Most (all?) restrictions where imposed by the governments. Can you give us more details or some example on that “total control” the European Commission actually exercised.

The COVID pass is one such example, it has recently been extended until summer 2023.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

And the national government excuse usually is, that they do it according to EU rules, directive or whatever.

Denying responsibility at all levels at its finest.

There are rare examples of resistance, like the attempt of Czech government to resist the EU firearms directive by putting the right to self-defense with a gun into the constitution. But mostly they just fold over.

There was no such thing from the EU; travel restrictions were imposed by individual countries first and foremost.

You call it "fold over", but if you think of a positive thing, it's cooperation. Because we have open borders - which, if you look at Brexit, is a huge advantage for trade and the like - it doesn't make sense to allow firearms in one country but ban them in another. It's a give and take situation. The UK decided they didn't want any part in it and... it decimated their economy, their imports and exports, their properties owned abroad, and any companies operating under an .eu domain name; it's caused an economic shift in Ireland which may very well be on the way to unification now, and it may trigger Scotland to leave the Commonwealth and join the EU.

UK was never in Schengen; as an EU citizen, I had to go through ID check all the time. The only difference now is that I have to show passport, national ID is not enough anymore.

Guns were never allowed to circulate freely; even in Schengen countries, you need both export and import permit from both countries to bring it into another country. Fun when you attend competitive events ;). You could argue that you could do it lawlessly, without permit, but then, you could own gun lawlessly, without permit too; the criminals won't bother, only the lawful citizens, who is targeted by the regulation, will.

It would be "cooperation", if there was a consent of the governed. Now it is just diktat. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lHVcvJdWIs is not so funny when you realize, how true it is.

Please inform the IMF of this decimation. They seem to be unaware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_...

Imposed by governments that miraculously took all the same measures at the same time (except Sweden, somehow).

> full control in the name of COVID

Apart from closing bars and restaurants etc what sort of full control did the EU impose?

Even closing of bars and restaurands was not imposed by the EU because it does not have the legal powers required to do that.

Please read up on competences of institutions before directing blame, everyone.

The EU has exclusive power in customs, openness of the internal market, monetary policy, internal commercial policy and some selected international treaties.

Member states are furthermore prevented from interfering from EU regulation - if it exists - in some areas of agriculture, environment and consumer protection, transport and energy and meta directives in legal fairness and security.

There is no competency for regulating health, that is solely member state responsibility.

Regulation of digital markets needs to attach to these powers, and so is derived mostly from a need to protect competition and internal markets.

nothing, it was in countries jurisdiction, actually people were calling for more central response from EU, but they didn't have any means/rights.

Only thing EU did afaik, was EU covid certificates, which I'm eternally grateful for.

Grateful why? They served to restrict our rights.

Because EU recogniced certifcates made travel within the EU possible and, besides some funny rules for border crossings, almost pain free.

Just imagine going from Geany to France would require to get your German vaccination certificate recognised by the French first, as one example.

When one set of government-imposed policies artificially inhibits travel, another set of government-imposed policies that artificially adds exceptions to that first set of policies shouldn't be seen as providing salvation.

"Travel within the EU" would have been "possible" and "pain free" if the various governments had just not imposed any travel restrictions in the first place.

Yeah exactly! But at least like this, you just have one certificate, and not 5.

> Just imagine going from Geany to France would require to get your German vaccination certificate recognised by the French first, as one example.

Just imagine going from A to B without having to show a useless certificate.

I am old enough to remember passport controls when going skiing in Austria, which was 30 km away from my home. Hell, imagine to show documentation at nation borders! The audacity!

Even then it was national governments, not the EU, imposing those controls.

I’m not aware of any COVID measures that was bought in solely via powers the EU has. I assume that would take far too long, as every new directive from the EU needs to implemented by each member state separately.