Euro Commission wants to pick your brains on telcos and net access The European Commission on Friday launched two vast public consultations on internet speed and quality. The so-called 360° review of telecoms and internet rules is open until December 7 and is seeking input from users, organisations, public bodies and businesses. The telecoms questionnaire looks at network, service and …
European Commission ... launched two vast public consultations
So, not only do these useless wankers cost taxpayers a fortune to keep them in their cushy jobs, they now want to spend even more of our time and money asking us what we want them to do when they're there?
Is there a survey checkbox for "feck off' ?
Jake, the European Commission is not part of any government. It is the administrative body charged with, to put it very simply, running the EU.
You may be thinking about the European Council, the European Parliament, or national governments, which do have a political (in the popular sense) element to them.
The European COMMISSION likes to act like they are a government, full of busybodies telling other people what to do even though they have absolutely no legal power to make anything happen.
Why shouldn't one confuse them with a real government? BOTH are about as useless as teats on a boar hog and twice as ugly.
> full of busybodies
May I ask on what you base that assertion? That is certainly not the impression I had on my three major interactions so far (and counting) with the EC. I have found them efficient, knowledgeable, and fair, even when they disagreed with me.
I'm not a big fan of the civil service, but I really have nothing bad to say about them, so it would be most enlightening if you could share your own experiences.
> even though they have absolutely no legal power to make anything happen.
Beg your pardon?
This sort of approach enables those with an interest, stakes, or knowledge in the matter to participate in a meaningful way, and lets voices be heard (notably those of individuals) that would otherwise be drowned by lobbyists and the likes of ETNO (see article), falsely claiming to "represent" X million users (they have customers, whose interests do not always line up with those of the company--they are therefore hardly "represented").
I like the balance between ease of access and effort required to respond. These consultations tend to be accessible to the average person concerned by the relevant subject, while at the same time requiring a certain amount of intellectual effort to answer. It is notable also that, as far as I recall from my statistics classes long time ago, the survey appears to be excellently designed.
In the past I have participated as an individual in another consultation, directly related to my professional capacity. I was most surprised to see how my comments--in fact, every unique input after consolidation--were not only taken into consideration but actually replied to. And all this goes in the public record, as is made clear at the very beginning of the survey.
I have had some strong disagreements with the EC¹, but from my experience the EC is a model of how a civil service *can* be good and efficient. I can only encourage those who feel affected by the issues under consultation to go and participate.
[This comment is in case there is anyone left in this site still interested on meaningful discussion.]
¹ For the sake of transparency, they have also defended my interests as a citizen against a certain EU State, in an action which would have likely costed me years of my time and thousands of pounds otherwise.
> ignore in favour of whichever industry lobbying group has offered us the most
Actually, Graham, if you did bother to contribute, you might find that is not necessarily the case. If you make a reasoned, sensible contribution, it weights as much as anyone else's even if it comes from a single individual--and I speak from experience here, having participated in and followed a past consultation in a matter of professional interest to me.
Or you could just call the European Commission on 00800 67 89 10 11 (Mon-Fri, 08:00-17:00 BST, toll free, use any official EU language) and ask them for yourself whatever questions you may have.
But hey, why not just speak out of ignorance and spread that ignorance to other apathetic citizens? You're doing everyone a great favour.
Actually, AC, I *have* contributed.
I was one of the many motorcyclists who objected to the EU's plans to prevent bikers "modifying" their machines by effectively locking down everything from the airbox to the rear sprocket and saying that anything in between could only be touched by an authorised garage, meaning we wouldn't even be able to change our own oil!
We got *some* of those plans stopped, but, thanks to extensive (or perhaps "expensive") lobbying by the ABS industry, all new bikes above 125cc are going to have to have mandatory "always on" ABS included by 2020, despite the fact that there are circumstances and certain bikes (eg those designed for off-road use) where ABS would actually be detrimental.
So, no, I'm not speaking out ignorance, I'm speaking from experience.
> Actually, AC, I *have* contributed.
Fair enough, and congratulations for contributing.
From your description however, it would simply seem that your proposal wasn't persuasive enough to be taken into account. I have had, as you can imagine, the same experience--which wasn't unexpected and in hindsight probably correct.
Now, there is a bit of an impossible leap of reasoning from there to saying that they will just "ignore [you] in favour of whichever industry lobbying group has offered us the most". Do you have any specific evidence of that being the case? If so, I suggest you head for the courthouse, as that would simply be illegal.
A different matter of course is interest groups having the resources to invest in actually coming up with convincing arguments which happen to work in their favour, but I think the current system, at the EU level, works much better than the national systems, where in many cases you cannot even contribute directly.
In any event and going back to your example, if I were the ABS industry, what would I gain from making ABS non-overrideable? As long as I managed to get it installed on every motorcycle, I would be happy enough.
Incidentally, I know nothing about motorcycles, but just happened to chat on IM with a friend of mine who is a former motocross national and international champion and has done the Paris-Dakar thing and other stuff like that. His rather conclusive reaction: "I wouldn't buy a bike without ABS". I think this illustrates that, in the motorcycle world itself, the opinion may be divided and what on the face of it appears to be the sensible option has been chosen.
> all new bikes above 125cc are going to have to have mandatory "always on" ABS included by 2020
Just FYI, according to my mate, and I haven't verified, the deal is that anything 125 cc and above has to have ABS from 2016, not 2020. By 2019 a decision will be made in respect of bikes under 125 cc (if the ABS lobby has so much power, why leave it for latter to decide whether to have it or not?). The only thing that happens by 2020 is some emissions thing that I did not understand a word of. He also mentioned something about bikes over 100 horsepower being legal, something which the French were initially not happy about.
So is it OK if I withdraw my accusation of ignorance and replace it by "sore loser" instead? :-)
The GSMA, which represents the interests of nearly 800 mobile operators worldwide, welcomed the consultation, but said that any new laws “should be focused in particular on removing unnecessary regulatory burdens”.
“The GSMA strongly encourages the modernisation of regulation in the sector to respond to the changed realities in the market. Europe needs policies that boost investment and encourage innovation, enabling service providers to continue to offer European citizens the quality of service they require,” the organisation stated.
In other words the mobile operators want to be able to fleece European citizens more.
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