The European Commission released their full position now on the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative, and it's not the response many will have been hoping for.
Yes national parties always campaign on the introduction of new fees and taxes and every new law is in every party program, naturally also when coalitions govern.
That said, yes the tariffs on small orders are in line with the program of the party I voted for. They are also reasonable. Disposable fashion platforms (and also other Chinese companies) were systemmatically mislabeling shipments to avoid existing tariffs. Thanks to international agreements they can also ship at dumping prices (for less than the cost of a letter to the neighbour village within a country). Adding that tariff merely raises the shipping price to a level that is closer to domestic shipping. It also creates an incentive to not split up everything into countless part shipments, reducing the load on insfrustructure. Last but not least, it reduces the incentive for mislabelling.
PS: I am shopping myself occasionally in China, so I know the practices and I understand the need for stricter rules.
Their programa tend to be vague “supporting local industry” “protection from harmful foreign products”. But under those vague umbrellas they do whatever they want and then they job becomes to convince the people that what they decided to do is the good thing.
And in a democracy that’s not what should happen.
In a democracy the people tells the politicians what to do. When the politicians tell by their own to the people what’s good from them it’s called enlightened despotism.
Also I do not see how it’s reasonable to ask for a 3€ tariff for each product category on any order. That tariff is obviously aimed to cut people from buying directly from china and just to buy the exact same product to a middleman paying way more. Products are still the same, guarantees are still the same, taxes are quite similar as this products were subject to vat. The only thing that change is you pay the extra tariff or you pay the middleman. Zero benefits for the consumer.
It seems your beef is with democracy itself rather than the EU. Which party publishes an exhaustive detailed list of all coming laws with specific outlines for the coming legislative period, and of course predicting future coalition negotiations. You don’t see that your requirements are completely unworkable in reality, not just in the EU, anywhere, are you?
Party programs are simplifications out of necessity and they focus on specific topics, depending on the party. That focus itself is a strong reason why to vote for them. Those few Euros of tariffs on orders from China was indeed not a big topic. Immigration, Russia, defense and Integration were big topics, understandably.
3 EUR is not cutting off anyone from anything, especially as that is barely compensating the dumping prices on shipping. Or do you believe that 0 EUR shipping on a 2 EUR order is covering the actual shipping costs? Like I said, that shipping dumping is possible because of anachronistic international agreements that were never intended for what they are used now.
I know some don’t care at all about the environment or costs to society. That avalanche of tiny packages is a huge strain on our infrastructure and driven by unsustainably low shipping rates. That legislation will have a positive effect by incentivicing more consolidated ordering and shipping at prices closer to real costs.
Like I said, I am ordering myself in China and I support that. Chinese platforms will adopt fast when it is about money. So the positive effects will be seen soon. Maybe you don’t think as far but that shipping dumping is paid largely by us. At least everyone who is still ordering stuff also within the EU or paying taxes here for infrastructure.
Most country specific/regional programs are far more exhaustive and concrete than european election programa. Just read them.
Lack of accountability by the chambers and the commission lead to lack of democracy in the european institution, it’s just what’s happening.
They don’t get audited like national parliaments are, but they have greater power, that’s just wrong.
I don’t know where you live but 3 euros tariff for a 1€ item is killing a business. Trump did it and the european union, after criticize it, just did the same. Bad when trump did it and bad they europe did it.
European Union way to save the"environment": kill europeans by taxes, expect the environment heals somehow because of that.
How me making some european dude richer for buying the same product saves the environment? It doesn’t. It’s like aerolines green offset pay. You pay more and somehow the things are “greener”. It’s just a scam for people to get rich put of people lack of knowledge and social consciousness.
If packet delivery is a problem then automatize it. Delivery drones, automatic pick up boxes. But no, better put a tax on it and be done. No way the european union is falling behind.
It is madness to ship a 1 EUR order on its own across the globe, at zero extra costs. Are you seriously saying that this is not only a viable business model but also one that people should be entitled to? For this money you can’t even send an empty letter to the next village in a cost covering way. Every such mini order shipping is heavily cross subsidised by shipments of goods with the EU.
You just strengthen the point that we need an end to tariff exemption under 150 EUR. Contrary to your claim this will not end direct sales from China, it will merely make it less costly and inefficient to our society by incentivising more aggregated orders.
Magical drones aren’t a solution either (to the contrary mass deployment of drones is a nightmare)
Materially speaking is more expensive to send a letter next town than a packet from something like aliexpress.
From sending a letter next town you’ll have to pay the salary of a postmen for going to take the card from your town to the next town, probably only for that item or a very small number of items.
From china millions of packages move by ship. The cost per package is negligible. Most of the cost again comes from when the package is in your city and the postman has to get it to your house.
Also I think you got some things wrong. There use to be some subsidised loophole, where national postal agencies delivered chinese packets for free as they were considered third world postal service. That loophole closed long ago. Now all the cost is paid. From the logistic warehouse to the ship/plane, to your doorstep, all that cost is covered on what you pay.
What they are doing is not ending subsidies, I would be ok with that. What they are doing is putting up tariffs. Putting up an artificial price increase via tax jsut because an item came from outside the country. It doesn’t cover or offset any loigistic cost. It’s just a tariff. They change it not for anything fair, it was just that european dropshippers couldn’t compete with chinese shops, so they lobbied the EU into killing chinese shops so people wanting those items has to get them through the european dropshipper. That’s all. No a single millilitre of oil will be saved on the process. The parcel will do the exact same travel at the exact same cost, but you will pay more, and that money will end up either in the EU Comission hands or in a dropshipper hands.
The orders will not be more aggregated, that’s nonsense. They already aggregated the orders to send them as cheap as possible, as that’s in best interest from all parties. They don’t send near empty containers, every container is already filled to the brim.
We may just may see just a reduction in the number of orders, just because we won’t be able to afford as much because they effectively made us poorer. With the same money we’ll be able to afford less things. Which is just the them of the EU in the later years, make its citizens poorer and poorer via increasing the cost of everything year after year. “You’ll own nothing and be happy”, except I won’t be happy. I feel far from happy with the EU.
Did your representatives had in their program tariffs for AliExpress or Shein?
Mine didn’t, they voted in favor of it regardless.
Yes national parties always campaign on the introduction of new fees and taxes and every new law is in every party program, naturally also when coalitions govern.
That said, yes the tariffs on small orders are in line with the program of the party I voted for. They are also reasonable. Disposable fashion platforms (and also other Chinese companies) were systemmatically mislabeling shipments to avoid existing tariffs. Thanks to international agreements they can also ship at dumping prices (for less than the cost of a letter to the neighbour village within a country). Adding that tariff merely raises the shipping price to a level that is closer to domestic shipping. It also creates an incentive to not split up everything into countless part shipments, reducing the load on insfrustructure. Last but not least, it reduces the incentive for mislabelling.
PS: I am shopping myself occasionally in China, so I know the practices and I understand the need for stricter rules.
I didn’t see that explicit tariff on any program.
Their programa tend to be vague “supporting local industry” “protection from harmful foreign products”. But under those vague umbrellas they do whatever they want and then they job becomes to convince the people that what they decided to do is the good thing.
And in a democracy that’s not what should happen. In a democracy the people tells the politicians what to do. When the politicians tell by their own to the people what’s good from them it’s called enlightened despotism.
Also I do not see how it’s reasonable to ask for a 3€ tariff for each product category on any order. That tariff is obviously aimed to cut people from buying directly from china and just to buy the exact same product to a middleman paying way more. Products are still the same, guarantees are still the same, taxes are quite similar as this products were subject to vat. The only thing that change is you pay the extra tariff or you pay the middleman. Zero benefits for the consumer.
It seems your beef is with democracy itself rather than the EU. Which party publishes an exhaustive detailed list of all coming laws with specific outlines for the coming legislative period, and of course predicting future coalition negotiations. You don’t see that your requirements are completely unworkable in reality, not just in the EU, anywhere, are you?
Party programs are simplifications out of necessity and they focus on specific topics, depending on the party. That focus itself is a strong reason why to vote for them. Those few Euros of tariffs on orders from China was indeed not a big topic. Immigration, Russia, defense and Integration were big topics, understandably.
3 EUR is not cutting off anyone from anything, especially as that is barely compensating the dumping prices on shipping. Or do you believe that 0 EUR shipping on a 2 EUR order is covering the actual shipping costs? Like I said, that shipping dumping is possible because of anachronistic international agreements that were never intended for what they are used now.
I know some don’t care at all about the environment or costs to society. That avalanche of tiny packages is a huge strain on our infrastructure and driven by unsustainably low shipping rates. That legislation will have a positive effect by incentivicing more consolidated ordering and shipping at prices closer to real costs.
Like I said, I am ordering myself in China and I support that. Chinese platforms will adopt fast when it is about money. So the positive effects will be seen soon. Maybe you don’t think as far but that shipping dumping is paid largely by us. At least everyone who is still ordering stuff also within the EU or paying taxes here for infrastructure.
Most country specific/regional programs are far more exhaustive and concrete than european election programa. Just read them.
Lack of accountability by the chambers and the commission lead to lack of democracy in the european institution, it’s just what’s happening.
They don’t get audited like national parliaments are, but they have greater power, that’s just wrong.
I don’t know where you live but 3 euros tariff for a 1€ item is killing a business. Trump did it and the european union, after criticize it, just did the same. Bad when trump did it and bad they europe did it.
European Union way to save the"environment": kill europeans by taxes, expect the environment heals somehow because of that. How me making some european dude richer for buying the same product saves the environment? It doesn’t. It’s like aerolines green offset pay. You pay more and somehow the things are “greener”. It’s just a scam for people to get rich put of people lack of knowledge and social consciousness.
If packet delivery is a problem then automatize it. Delivery drones, automatic pick up boxes. But no, better put a tax on it and be done. No way the european union is falling behind.
It is madness to ship a 1 EUR order on its own across the globe, at zero extra costs. Are you seriously saying that this is not only a viable business model but also one that people should be entitled to? For this money you can’t even send an empty letter to the next village in a cost covering way. Every such mini order shipping is heavily cross subsidised by shipments of goods with the EU.
You just strengthen the point that we need an end to tariff exemption under 150 EUR. Contrary to your claim this will not end direct sales from China, it will merely make it less costly and inefficient to our society by incentivising more aggregated orders.
Magical drones aren’t a solution either (to the contrary mass deployment of drones is a nightmare)
Materially speaking is more expensive to send a letter next town than a packet from something like aliexpress.
From sending a letter next town you’ll have to pay the salary of a postmen for going to take the card from your town to the next town, probably only for that item or a very small number of items.
From china millions of packages move by ship. The cost per package is negligible. Most of the cost again comes from when the package is in your city and the postman has to get it to your house.
Also I think you got some things wrong. There use to be some subsidised loophole, where national postal agencies delivered chinese packets for free as they were considered third world postal service. That loophole closed long ago. Now all the cost is paid. From the logistic warehouse to the ship/plane, to your doorstep, all that cost is covered on what you pay.
What they are doing is not ending subsidies, I would be ok with that. What they are doing is putting up tariffs. Putting up an artificial price increase via tax jsut because an item came from outside the country. It doesn’t cover or offset any loigistic cost. It’s just a tariff. They change it not for anything fair, it was just that european dropshippers couldn’t compete with chinese shops, so they lobbied the EU into killing chinese shops so people wanting those items has to get them through the european dropshipper. That’s all. No a single millilitre of oil will be saved on the process. The parcel will do the exact same travel at the exact same cost, but you will pay more, and that money will end up either in the EU Comission hands or in a dropshipper hands.
The orders will not be more aggregated, that’s nonsense. They already aggregated the orders to send them as cheap as possible, as that’s in best interest from all parties. They don’t send near empty containers, every container is already filled to the brim.
We may just may see just a reduction in the number of orders, just because we won’t be able to afford as much because they effectively made us poorer. With the same money we’ll be able to afford less things. Which is just the them of the EU in the later years, make its citizens poorer and poorer via increasing the cost of everything year after year. “You’ll own nothing and be happy”, except I won’t be happy. I feel far from happy with the EU.