis that came from the EU.
I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything vital to the world’s technological infrastructure that came from the EU. What does that tell you?
Miguel De Bruycker, director of the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB), admitted that fully storing data in Europe was currently not possible because US tech companies dominate the infrastructure. He went on to say: “We’ve lost the whole cloud. We have lost the internet, let’s be honest.”
The EU lost the internet!
I find this hilarious because it serves them right. It’s logical that if you stifle innovation and handicap businesses with overregulation, both will suffer. Everyone, except the EU regulators, saw this coming. What does that tell you about those running the show in the EU?
The only question now is what they are going to do about it. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal late last year that led me to believe they had realized the error of their ways.
It reported that the EU was proposing to roll back some of its digital laws. Why? Because they felt that reducing regulation would boost innovation and attract investment, which would make them less dependent on US tech.
This is not policy innovation – it’s an admission of failure.
But will the EU actually change its ways? It seems not. Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s second-in-command, recently told the Financial Times that the EU’s competitiveness depends on not rolling back rules. Really? I think the opposite has been proven already.
Europe’s governing elite have failed Europe. And no wonder. They’re disconnected from reality. Most haven’t worked or done business; they are professional politicians and bureaucrats regulating things they don’t understand.
They focus on how they believe things should be rather than on how things actually are. That isn’t a strategy, that’s wishful thinking. Despite the EU being the world’s 3rd largest economy, it has little say in the world and provides nothing the rest of the world couldn’t live without.
While it will be interesting to watch this all unfold, does it really matter? Does it make a difference if the EU rolls back regulations or not? Sadly, not. The reality is that the EU can’t catch up to the US or China, not in tech, not in defense, and not economically.
A friend of mine once told me that Europe has become a nice place to visit. I fear she was right.
