> Isn’t that the cost of doing business in the EU?
No, it's not. If you represent a business there is an official way to express your stance and lobby for your cause but bribing MEPs is a criminal offence (both for the perpetrator and those who receive personal benefits).
The only reason the EU has to depend on Huawei is because EU telco hardware which once ran most of China telco can't compete anymore. So they have to play this game until local players get their act together.
Cant compete on what?
Features?
Price?
Do tell, you seem to have information.
For what it's worth, the UK, having banned Huawei stuff, is currently ripping out their Huawei 5G gear and replacing it with largely equipment from Ericsson.
They were bribing officials to try to get them to not ban them in the great Huawei wars of the late 2010's / early 2020's - which led to the UK banning Huawei at the behest of the US for political reasons.
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/en/transparen...
Many lobbyists work "simply" by producing reports and collecting data that works in favor or their proposals, publishing them to opinion pieces in newspapers etc.
The EU is not unique in this though.
Anti-corruption is OK, but you lose out if you're the only one complying.
And in order for that to not happen, arguing against spread of knee jerk lies is a good thing.
It's in a better shape because unlike the US leaders, European leaders are much better at pandering, being politically correct and saying the right socially acceptable things in public that get universal appraisal on the world stage, without them actually doing anything concrete or solving any of the issues. Basically, they win on optics. At least I'm sure that's what he meant with that virtue signaling attack.
Because if we look objectively at how the EU politics handled the economy, defense, illegal immigration, AI & tech innovation, domestic EV industry, rise of China, Russia's invasion of Crimea, etc. over the years, they're definitely not worth their salt.
Case in point, EU had the same GDP as the US 20 years ago. Now it's only half of that the US. So not only they've left us poorer, but also militarily weak and exposed to influence of China, Russia, and of course the Trump's new US policies.
IMHO, 20 years ago Trump wouldn't have the balls to try to boss the EU around like that but he can today because we're no longer peers but pushovers with no leverage, no military leverage, no economic leverage, no tech leverage, no natural resource leverage, nothing other than calling him names, because our useless politicians were asleep at the wheel and left us vulnerable to such bullies.
I couldn't agree more. What I keep wondering though is whether this is new? Have politicians always focused on saying they fix things instead of actually fixing things? Many historians consider Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the best presidents since his optimism and New Deal got the United States out of the Great Depression (which is a weird name because nobody thinks it was very great). Are presidents like Roosevelt the exception? Should we expect that most presidents will achieve nothing more than a scandal like Watergate? I don't know.
To my eyes, these things show that in fact, eu is actually doing something about defense and protecting democracy, and to your eyes you see this as more taxes and the death of democracy and an evidence of romania's corruption. What actions would you expect eu to take in regard to ukraine, defense, and protecting democracy?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43287963#43288810
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43278705#43278894 (not just the first comment, the chain of answers is needed to be read as well)
Sorry, I'm not gonna bite.
If not believing evidences - multiple ones - is not a proof of being influenced by Russian propaganda, a country that has repeatedly interfered in European affairs, I do not know what would be categorized as being influenced by Russian propaganda. Maybe directly going to Moscow and fighting for Russia?
Anyway, I was genuinely curious about your ideas on European defense, since you don't see many shared values in eu i was intrigued to see the views of someone who doesn't see Europe as more than a merely political one, with no common values
We'd have even more GDP growth than America :-)
As well, the Euro would be worthless. US could print the 2008 crisis without massive currency debasement because of its reserve currency status, which in 10 years could not be the case anymore.
This means that the US has this huge deficit problem to fix, where most of it is because of Medicaid and Social Security entitlements (which will also grow faster in the next years).
The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now, the next 10 years will be a rough ride for the average American.
What makes you say that? A lot of things can happen in 10 years. Should we all just do northing and wait until then?
>The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now
If being the worlds leading economy and military superpower is what a terrible fiscal shape looks like I think many countries in the world would want to be "terrible" right now.
I don't know, perhaps it's because American politicians have higher moral standards, or maybe it's because bribery is not illegal in the United States.
Americans just don't have a problem with it.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-us-senator-rober...
Are you implying that nobody should be able to criticize anything before its too late?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/10/i-aske...
I do give that the comment you're answering to is unnecessary rude
Isn’t that the cost of doing business in the EU?
And sadly the US for now: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fcpa-anti-bribery-law-exe...