> EU politicians spend more time on chat control than on the reopening of Hormuz
I thought I'd heard it all here on HN, but expecting EU to clean up after the US shooting itself in the foot with a completely unnecessary war probably comes somewhere in top 5 easily.
The US is now getting money from every ship passing the street. How people not see that for the US the world is a game of command and conquer. They rule everything and if it's not ruled it gets bombed.
>but expecting EU to clean up after the US shooting itself in the foot
Please don't pretend to misunderstand a point just to manufacture the opportunity to reply in bad faith.
Nobody in EU is saying the EU should clean up others' mess around the world, people are just saying the EU should be busy building domestic capacity and capabilities to insulate itself from the issues caused by others around the world, such as securing domestic energy supplies so that the next time USrael blows up the middle east, the EU can just eat it no issue indead of being at the mercy of foreign oligarchs for overpriced energy.
US is so monetary rich and energy rich that they can afford to blow up the middle east every 10 years with little domestic consequences for them, and still have enough gas to drive their Ford F-450s Super Duty to Walmart, heat their pools and AC their homes, without leading to national unrest, but EU is so energy starved that securing energy independence should have been a national security issue for the past 20 years already, not since 2022.
And not just energy, EU is exposed in other areas as well (SW, AI, semiconductors, lithium batteries, agriculture, manufacturing, defense, etc), and again, it will only wake up in panic mode at the 11th hour when US or China twists their arm in some spontaneous international dispute. But politicians instead of focusing on preemptively securing these vulnerabilities BEFORE shit hits the fan, are too busy focusing on controlling people's privacy, which is what EU citizens and commenters here are criticizing.
> people are just saying the EU should be busy building domestic capacity and capabilities to insulate itself from the issues caused by others around the world
If this is what you wanted to have said, say that from the beginning instead of leaving some vague and ambiguous "general complaint about the Strait of Hormuz" and maybe others like me will understand you better.
Somehow you seem to imply none of those things are happening right now in Europe, is this really your perspective? You think no one is thinking about domestic energy supplies? Do you not understand how EU works? Lots of things are happening in parallel, not the least a lot of work around energy dependency and other core infrastructure issues.
>Somehow you seem to imply none of those things are happening right now in Europe, is this really your perspective? You think no one is thinking about domestic energy supplies? Do you not understand how EU works? Lots of things are happening in parallel, not the least a lot of work around energy dependency and other core infrastructure issues.
"The purpose of a system is what it does". So far there's no sign of any progress, it's just getting worse. The Draghi report was two years ago and nothing has been done to address the issues it raised.
Either the EU opens Hormuz or the EU pays twice the pre war rate for gas / oil indefinitely. Of course at least they can put the subjects that bitch about it in jail now.
Like a lot of the rest of the world they would probably rather take the alternative option and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Has the upside of not handing more power to an authoritarian state on the other side of the Atlantic that clearly hates them and routinely threatens them.
Well everyone pays the same for oil (unless there are export/import control and adjusted by transportation costs) worldwide.
So americans will be paying 2x as well its just that some of that money will stay in the country instead of going to the middle easter or US (which happens to be the largest supplier of oil to the EU)
Back in 2025 EU imported ~15% from the gulf. China was over 40% and Japan at 95%...
how is EU supposed to open hormuz? do you expect them to raise armies and go to war over a shipping lane? I think US demonstrated plenty enough this is not a viable strategy (this was known for the past 50 years)
I would assume the actual reality of what can be done that is also respecting individual country needs and the EU ad a whole is at least an extra level of complexity than the reduction of those agreements.
Add to that the risk that every diminishing level of comfort for a population in EU seems to bring new percentages for extremist parties.
The second order and third order effects of any decision are too big and almost everyone posting EU should do <insert here a single simple thing> is most probably wrong in ways they dont even know about. That does not mean we should not debate but we should slow down a bit the extreme choices and try to be a bit more understanding of various details.
Yup, go set up an EU Stasi ready for them when they get to run the show.
What is there to debate? The US and Israel have attacked Iran without a very clear plan to prevent it from acquiring nuclear capability and this has backfired with Hormuz straight traffic being blocked. Whatever the EU says at this point won't solve anything. What they've done up to this point, stay out of it, was the correct corse of action. Right now the US is basically bullying Iran to make a deal or get bombed.
Yes. Basically Eastern Europe, which is what the US actually needed. Bulgaria speculated a bit for the opportunity to spend 1bn on weapons for their second hand F16s (better than plowing MiG 21s that they had).
Probably also why we now have a flood of lame Trump jokes about Meloni.
You are mistaking Hacker News for Xitter or Truth Social. This is not an argument, it is just a pile of buzzwords and grievance posting.
“Next Stasi”, “eurocrats”, “cripple domestic agriculture”, “dumping German diesel cars”, “useless talk”. None of this actually responds to the point about European energy dependence.
Would've been so much better to reduce the scope of your comment to just energy security.
I don't see how the EU lived live with already higher energy prices compared to the US for so long and still don't make better renewable policy top priority.
> EU politicians spend more time on chat control than on the reopening of Hormuz
I thought I'd heard it all here on HN, but expecting EU to clean up after the US shooting itself in the foot with a completely unnecessary war probably comes somewhere in top 5 easily.
> US shooting itself in the foot with a completely unnecessary war probably comes somewhere in top 5 easily.
We aren't done yet. Game on after the midterms.
The US is now getting money from every ship passing the street. How people not see that for the US the world is a game of command and conquer. They rule everything and if it's not ruled it gets bombed.
>but expecting EU to clean up after the US shooting itself in the foot
Please don't pretend to misunderstand a point just to manufacture the opportunity to reply in bad faith.
Nobody in EU is saying the EU should clean up others' mess around the world, people are just saying the EU should be busy building domestic capacity and capabilities to insulate itself from the issues caused by others around the world, such as securing domestic energy supplies so that the next time USrael blows up the middle east, the EU can just eat it no issue indead of being at the mercy of foreign oligarchs for overpriced energy.
US is so monetary rich and energy rich that they can afford to blow up the middle east every 10 years with little domestic consequences for them, and still have enough gas to drive their Ford F-450s Super Duty to Walmart, heat their pools and AC their homes, without leading to national unrest, but EU is so energy starved that securing energy independence should have been a national security issue for the past 20 years already, not since 2022.
And not just energy, EU is exposed in other areas as well (SW, AI, semiconductors, lithium batteries, agriculture, manufacturing, defense, etc), and again, it will only wake up in panic mode at the 11th hour when US or China twists their arm in some spontaneous international dispute. But politicians instead of focusing on preemptively securing these vulnerabilities BEFORE shit hits the fan, are too busy focusing on controlling people's privacy, which is what EU citizens and commenters here are criticizing.
> people are just saying the EU should be busy building domestic capacity and capabilities to insulate itself from the issues caused by others around the world
If this is what you wanted to have said, say that from the beginning instead of leaving some vague and ambiguous "general complaint about the Strait of Hormuz" and maybe others like me will understand you better.
Somehow you seem to imply none of those things are happening right now in Europe, is this really your perspective? You think no one is thinking about domestic energy supplies? Do you not understand how EU works? Lots of things are happening in parallel, not the least a lot of work around energy dependency and other core infrastructure issues.
>Somehow you seem to imply none of those things are happening right now in Europe, is this really your perspective? You think no one is thinking about domestic energy supplies? Do you not understand how EU works? Lots of things are happening in parallel, not the least a lot of work around energy dependency and other core infrastructure issues.
"The purpose of a system is what it does". So far there's no sign of any progress, it's just getting worse. The Draghi report was two years ago and nothing has been done to address the issues it raised.
> Nobody in EU is saying the EU should clean up others' mess around the world
That's literally what the top poster said.
Your points make sense, "EU should reopen Hormuz" is laughable
> is laughable
Exactly, that's why it was obvious he was speaking implicitly.
And well... EU will have to clean up others mess that they sprayed all over Europe anyway.
Either the EU opens Hormuz or the EU pays twice the pre war rate for gas / oil indefinitely. Of course at least they can put the subjects that bitch about it in jail now.
Like a lot of the rest of the world they would probably rather take the alternative option and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Has the upside of not handing more power to an authoritarian state on the other side of the Atlantic that clearly hates them and routinely threatens them.
Well everyone pays the same for oil (unless there are export/import control and adjusted by transportation costs) worldwide.
So americans will be paying 2x as well its just that some of that money will stay in the country instead of going to the middle easter or US (which happens to be the largest supplier of oil to the EU)
Back in 2025 EU imported ~15% from the gulf. China was over 40% and Japan at 95%...
how is EU supposed to open hormuz? do you expect them to raise armies and go to war over a shipping lane? I think US demonstrated plenty enough this is not a viable strategy (this was known for the past 50 years)
One thing the EU might do is put some pressure on Israel to stop breaking the cease fire and just generally to stop bombing everybody.
It's unlikely to happen, but that's the one thing I can see that the EU could contribute to the opening of Hormuz.
yes that's what's known for the past million years, if you hurt people they stop bothering you and do what you want
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I would assume the actual reality of what can be done that is also respecting individual country needs and the EU ad a whole is at least an extra level of complexity than the reduction of those agreements.
Add to that the risk that every diminishing level of comfort for a population in EU seems to bring new percentages for extremist parties.
The second order and third order effects of any decision are too big and almost everyone posting EU should do <insert here a single simple thing> is most probably wrong in ways they dont even know about. That does not mean we should not debate but we should slow down a bit the extreme choices and try to be a bit more understanding of various details.
> bring new percentages for extremist parties
Yup, go set up an EU Stasi ready for them when they get to run the show.
What is there to debate? The US and Israel have attacked Iran without a very clear plan to prevent it from acquiring nuclear capability and this has backfired with Hormuz straight traffic being blocked. Whatever the EU says at this point won't solve anything. What they've done up to this point, stay out of it, was the correct corse of action. Right now the US is basically bullying Iran to make a deal or get bombed.
> go away USA you're not using our bases to refuel
Tbf this is only the position of a few extreme governments. Other European countries have been perfectly happy to let the US use their bases for this.
Yes. Basically Eastern Europe, which is what the US actually needed. Bulgaria speculated a bit for the opportunity to spend 1bn on weapons for their second hand F16s (better than plowing MiG 21s that they had).
Probably also why we now have a flood of lame Trump jokes about Meloni.
You are mistaking Hacker News for Xitter or Truth Social. This is not an argument, it is just a pile of buzzwords and grievance posting.
“Next Stasi”, “eurocrats”, “cripple domestic agriculture”, “dumping German diesel cars”, “useless talk”. None of this actually responds to the point about European energy dependence.
Would've been so much better to reduce the scope of your comment to just energy security.
I don't see how the EU lived live with already higher energy prices compared to the US for so long and still don't make better renewable policy top priority.
What shows up in your news feed and what the politicians are spending time on are wildly different things.
They do have us in their power. They don't have Iran under the same power.