Brexit freezes 81,000 UK-registered .eu domains – and you've all got three months to get them back Tens of thousands of .eu domains have been officially suspended due to Brexit. On Friday, as Brits awoke from the least celebratory New Year’s Eve of modern times, 50,000 of them discovered that their 81,000 .eu websites, and related email addresses, had stopped working. It’s part of a rule change imposed on the company that …
They say that anyone with "an undertaking that is established in the Union" can retain a domain.
Well in the EU "any entity engaged in an economic activity, that is an activity consisting in offering goods or services on a given market, regardless of its legal status and the way in which it is financed, is considered an undertaking."
..and established would basically mean to "conduct business" as opposed to merely being registered within or incorporated within the EU, since their antitrust laws use the same "is established" language and they most certainly don't care which country you're registered in.
So I wouldn't call it an EU punishment as much as a stupid TLD registrar decision.
@needmorehare
"So I wouldn't call it an EU punishment as much as a stupid TLD registrar decision."
The registrar found out after the EU made the decision in what looked like either an attempt at punishing the UK or total incompetence. The registrar publicly explained they had only just found out (I think from the news if I remember right) because as this article explains, it goes against the industry standard approach.
The effort being so badly thought through that the decision was changed 3 times and not by the registrar.
That's just you living up to the cantankerous part of your handle, right?
.com is non-geographic - there is a .us TLD for localised use. It's just that many/most US entities registered as .com / .org etc. that it has assumed some level of de-facto identity as the US domain
Nice try but you know perfectly well that there are a more significant number of localised TLDs that you can’t have, unless you operate or reside in that geography
Italy certainly used to be one, so don’t pretend it’s unreasonable for .eu to be reserved for the eu countries
Leave.EU leaves Britain after Brexit
Eurosceptic campaign group founded by Arron Banks is now registered in Ireland
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/07/leaveeu-leaves-britain-after-brexit
"... while you voted in that pig-headed spiv ..."
Some of us tried not to.
It's not my fault that I only get a limited number of votes nor that this number is less than the number of numpties in UKland.
My first ever vote, nearly fifty years back, was to fully join Yurp. I wanted, still want, the lovely and wonderful Queen Lizzy to be the figurehead of a totally united Grosse Europe with things like "France", "England" and "Lichtenbergersteinshire" being no more than postal regions and artefacts of History. It does not look like I will ever get this.
It's ever so sad, wasteful and stupid.
Something that Michel Barnier has often said that he is not doing ...
Bullshit! The UK is punishing itself. It decided to leave the EU and it now has to live with the consequences of that decision. One of those conseqences is not being eligible for .eu domain names.
This has been .eu policy ever since the TLD was created. (As a matter of fact lots of TLDs have similar rules: $country's TLD is only for $country's residents.) .eu's policy is not something that's recently been invented. Or a petty attempt to punish anyone.
You seem to be one of the Brexiteers who blame everyone but themselves for their own stupidity. Well, you got what you voted for. Deal with it.
In simple terms the UK chose to leave the club and doesn't get the benefits of club membership any more. One of those benefits was the option to have a .eu domain name.
No it has not. The article specifically states that the policy was changed when Brexit was declared and, if you had been reading El Reg two years ago, you should remember the amount of facepalming that was going on in these forums at the news.
I personally find this move despicable. It has no reason to exist and appears to be purely motivated by spite - which is not something I approve of.
I remember trying to register a .eu when I lived in Cambodia over a decade ago. An "association" with EU was required, either EU citizen or EU legal entity.
It is fair that they want to keep .eu only for EU firms/citizen. Their choice.
You are right, this is a payback for the UK leaving the EU.
That said, the UK did vote to leave and now it is reaping what it has sown. Most Leave voters did so on the promise that "we would be able to have our cake and eat it too." Pure lies of course and in reality those persuaded to vote for one of the most stupid acts of national self-harm actually bought a pig in a poke.
Personally I don't blame our friends in the EU rubbing the UK's nose in it. We left under a false prospectus and now we are going to have to deal with the consequences.
Some of us saw through all the bullshit and realised what was going to happen, and it's only just started.
Most Remainers are too polite and won't say but "We told you so!"
I'm a minority so no, I'm not too polite, I told you so. But hey, brexit means brexit, and this is just the first, what, four years? - on a road down. Think independent Scotland, think Middle Britain of England, Wales and Maybe-N-Ireland. Think of that loooooong line of world countries that can't just wait to make all those fantastic trading deals with the top-world-leading economy of ex-Great Britain. They've been lining up since... I dunno, 2016 I guess? And since 1st Jan they're practically scrambling over our walls and English channels and channel-tunnels to get them deals! You hear that rumble? That's all those hundreds of countries positively STAMPEDING to be the first in line for our Great British Favour.
I do believe that you're not saying anything. You're anonymous. Stand up for what you believe in.
I voted to stay, mainly because I am an optimist and believe that the world should all freaking work as one. Unfortunately we are not there yet but making bigger blocks then cementing the bigger blocks together is certainly the way to go IMO.
I also respect democracy though. Our side failed to convince the others well enough. Not sure what you're spouting above but there have been several trade deals done (one with the EU I might add that they said would never be) and I do believe the world s in the middle of something else too right now.
We've not even seen the proper aftermath yet and it will take years to know if the decision was good or bad. All this .eu domain name crap is small fry. Just change the domain name. There are plenty out there and if you did not have your country specific domain name or a generic as well as the .eu then, why?
At the end of the day this is a political decision and thus could have been redacted or changed. We do after all share a continent called Europe (yes I know .eu stands for European Union).
<blockquote> “We've not even seen the proper aftermath yet and it will take years to know if the decision was good or bad.”</blockquote>
You’re letting your optimism cloud your judgement. It was very obvious both before the referendum and in the 4 years since that there are solely negative repercussions from Brexit in the short to mid term, save for a few profiteers making money out of Britain’s downfall. Top Brexiteers like Reese-Mogg have publicly admitted that don’t expect to see any benefit for 50+ years. A generation has been thrown to the wolves thanks to a shameful, traitorous misinformation campaign that managed to mislead 37% of the electorate into voting for the impossible (a good Brexit)
Whilst much of the damage is irreparable and has already happened, with luck this national nightmare will only last for a few years and the next government will put us on a path to rejoin.
The alternative will be a break up of the UK and a decline into international irrelevance and economic catastrophe.
I said it the day after the referendum, and I will repeat it now: "So the Tory right wing has killed the Pound Sterling. I never thought I would see it".
My reasoning is that within 20 years after the referendum we will be desperate to rejoin. And the EU won't be stupid enough to give us all those opt-outs again -- in fact it will be their golden opportunity to strengthen the Euro. So, that will be the end of the Pound.
I said it the day after the referendum, and I will repeat it now: "So the Tory right wing has killed the Pound Sterling. I never thought I would see it".
And you haven't. The pound used to be worth just under $5 until we dropped the gold standard, Bretton Woods started it around $4, eventually dropping to under $3 in simple numbers. Since it started to float, in real terms considering inflation and purchasing power, it's stayed pretty much at the same $ rate for many decades. More recently it was numerically at $2 before the 2008 crash, when it dropped to $1.4. Since then it's been up & down, but is back at $1.37 today, far from "killed".
Much the same applies to the GBP:EUR rate. 1.74EUR at best in 2000 when the Euro was very weak, 1.08 after the 2008 crash, now around 1.12.
My reasoning is that within 20 years after the referendum we will be desperate to rejoin
I can't see that ever happening. Years of complaining about the common market, 60% opposed to the formation of the EU 25 years ago, I see nothing about the future direction of the EU that would ever suggest even a slim majority to rejoin.
Sorry, your wishful thinking is doomed. By the passage of time.
First, the simple fact that Remain was strongly supported by young people. Personally I don't know a single Brexiteer under 50. Of course I am sure there were some. But not many under 25.
Second, the "grass is always greener..." effect. Any referendum held while we are not a member will be biased towards rejoining as whatever economic or political problems exist will be painted as magically going away by joining. Even immigration (which is a concern that never goes away, whatever the government looks like and whatever the policy is).
If you want us not to rejoin within 20 years you have to campaign to disallow another referendum - because human nature means "rejoin" will win a referendum when it is held.
Sorry, your wishful thinking is doomed. By the passage of time.
First, the simple fact that Remain was strongly supported by young people. Personally I don't know a single Brexiteer under 50. Of course I am sure there were some. But not many under 25.
That argument has been made before, and it has one major snag: if it were correct, we would have seen support for the EU steadily increasing over the past 30-odd years as the old 'leavers' died off and the young 'remainers' increased. That hasn't happened. The same argument is made between simple left & right politics, UK Labour has more support among the under 25's, and the Conservatives have major support in the over 50's, yet that is pretty much constant.
The bit you're missing is that somewhere between ages 25 and age 50 people's political views change. As they become older and more experienced they become more pragmatic, and less naive. In simple terms, remainers become leavers.
Any referendum held while we are not a member will be biased towards rejoining as whatever economic or political problems exist will be painted as magically going away by joining.
For that to happen, the generation which remembers those problems has to pass on. We see that in ordinary politics, where many young people who don't remember the Labour governments of the 1960s saw the solutions offered by Corbyn as new, magic solutions. Those of us who lived through the 60s and 70s, not so much. Perhaps in 25 years, if the EU is still around, a new generation will buy into its promises, but only if its current failures haven't killed it, and have been forgotten. That's a big "if".
If you want us not to rejoin within 20 years you have to campaign to disallow another referendum - because human nature means "rejoin" will win a referendum when it is held.
Now who's indulging in wishful thinking? Human nature is to co-operate, as we did in the common market. It is very much against human nature to surrender control over something which is seen as "ours" to "them", which is what rejoining would be seen as.
If at any time over the past 100-odd years you had asked the Republic of Ireland to rejoin the UK, would human nature mean that they would automatically have voted yes? Or if Scotland were to vote to leave the UK would you assume that a second referendum a few years later would automatically vote to rejoin? I very much doubt it in either case, for exactly the same reasons that I can't see the UK ever voting to rejoin the EU.
The referendum was won by 1.9% (51.9% of total) - and that was before the house of cards of lies told by the leave camp had started to collapse.
Talking as if the UK chose leave as the obvious choice is simply not born out by the actual numbers. Along with the narrow victory for leave, we've had 2 subsequent elections (+ European parliament election) where the majority of votes were cast for parties that were either outright remain, or wanted a second referendum.
Yes, under our current voting system, that still means we leave, but talking as if it was inevitable, or that it was/is uncontroversial is outright fantasy.
I think the argument that people vote to change the status quo holds water. The red wall that had largely felt ignored for the last 15 years suddenly voting Tory bares this out. Unfortunately, they may not like the change that they get as a consequence (see the 're-organising' of our manufacturing sector).
Human nature is to co-operate, as we did in the common market. It is very much against human nature to surrender control over something which is seen as "ours" to "them", which is what rejoining would be seen as.
There's the rub. On the world stage there is "Us Europeans", "Those Americans", "Those Chinese", then "everyone else". The UK has voted to put itself in the latter category.
Remainers failed to convince enough people that the EU *is* the co-operation of (now) 27 countries. The parliament that represented us that voted on laws that spanned a continent. That includes sometimes getting outvoted. (as remainers were). I find it heartening that the EU parliament rarely voted along country lines, but would usually group themselves along left-right spectrum. Because they represented all of us.
"Perhaps in 25 years, if the EU is still around..."
The way things are going, that is more likely than the UK 'remaining' in it's current form.
I do believe that you're not saying anything. You're anonymous. Stand up for what you believe in.
I'm not sure that there is much in the anonymity stakes between a pseudonymous "Ragarath" and the generic "Anonymous Coward". All it means is that I can identify previous posts by them, and they have probably played World of Warcraft. They are still hiding their face.
And don't even get me started on the meaningless jumble of letters that is "Smooth Newt".
> Most Remainers are too polite and won't say but "We told you so!"
You wouldn't think so from the noise the rest are making though!
Here's an interesting thing: the UK and Canada signed a trade deal in December. It's taken a year at most (since the UK had to actually leave the EU before negotiations could start).
The equivalent EU-Canada deal took seven years to agree. That's seven years of opportunity cost - something Remainers might like to think about the next time they jump up to say that the EU was perfect.
Yes dear, but negotiating an equivalent Canadian trade deal to one that already exists with the EU is hardly an exquisite act of statecraft, is it?
You and your friends have had decades of sport pointing out the EUs flaws. Don't be surprised if a few people point out the manifold holes in this new clusterf*ck.
> Yes dear, but negotiating an equivalent Canadian trade deal to one that already exists with the EU is hardly an exquisite act of statecraft, is it?
That doesn't change the fact that the EU inflicted seven years of opportunity cost on both its and Canada's citizens.
(And that's just the time it took to negotiate the treaty from the point of deciding to negotiate. I wonder why the EU/EEC didn't already have a trade deal with Canada since the 1970s, or 80s or 90s? Half a century of lost opportunity - but don't worry - the EU is and always has been great and knows best. Please feel free to console yourself with a downvote - that'll make up for it.)
The equivalent EU-Canada deal took seven years to agree. That's seven years of opportunity cost - something Remainers might like to think about the next time they jump up to say that the EU was perfect.
Canada and the UK agreed to apply the terms of the existing CETA agreement between the EU and Canada to UK-Canada trade for a year, whilst they try to negotiate a new trade agreement.
That is equivalent to the 11 month EU-UK transition period where all existing trade agreements remained in place. We had an agreement with Canada before. We have an agreement that does exactly the same thing now, but only for a year. We haven't gained anything.
I actually do believe it was motivated by spite, but frankly, in my view fully justified. It looks like another spec of that spite about "our dear European friends" has come back to land on our face. Brits claimed brexit means brexit? ?No ifs, no buts? Well, EU happy to oblige and comply, to the last letter and last .eu domain...
You are very much mistaken. The criteria for registering a .eu domain have not materially changed because of Brexit. The policy's been the same (pretty much) since .eu was created: registrants had to have some locus to the EU. Though there were minor tweaks last year to allow EU citizens resident in third countries - which now include UK - to register .eu domain names.
What has been in flux is how Brexit has affected the #implementation# of this policy for names held by Brits: phased deletion, nuke them all on Brexit day, suspend them all on Brexit day, ignore the rules, etc. Even so, the end-game was perfectly clear. Once UK left the UK, those.eu domain names would ultimately have to go because the registrants were no longer eligible to hold them.
I agree the recent action is despicable - especially if people don't get refunds for their lost registrations. But registrants were warned about the end of their .eu names and given 2+ years to make transition arrangements. And they've still got time do do that even now. However as others have said, the removal of these domain names is just one of the teeny consequences of Brexit. I'm sure there are plenty of other, far more serious, ones.
"In simple terms the UK chose to leave the club"
Nothing is simple. It was a far from unanimous decision. Some people voted to leave, some didn't. The former were a majority but, in percentage terms, a small majority. As someone posted earlier those with .eu domains were most probably in the latter.* It would be smarter for the EU to stand by its UK friends.
*A few weeks ago when the Beeb was covering the approaching changes they quoted one firm most of whose business involved exporting to the EU. Its directors were wondering whether their decision to vote Leave had been the right one.
@Doctor Syntax
"It would be smarter for the EU to stand by its UK friends."
This assumes the EU considers people in the UK friends. Even that members are friends. Remainers probably factor into their thoughts as friends about as much as unicorns walk across my yard. They didnt want the country to leave but thats a practical perspective of the UK having one of the few useful militarys in western Europe and our financial contributions.
@Roland6
"bring into question just what his idea of friends is."
Exactly, its political talk. Diplomatic and polite and of no real substance. The problem is people judging our government as politicians but looking at the EU gov as if they are somehow not politicians.
You still haven't grasped the notion that you only won by a slim majority and that about 1 in 2 of your fellow-countrymen weren't bothered enough either way to vote approved of being in the EU. On that basis the EU had and still has many friends in the UK. It's just that you're not one of them. You're not alone but you don't speak for everyone.
@Doctor Syntax
"You still haven't grasped the notion that you only won by a slim majority"
So the majority who did vote voted for leave. Meaning even less voted to remain.
"about 1 in 2 of your fellow-countrymen weren't bothered enough either way to vote"
That glorious utopia of shining light wasnt enough to get people off their arses to vote. Something so important and great that they couldnt care less about voting to remain.
"approved of being in the EU"
You assume to know the vote of people who didnt vote and cared so little about that Union you love that they didnt vote?
"On that basis the EU had and still has many friends in the UK"
Friends or hangers on? Friendship assumes a 2 way street, which you point out isnt really the case. The EU has admirers fluttering their eyelids at it but it doesnt care. You feeling so inclined think the EU should stand by its 'friends' but it doesnt care about your existence. Sorry but they dont reciprocate your feelings.
"It's just that you're not one of them. You're not alone but you don't speak for everyone."
Never claimed to. I speak for me. I see the EU's indifference to you and dont care. If the EU wasnt indifferent to you and saw you as its friend I wouldnt care either. It makes no difference to me. The EU gov cares as much about you as some committee on hair ties (assuming your a bloke who doesnt use them).
And we know the BBC won't go back to ask them how they feel now, because that would result in a pro-Brexit story.The BBC refuse to run those.
There aren't any pro-Brexit stories, apart from the ones made up by the Government about pulse fishing and tampons. And blue passports, of course.
Nonsense. Here's one from 2016: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results
But given I've identified a pro-Brexit story that they could run, and you've agreed that there aren't any, perhaps you might like to consider why the BBC are failing so terribly to represent licence payers.
There aren't any pro-Brexit stories, apart from the fact that the UK has more of the Covid vaccine than the EU. Like or loath Brexit the EU made a right cock up of vaccine provision, partly for ideological reasons and partly as a result of pressure from France to buy the (not yet tested) French effort.
It will be several years before the fall out of Brexit will be apparent and disentangled from Covid fallout. There was only one prediction that can be seen to have come true so far, a deal was agreed at the last moment as per the history of the EU. Good, bad or indifferent, no one yet knows.
"It will be several years before the fall out of Brexit will be apparent and disentangled from Covid fallout."
At least until BoJo and friends fall from power. For them, having something that's clearly external to blame is invaluable. SWMBO reported a lack of fresh veg in the Co-op yesterday. Who's to blame? Covid or maybe the weather, yes; difficulties in getting imports through the ports, never!
And now they know that it was. They still have full access to the EU market, tariff-free.
They most certainly don't "still have full access to the EU market".
The UN Conference on Trade and Development has determined that non-tariff barriers contribute more than twice as much as tariffs to overall market access trade restrictiveness - and there is now a vast array of non-tariff barriers - red tape, regulations, prohibitions, conditions, and specific market requirements that make export of products to the EU (and Northern Ireland) more difficult and costly.
And the trade agreement has next to nothing to facilitate the delivery of services to the EU which, pre-Brexit, formed the majority of UK exports to the EU by value.
It's tariff-free while the UK doesn't diverge and most products are permitted (a random selection of stuff I've read that is difficult or impossible is milk, meat, eels, some kind of nursery plants, and apparantly sex arses it the Sunday Sport is to be believed) but it's a shame about the paperwork costing so much time and money
Then there are services where the UK is pretty much screwed.
Finally the British government thought that Brexit and a pandemic weren't enough so the new VAT rules for imports are making the entire rest of the world decide to simply not export to the UK. How should British companies which generally import and assemble products from parts produce stuff for export?
Another tremendous foot-gun trigger moment brought to you by the British political class and Whitehall.
"They still have full access to the EU market, tariff-free."
Not necessarily. If they supply financial services there is still great uncertainty. If they provide professional services the professional qualifications of their staff may no longer be recognised automatically (will have to deal with some paperwork, just like a professional from the US or Singapore would).
If they supply products then they may have to certify them to both CE and the UK mark = more paperwork. Also their UK trade association loses its say in the development of EN standards, which are also used outside Europe. (I think Hong Kong recently specified EN standard bodies and Euro 6 engines for their bin lorry tender - part of which Dennis Eagle in Warwickshire won. Australia also accepts or requires Euro engines.) If they send technicians over from the UK to service products in the EU then they'll have to worry about visa and carnets for temporary import of tools (same as when sending folk to the US, Russia, etc.). Apart from the cost and hassle that will also cause delays for UK businesses, making them less competitive when serving EU customers.
TLDR: more hassle, more paperwork, more uncertainty when serving your existing markets - without any guarantee that new markets with lower barriers will suddenly open up.
If they provide professional services the professional qualifications of their staff may no longer be recognised automatically (will have to deal with some paperwork, just like a professional from the US or Singapore would).
Multiplied by 27, as the UK failed to negotiate movement of workers etc. with the EU and so the matter now lies with the individual sovereign members...
"They still have full access to the EU market, tariff-free."
Update to my earlier post.
Some of my colleagues and I (all based in the EU) have Professional Indemnity insurance through MFL, specialist brokers in Manchester. They've just informed us that they can no longer provide cover to us and we have to look elsewhere. So that's a good example of a UK financial business suffering from loss of access to an important market.
May I use this opportunity to remind you that the UK financial services industry is massively bigger than fishing and farming combined, and brings a lot of money into the country. Brexit is most unlikely to provide those companies with new markets. It appears that on this occasion Mr Johnson has stuck to his word - unfortunately that's "F*** business".
"I couldn't believe it when I left my company and they demanded their staff ID card and company devices back".
"I couldn't believe it when I stopped paying for my CostCo subscription and they wouldn't let me in or buy anything any more."
...
The UK punished itself, here, nobody else.
So this affects 81,000 .eu domains registered in the UK compared with 11,918,249 .co.uk domains making it 0.68%. If this a punishment, it's a weak one. As many of these addresses just resolve to a .com and the customers are probably typing .com already there won't be all that many end users inconvenienced.
Checking my web history I find I have only visited one .eu address in the last 3 months. It was funded by the European Commission so unlikely to be impacted.
What part of "EU" are people not getting? You seem to be puzzled by E but maybe the problem is U.
"European Union citizens, independently of their place of residence or any natural person, company or organisation residing in or established within the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway may register a domain name under .eu (or its variants in other scripts).
"The Terms and Conditions explain who is eligible to register a .eu, .ею or .ευ domain name and the obligations of domain name holders. Additionally, this document describes the terms and conditions under which domain names may be transferred. Together with the Privacy Policy and the WHOIS policy, they provide information on privacy and data protection."
So, EITHER citizens of the EU, OR a person or a company residing in the EU or three friendly independent countries can have a .eu domain name. We in the United Kingdom are not friendly, so we get what we deserve.
The bit I didnt get was the supreme usurping by the european union, which is a bureaucracy, of a TLD. TLDs are in most cases a country code / geographical region. I dont know if you realise this but the UK is in Europe. Has been and always will be. Tying our destiny to a less than democratic bureacracy called the EU (cos thats all that it is) has been temporary.
Its not about being unfriendly. Brexiteers are no more racists than Remainers naive clueless idiots who want someone else to do their thinking for them on the basis that being deferential to someone with a different accent makes them more sophisticated. It doesn't.
There's a lot of good ideas in the EU. But the implementation has ended up with more wrong.
There is currently NO top-level domain for Europe (it would be perhaps .europe) like there is for Asia (.asia) or Africa (.africa).
Feel free to ask for its creation if you wish.
The .eu extension refers explicitly to the European Union (as a country).
The rules are similar to the ones for the .us domain.
"
I dont know if you realise this but the UK is in Europe.
"
The *continent* of Europe, yes. The same as Bosnia, Moldova, Macedonia, and most of the population of Russia among many others not in the EU.
And just as New Zealand is in the continent of Australia.
So by your argument, a New Zealand company should be able to use the .au domain, and Russia can use .eu
"Brexiteers are no more racists than Remainers"
The numerous Vox pops from Brexiters wearing their racism on their sleeves add weight to that not being true.
"naive clueless idiots who want someone else to do their thinking for them on the basis that being deferential to someone with a different accent makes them more sophisticated. It doesn't."
Ah so you're for Scottish independence then? Fair Enough.
The EU confirmed in April 2018 that it doesn't. This blog entry below was written in January 2018 where e-Residency programme was sure it did allow access to the .eu domain and it was later updated in April with the explanatory note at the start of the entry which said that after all it didn't.
It's Medium but it's the official blog.
"Any British .eu domain holder who shifts their domain’s registration address to somewhere in the EU from a UK address will be able to retain the right to own their domain"
That's not how we read it. That non-UK address, say in Spain, would need to be associated with a Spanish legal entity and so on. It was easier to get a Spanish national, who is resident in the UK, to become the nominee owner. So we have that person listed and a UK address and so far so good.
I think EURID have got this wrong and are missing a trick - but hey ho.
This caught us out on Friday (and some of my weekend). We are a global country and have .eu domain for all our EU staff (including UK staff) to access our VPN. So you can imagine the headache this caused, especially right now Fortunately most staff were on leave being new years day.
The fix we did was to update the address with our domain provider to a site in Ireland. It was a little odd as the provider already listed our address as Ireland but apparently the EU has a separate address for each domain that you can't see when you login to manage them. The only way is to log a ticket and ask them to update it for you. Of course the only affected .EU domain was the VPN one.
What concerns me is we had no visibility of the address when managing our domains and no way of knowing this had a UK address. In hindsight I would have expected the domain provider we use to run a check on all .EU domains and their address then advise customers as they're the only one that can see this.
and boo to the EU for just suspending them.
"What concerns me is we had no visibility of the address when managing our domains and no way of knowing this had a UK address."
That's utter bollocks! Somebody provided that UK address when the domain name(s) was registered. This should have been recorded in your company's asset register. You also have a duty of care to keep that info up to date. For instance so you get timely notifications from your registrar and the registry about renewal or expiry of those registrations. Those dates should be in your company's asset register too.
It's also unreasonable to expect your registrar - the domain provider? - to check the contact data in their database and in the registry's. That's *your* responsibility. Nobody else is going to know the internal structure of your business. Or be sure which parts of the contact info - that you provided - correctly reaches the people in your organisation who look after your domain name registrations, pay bills, etc. How could any registry or registrar possibly know if you did or didn't want to link a UK address to some domain name?
That's utter bollocks! Somebody provided that UK address when the domain name(s) was registered. This should have been recorded in your company's asset register.
In the highly elequont terms that you have yourself employed I think that most people are bound to point out that this is also "utter bollocks"
In elucidation one could point out that if the threatened action is undertaken this would be the first instance of a professional registry going through the registry database deleting the domains of anybody with an address registered in a particular geographical area.
Hitertoo the process where somewhere has ceased to be acceptable for new registrations has been to deny new registrations, but allow existing registrations to continue until the registrant doesn't want it anymore.
Therefore, to this point there is zero reason for anybody to have recorded the physical address used in the contact data in their asset database. The precedent of the EU having a temper tantrum and throwing it's toys out of the pram while screaming like a toddler is unlikely to have much of an effect elseware, because the reason nobody else has done it is because upon the simplest consideration it's obviously idiotic.
To save such consideration, the reason it's idiotic is because the UK is unlikely to be the last country to leave the EU. You'd now be insane to consider basing your entire market presence around a .eu domain as it's an established fact that even if you are a committed lover of the EU that you could arbitarily suffer the loss of your domain name, and if you've done millions of quid worth of advertising around that domain (which over a couple of decades is easily possible for even a SME) that's potentially going to be fatal to your company.
Hence, even the strongest advocate of the EU is unlikely to want to bet their livelyhood on the EU not having more temper tantrums in the future, which makes a .com or .biz, or frankly any other domain name rather less of a multi million quid/euro gamble.
Any thinking person will only ever consider a .eu domain to be something you have to prevent squatting, or if they are going to register one then as a safeguard it'll be registered through a shell company that specialises in preventing the registrar from knowing whom the actual owner of the domain is, which utterly defeats the purpose of having any contact details in the database to start with.
The point made was that the registration address, and the billing address are now different. The OP updated their address using visible options on their control panel, but was not aware that doing so, did not change their registration address. There was also nowhere on the domain registration control panel where they could verify that. "Aha" you say, surely they could do a DNS lookup! Well they could up until GDPR came out, at which point all the registrars anonymised the feed. This appears to be one of the side effects of that change that no-one has noticed up until now.
I have checked with my registrar, who has also confirmed that my registration address does not change if I change my billing address, and indeed does not. They have also informed me that even if I request them to make the change to the record, it will not take effect until my next date of registration, i.e. some of my domains will not have the change made for up to 2 years until they are renewed.
>They have also informed me that even if I request them to make the change to the record, it will not take effect until my next date of registration, i.e. some of my domains will not have the change made for up to 2 years until they are renewed.
Sounds as if the only surefire way of updating the address details is to effect a domain transfer...
Clearer explanation thanks.
Domain was registered before my time as well so no idea why it was UK. I'd guess they didn't expect Brexit back when it was originally registered 10 years ago.
As you said registrar only shows billing address, they can submit a request on our behalf to update the domain address (as I found out on Saturday) but we couldn't access this information. Everything we could see said an Ireland address.
"
It's also unreasonable to expect your registrar - the domain provider? - to check the contact data in their database and in the registry's.
"
Erm ... well they obviously did do so in order to suspend all the UK registered .eu domains. They could surely have done the same thing a month or so earlier and sent an auto-generated warning email to the registered administrators.
I had already transitioned away from my .eu to a .uk domain when this was first reported in 2018, so it’s no biggie my .eu domain has now been revoked.
However due to moving it between providers and paying for years in advance, it wasn’t due to expire until 2027.
Both eurID and my registrar are keeping quiet when I ask them to refund the registry fees for a service they’ve taken away and I won’t be able to use what I’ve paid for.
If the service was purchased in the UK it may well be a matter for the UK courts. Simply stating that EU or USA or any other law covers the contract does not allow the provider to arbitrarily stop providing the service because they want to throw their toys out of the pram.
I am not aware of who has authority here but would not be too sure it was EU law anymore. Worms - can - can - worms.
Legal squibling and trebles all round!
Probably bought within the EU (subset: UK), so EU law at the time applies. Also, as the UK laws at the time were aligned with those of the EU...
and it's always be a requirement to have association with the EU to register .eu.
As others said, if you leave the club, you can't keep popping in to read their newspapers or smoke their cigars. I'm frankly surprised that the English, whose gentlemen so much relished exclusive clubs, don't understand this.
Boris said they could, and even got it written down on a piece of paper.
Astonishing! After all those stories about how he was really planning a No Deal, because somehow his friends in big business would reward him. Those EU negotiators must have driven a really hard bargain to persuade us to keep so many of our own fish.
certainly! by mutual agreement. In exchange for your chance to get occasional whiff of that club ciggy in the air (ah, the air of nostalgia), or being able to pedal shoe polish to the current club members :D
But what is 'EU law'? The EU make directives which then get enacted by the member countries into national law (at least, that is my understanding).
So any claim for breach of contract may be made in the English Courts, or the Scottish Courts or the Netherlands courts etc, in accordance with the laws applicable in the nation state of the court that clams jurisdiction (as is typically set down in the contract).
There is a difference between EU Directives and EU Regulations:
Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries.
Directives require EU countries to achieve a certain result, but leave them free to choose how to do so. EU countries must adopt measures to incorporate them into national law (transpose) in order to achieve the objectives set by the directive. National authorities must communicate these measures to the European Commission.
SGJ - Thank you for the clarification.
So presumably, any alleged breach of a Regulation (if done by other than the national government) would be addressed by the national court (under the national law, taking due note of the EU regulation requirements) of where the alleged breach occurred?
Only if the regulation was breached by the government itself, or if the nation failed to enforce an EU regulation, would the EU itself be empowered to step in?
by a slim majority of the gullible.
You usually post more reasoned rebuttals than simply parroting the insults.
One could as easily argue that the gullible are the ones who swallowed the EU propaganda about how good it has been for Europe, despite all the evidence showing that the move from European Community to EU has been economically and politically disastrous. UK growth is set to continue to outpace the EU for the next 20+ years according to PWC "With potential average annual growth of around 1.9%, the UK is projected to remain the fastest growing economy in the G7 between 2016 and 2050."
Had your COVID vaccination yet? I hear France has managed to vaccinate 516 people this week, now that the EU has finally given permission for vaccinations to start. That's probably somewhat below the replacement birth rate!
Within the EU vaccines can go through a "centralised procedure" with the EMA or nationally through each countries own medicines regulator. Dealing with the EMA means one contact point, one set of procedures and one set of fees.
And if EMA grants a market authorisation, in this case a "conditional" one, then it can be legally sold throughout the EU.
Within the EU vaccines can go through a "centralised procedure" with the EMA or nationally through each countries own medicines regulator. Dealing with the EMA means one contact point, one set of procedures and one set of fees.And if EMA grants a market authorisation, in this case a "conditional" one, then it can be legally sold throughout the EU.
They can also buy all of the medicines centrally. This doesn't help the obvious point that France had managed a deployment of five hundred doses by the time we'd got to 1.2 million deployed with another 4 million doses waiting to be certified by the regulator as being safe (they test each batch) before being deployed into the supply pipeline.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think we'll be finished with our vaccination program comfortably before any EU nation at this rollout rate, and then we'll probably have them begging to buy our surplus doses.
Which then brings us back to the OP's point; is the EU approach better? Because it failed horribly on procurement of PPE (we sourced ten times what they did in less time) it failed with the ventilator thing (they took longer to get 70 than it took us to get 14 thousand) and their approach to vaccination appears to be about at the same level of effectiveness.
A free market is great; but a free market on Governance appears to be showing the centralised model up as being a bit crap. Now honestly I think our government is a shambles, but then why should a considerably worse response be described in more flattering terms?
Within the EU vaccines can go through a "centralised procedure" with the EMA or nationally through each countries own medicines regulator. Dealing with the EMA means one contact point, one set of procedures and one set of fees.
Which is the big problem, vast and slow bureaucracy that has to take 27 sets of medical rules into account. Even Germany got so fed up that they pushed to go their own way.
>Which is the big problem, vast and slow bureaucracy that has to take 27 sets of medical rules into account. Even Germany got so fed up that they pushed to go their own way.
Based on this experience expect this to change (for EU27 members) in the coming years.
It's interesting. Change to the EU bureaucracy was what the UK was trying to achieve, because the rules put in place when there were six, nine or even 11 members were not really suitable when the number reached 28, now 27, and the slow speed of EU adoption of many things like vaccine certification demonstrates this.
David Cameron was trying to lever some change into the system, and used the UK possibly leaving as a tool to make the other EU countries realize that change was necessary in an enlarged community.
This spectacularly backfired on him (and Europe) when the EU proved itself too hidebound to even consider changing their processes enough to make a real difference, and as such, if the EU actually starts a reform as a result of the UK leaving, then some of what Cameron was trying to achieve will have happened, albeit in a manner that he didn't really want.
I've always though that being a member of a European commerce block was a good thing, but the direction that the EU was on was (and may still be) one that did not achieve what I thought it should. To me, the path being followed looked like it was going towards a federal United States of Europe, with most of the power lying with France and Germany, and by analogy, the UK becomming something like Texas is to the United States of America, part of, but never really aligned with, the rest of the states.
Covid is putting huge stresses in the EU. Already, we have some countries deviating away from the EU mainline, and I believe that once Covid is over, different financial systems and migration from Africa, the Middle East and Asia will continue to drive wedges between countries in the EU. I can see the whole thing splitting apart, at least if the EU does not actually put in place some of the reforms that are needed.
No, there's one set of rules, the EMA give a scientific scrutiny of the pharma company's submission and if it meets spec then it passes on for each country's representative(s) gives a opinion - eg on best phrasing of the package leaflet in their language - within a set time period. Then it goes to the commission for the rubber stamp.
The time period from submission to approval is 210 days maximum for evaluation, then another 60-odd for opinions and approval.
There is an alternative process within EU where having got an authorisation in one member state, the pharma company applies for an authorisation in another one under the principle of mutual recognition.
The UK gov now has:
a 150-day "accelerated" process for "high quality applications" .
Rolling review of unspecified length
67-day procedure for accepting EU marketing authorisations
67-day procedure for accepting national authorisations of EU member states
And if you want to put something on market in Northern Ireland, you still need to meet Directive 2001/83/EC, tand Regulation 726/2004
What are the published uncertainties/error bounds/spread/confidence levels in PWC's predictions?
The report you appear to quote from,
https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/uk-could-remain-top-10global-economy-in-2050.html
says that the UK could fall from 9th to 10th or 5th to 9th place in the world by 2050, depending on the measure chosen.
FALL.
>Is this an EU success story?
Depends on whether this is just a percentage change or a real-money change.
Remember in the 1980's and 1990's the big investment opportunities were in "emerging markets"; some of these markets like China, Brazil, India etc. have now emerged - hence why your investment will have done so well. Against this background, just maintaining revenues is doing well.
> The report you appear to quote from,
> https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/uk-could-remain-top-10global-economy-in-2050.html
> says that the UK could fall from 9th to 10th or 5th to 9th place in the world by 2050, depending on the measure chosen.
Hey, that's pretty good! Thirty years ago I saw a report on world demographics that put the UK barely in the top 20 by GDP in 2050.
(What I'm not sure of is whether this is because we've done well in maintaining an advantage or that the other challenger countries have managed their opportunities so badly.)
I think that we have to accept that if African, Asian and South American countries achieve the potential that they have, that the UK will become a smaller fish in a much larger pond.
Countries like Nigeria and South Africa are poised to become of much greater importance, at least if they can keep the control of their markets and financial systems away from the Chinese, and out of the clutches of organized crime or religious extremists.
In some ways, it is a matter of regret that countries like Brazil and Venezuela were not able to prevent themselves succumbing to autocratic administrations in the last few decades, because they could really have become movers and shakers in the world.if they had not.
But Hey! Right now, it looks as if the USA could be headed in a similar direction.
presumably, given the the year range, this prognosis comes from around... 2015ish? So how does it look AD 2021, from this (...) of PWC?, post-brexit, never mind post-mid-pandemic? Let's see, what the Gods of the Internets have to say:
The Office for Budgetary Responsibility, the government's independent forecaster, predicts the UK economy will shrink by 11.3% this year - the biggest decline in 300 years.
Well, never mind that, I'm sure France's will shrink MORE!
presumably, given the the year range, this prognosis comes from around... 2015ish?
2017
Well, never mind that, I'm sure France's will shrink MORE!
About the same, 11%, but it already had lower growth then the UK.
How would you prove you were a Remainer? Verified tatoo of EU flag? List of violent arguments with relatives/friends about Brexit? Record of appropriate re-tweets?
Come to think of it, why can't Australians have .eu domains. They're in the Eurovision Song Contest...
To be fair, it was always policy that you had to have an EU address to get an .eu. I just don't get the impression it was all that vigorously enforced before all this, which rather smacks of a bit of childish pique from the Commission being enforced on the registrar. Given all the actually difficult parts of organising Brexit - this could have been allowed to change over gracefully, as domains naturally expired - or even ignored as an footlingly unimportant issue.
Most people living in Northern Ireland are entitled to put “Ireland” down as their country of citizenship.
No, all people born there, have parents born there or grandparents born there are able to claim Irish citizenship.
I lived in N Ireland for about 19 years but, being born in England, can't.
My grandchildren, also born in England, can because their mother w born there and even if their mother wasn't they'd still be able to do so based on their grandmother's status. They also have right to UK citizenship.
All that pre-dates the UK joining the EEC let alone leaving the EU.
But this is nothing to do with the .eu registration which is, if I understand the article correctly, to do with businesses rather then individuals.
"The irony being that the EU itself benefits from, and would have continued to benefit from, the registration of .eu domains: it receives a cut of the annual registration fee."
What the majority of British didn't understand, and possibly one main reason why Leave won, is that the European Union is not only about money, it's about principles and ideals. Since its foundation, economics was only a means to an end: a United Europe, able to set aside national egoisms. The English are maybe traditionally too pragmatic to see beyond economic advantage (and national pride).
Dream on.
The English ruling class are too greedy, they hate not being able to do all the little dodges and tricks they use to make sure they keep all the cash. Setting up a free port in Europe would never be allowed. Setting up a free port wouldn't be of any value if you were going to play by the rules.
So we leave the EU (to get money for the NHS! Yeah, seriously!) and then there's no barriers to us breaking international law.
The UK govt has already indicated it thinks it's above international law.
Setting up free ports would never be allowed in the UK? Really?
There are around 80 free zones within the EU. Until 2012 there were five free ports within the UK, until the UK government allowed the domestic laws that set up those ports to expire.
> The English ruling class are too greedy, they hate not being able to do all the little dodges and tricks they use to make sure they keep all the cash.
Have you been renovating your house and found an old copy of Socialist Worker under the floorboards or something?
>Have you been renovating your house and found an old copy of Socialist Worker under the floorboards or something?
Just renovating Gournay Court in West Harptree - the home of some ruling class wannabe. They think we don't understand English and so talk as if we aren't in the room.
Given the continued claims from remain supporters regarding the costs of leaving the EU, even before the referendum took place, and the subsequent mockery ( I think that's a fair choice of word) again from the Remain side directed at the Leave side in respect of claims of restoring sovereignty, claiming that Leave won because the British think the EU is only about money seems to have the argument backwards.
It is quite clear that the Leave argument was based heavily on ideals and concepts too, both as regards the future direction of the UK (where leave was seen as opening up positives), and the future direction of the EU (where the principles and ideals were seen, as you identify, as leading to a United Europe, which was not an end that was supported by the majority of the British population).
It could perhaps be argued that Leave won because the remain campaign presented the EU just in terms of money, while the Leave side campaigned on ideals and principles.
re. the Leave side campaigned on ideals and principles - you're describing an ideal world. In the real world the campaign was on entirely different level, i.e. appeal to long-gone Empire, the yoke of the Eurocrats, erosion of "British values" (like what?, considering johnny foreigners sub-human?), taking away British jobs (all those swan-hunting Poles, etc.). And, obviously, all those millions that go to waste in Brussels (350M per week, eh), while the world just can't wait to jump in bed with Free! Unshackled! Great! Britain! This was the level of argument. Well, you got your way, sail away!
"appeal to long-gone Empire, the yoke of the Eurocrats, erosion of "British values" (...), taking away British jobs (...). And, obviously, all those millions that go to waste in Brussels (...), while the world just can't wait to jump in bed with Free! Unshackled! Great! Britain!"
Ah, AC, I see that you agree fully with me, the Leave campaign was based on ideals and principles not (just) money.
It does appear though, that you may not have understood the campaign very well.
Most people I have discussed this with (whether they supported or opposed BREXIT) viewed the leave argument as an 'emotional' argument ('heart over head'), which is generally the opposite of a decision based on money.
The constant (and often insulting) criticism of Leave supporters in this forum invariably mocks them for their ideology (which is also often mis-represented), though depending on the issue being covered, claims of mis-understanding the financial costs are also made. This rather confirms that there is a general view of the leave campaign that it was not predominantly an argument over money (though not entirely divorced from the money issue, either)
My comment to which you respond was to note that the claim that 'leave won because they made a monetary-based argument' was inconsistent with the facts, though I did then note that the argument might perhaps be applied to the remain campaign losing because they chose to base their campaign on a financial argument.
I left it for those reading my comment to infer from that that perhaps if the remain campaign had also adopted a 'ideals and principles' approach ('heart over head'), they may have succeeded. It appears that was too subtle for you, so I apologise for not been more explicit in making that point.
"Leave side campaigned on ideals and principles."
Indeed. The ideals of "no more foreigners" and the principles of "are you English? or a TRAITOR?"
(the latter goes some way to explain why the Scots weren't taken in by it)
Hiding behind the flag when the leave camp's lies and half truths were being called out for what they are certainly shut down any rational discussion. Feelings not facts. Pointing out basic fucking facts and reality has become *gasp* UNPATRIOTIC. "Believe in the bin!"
Even now, almost every word our current politicians utter can be contradicted by a soundboard of clips from a few months previously - with barely an acknowledgment that the contradictory statements can't both be true.
Literally DoubleThink wrapped up in identity politics.
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. " - George Orwell - 1984
> It could perhaps be argued that Leave won because the remain campaign presented the EU just in terms of money, while the Leave side campaigned on ideals and principles.
I think it's a lot simpler than that: the Remain campaign simply didn't campaign - so many took it for granted that the vote would be to remain that they didn't really bother. (Says he with the benefit of hindsight, of course.)
The remain campaign did campaign with two major points.
1) "remaining in the EU and making no changes and you'll be better off", which is obviously correct if your in the top 50% of the population by income, and obviously incorrect if your in the bottom 50% by income.
2) Remain said that your either with us and a good un, or against us and everythingist inhuman scum that we won't deign to communicate with.
This strategy starts with a two sets of assumptions. Firstly, that everybody is in fact better off, despite the minimum wage having largely become a maximum wage if your lucky enough to be earning that much on set hours (zero hour contracts often paying below the minimum wage via piecework etc) It also assumes that while things are continually improving for the middle & upper classes in the EU, that the working classes share the same experience, which they deny quite vehemently.
Secondly, it makes the assumption that 90% of the people agree with you, and that your quite happy with permanently losing another 10-20% to keep an overall majority of 70-80%. If you have around 60% support to start with then permanently losing 10-20% support is fatal.
Having lost what I think is most incredible is that the late supporters of the remain campaign are still following point 2 and then somehow expect that if a new referendum was held that now their message has got across to the population that people would say "oh, ok. We understand that you think we are scum and you hate us: of course we'll vote for you!". Instead of you know, doing the natural human thing and voting the opposite way out of spite for people who at least make friendly noises.
It also sets up the top 50% by income in a class war with the lower 50%, an early result of which can be seen in the fact that labour has basically become an electoral farce rather than an electoral force because apparently large swathes of non city areas with majorities of working class voters don't like being told they are scum by the rest of the party. And it's only as good as it is because people won't vote for the tories; when Farage launches his new reform party then even if he doesn't get a seat labour is unlikely to win in any vaguely working class community again.
But yeah, let's continue to tell the working classes how much we think they are scum. I'm sure(?!) it's going to help.
"1) "remaining in the EU and making no changes and you'll be better off", which is obviously correct if your in the top 50% of the population by income, and obviously incorrect if your in the bottom 50% by income.
2) Remain said that your either with us and a good un, or against us and everythingist inhuman scum that we won't deign to communicate with.
1) Not so much "You'll be better off if you stay" as "you are already reaping the benefits, you'll be worse off without it". Lets face it, its the already-rich tory cronies that stand to make money from brexit. Trying to paint it as a victory for the working classes is outright delusional.
Look at the shortfall in funding to say.. Cornwall. 9 out of 10 of the poorest areas in Northern Europe are in the UK when we're supposedly one of the richest countries. That's not the fault of the EU. That's on us. The EU has just made a handy scapegoat. The positives of EU membership haven't stood out because how many of them people took for granted.
2) When every debate seemed to start and end with brexiters showing their ignorance around immigration, it is difficult for Remainers to frame that in any other way than xenophobia. It doesn't matter that EU migrants were more profitable for the taxman than the average British citizens, or that 9.1% of doctors and 6.0% of nurses are EU nationals. It always seemed to come back to immigration - even though we *always* had the ability to kick out immigrants that were a burden even under EU law .
Remainers seemed to spend most of the campaign fighting disinformation and outright lies.
*Thats* when the name calling starts, because frankly, once people become immune to evidence and facts , there is not a lot more talking to be done.
That's the sad thing. There *was* in informed debate to be had about the pros/cons of being in the EU. However that never happened. The closest we got to it was people asking honest questions, but the responses being shouted down as "unpatriotic".
Shrug. *I* didn't vote for it, and *I'll* be alright (*checks Bitcoin price*), but there are a lot of people who's livelihoods depend on being competitive within the EU. Tariff-free trade is a darn sight better than the dumpster fire that no-deal would have been, but the extra paperwork has a cost. Many SMEs selling to the UK have just decided not to bother.
"It is quite clear that the Leave argument was based heavily on ideals and concepts too"
And very misleadingly too. The ECJ was presented as a bogeyman.
In fact it offered a level of protection above the UK courts. BoJo and friends have already shown their displeasure at the UK Supreme Court making them follow the law and seem inclined to want to tame it. A government wanting to put itself above the law is not a good move and the ECJ was our protection against that.
In non-monetary terms the loss of protection by the ECJ is, to my mind, the biggest disadvantage of having left the EU.
The original idea of the EU was the european Iron and coal confederation
A plan put forward in 1948-49 to tie french coal/iron ore production to germany's steel production, binding the french and german economies so tightly together that any attempt at war would destroy their own country first.
Because europe had been trashed twice in 30 years at that point by french/german rivalries (and thats not including the wars in the 1800's too ......)
Trade yes... but political union without the consent of the governed....no
>but political union without the consent of the governed....no
The (sad) laugh is that political union is unlikely to happen within the lifetime of my (yet to be) grandchildren. There is sufficient resistance in France, Germany etc. for it to remain something those in Brussels will mention, but actually do very little to actually make it happen anytime soon.
@Roland6
"There is sufficient resistance in France, Germany etc. for it to remain something those in Brussels will mention, but actually do very little to actually make it happen anytime soon."
Germany resists fiscal union, and now has mutualised debt.
Greece is bought and paid for.
Italy needs debt forgiveness.
France is close to desiring debt forgiveness.
Germany's migration crisis became an EU migration project pushed on members.
The Euro as a currency cannot work in its current implementation requiring fiscal union (its also mandatory to move toward if you join the EU).
Looks like they are working on getting this ever closer union they push
>Looks like they are working on getting this ever closer union they push
So what?
Unless there is a eureka moment, it will be something for the grandchildren and their children to worry about.
However, the UK's concern is what happens if/when the EU27 do unify, as the UK be outside the fence.
@Roland6
"So what?"
Thats your response to the list! Doesnt that worry you? The methods employed to reach this utopia unification is to inflict as much damage as possible to force union? To me that list isnt 'so what' as 'holy fuck'.
"Unless there is a eureka moment, it will be something for the grandchildren and their children to worry about."
Surely the worry is the ongoing damage inflicted to reach this unification. It doesnt paint a good picture for unifying and shows people to be so far down the pecking order as to be barely considered by the EU.
"However, the UK's concern is what happens if/when the EU27 do unify, as the UK be outside the fence."
Not sure thats a concern. We will be out of it and so not inflicted with it. Assuming it survives that far.
>Thats your response to the list! Doesnt that worry you?
Yes mistakes are being made, just as they are in the UK (we can't say that significant amounts of damage hasn't been done to the UK in the last 4 years due to political pigheadedness...) but remember there is no historical parallel, all other states eg. USA, China came into being ie. were unified, through war.
Remember also the intent of the UN and the WTO, taken to their logical conclusion unification in some form is the inevitable conclusion.
>Not sure thats a concern. We will be out of it and so not inflicted with it. ...
Possibly, perhaps you need to be thankful the Europeans don't seem to have the same style of thinking as the Chinese...
In Chinese thinking the North sea and the UK are simply parts of the motherland: it (the UK) was part of the Roman empire - one group of 'Europeans'; taken over by the Vikings - another group of 'Europeans'; then conquered by the Normans - yet another group of 'Europeans', naturally taking such thinking to its limit, the USA is also part of Europe...
Fundamentally, it doesn't really matter whether the UK is or isn't in the EU, we will still be impacted by whatever happens in continental Europe...
@Roland6
"Yes mistakes are being made"
Thats a very political response to serious and intentional inflicting of damage. Stamping on someones head as 'mistakes being made'. This isnt mistakes being made but inflicting damage to bring people to that unification goal.
"we can't say that significant amounts of damage hasn't been done to the UK in the last 4 years due to political pigheadedness..."
We can agree to that but probably with different opinions of how. 3 of those years fighting to remain and 1 with a last ditch effort leading to some sort of deal.
"but remember there is no historical parallel, all other states eg. USA, China came into being ie. were unified, through war."
Europe almost too. The attempt was made. So this is a different approach to force member countries to unify and become reliant on the EU (as per list).
"Remember also the intent of the UN and the WTO, taken to their logical conclusion unification in some form is the inevitable conclusion."
Unification or cooperation? One being very different from the other. We have seen unification and how well that works. So many empires. We have seen cooperation. The successes the world has gone through and continues to enjoy the fruits of.
"Fundamentally, it doesn't really matter whether the UK is or isn't in the EU, we will still be impacted by whatever happens in continental Europe..."
That is true. But we are better insulated by being out than in. For example an EU bailout fund for covid ties members together much more than our freedom of not being in it. Who honestly thinks it will go well in repayment terms when Italy cant pay it current debts and Greece has no chance for what it already owes. France is pushing up against the same issue. Of the few net contributors left they will be lucky to see a penny (or cent) returned.
but remember there is no historical parallel, all other states eg. USA, China came into being ie. were unified, through war.
I think that's an overly-broad generalization, and by "war" you really mean "conquest". "war" is usually what causes them to split up.
Remember also the intent of the UN and the WTO, taken to their logical conclusion unification in some form is the inevitable conclusion.
Not at all. Indeed organizations like the UN and WTO are very much what the EU used to be, co-operating neighbours working to a common goal without anyone trying to enforce overall control. It was only when European politicians tried to go beyond that into a centralized superstate that things started to go badly wrong.
Fundamentally, it doesn't really matter whether the UK is or isn't in the EU, we will still be impacted by whatever happens in continental Europe...
I think you could replace "continental Europe" with "the rest of the world". We're all affected by what happens beyond our borders, the big difference is how much control we can have over that impact.
> Indeed organizations like the UN and WTO are very much what the EU used to be
Remember the EU being so much smaller was able to move faster than the WTO and got dispensation from the WTO to create the single market.
So expect the UN and WTO to morph into something more political, like the EU, if and when they start to be seen to wield any real power over their members - or if a member sees them as being vehicles for their ambitions...
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I do love the comments when an article reports something that might conceivably show the EU in a poor light. Guaranteed there will be a horde of folks lining up to rabidly assert that nothing the EU does can be wrong, we brought it on ourselves, Boris is a shit etc etc. Striking similarity to the way folks line up to defend Apple when it gets called out.
>I do love the comments when an article reports something that might conceivably show the EU in a poor light.
No problem with showing the EU bureaucracy in a poor light. However, there are many, with a victim mentality, who just don't get their heads around the simple fact that the UK, of it's own choosing, decided to leave (the EU, the EEA, the EFTA...), and thus through their actions they created the situation. It is only right and natural for the club to protect the interests of its remaining members.
I can understand not allowing new .EU registrations or renewals to Brits, but to revoke something paid for and set up like this just seems like throwing toys out of prams. Plus the fact that they have unilaterally changed the rules three times now must surely make one wonder about the validity of anything that has been agreed to (and paid for).
Frankly, this shames EURid.
(written by a Brit living in France who moved to a .eu domain following the clusterfuck that is Brexit)
I don't think so. I think the rule changes were all spurred by the EU Commission - and not particularly welcomed by EURid. It's hard to know whether this was being done to create a bargaining chip for the negotiations (which nobody cared about so it was ignored), or out of rigidly applying the rules in a very unusual situation - or even just out of petty spite. Maybe a bit of all three? It's such a minor area of importance, only a couple of countries make much use of the .eu domain (Germany is by far the biggest user I think) - that I don't think anyone really cared.
I suspect this has become some official's (or small group of officials') personal hobbyhorse, and they've been more or less left to get on with it.
" to a holding address in another country"
As in, postal address or has the owner actually changed to an entity in that country or a person who is an EU national? Gandi were very good at reminding us about the changes we had to make and our options.
They advised:
Eligibility conditions for a .eu
In order to register a .eu domain name, people or entities need to meet hte following criteria:
be a citizen of the European Union, regardless of place of residence (example: a French person residing in Mexico), or
be a person who lives in an EU or EEA member state (for example, a Mexican who lives in France or Iceland), or
be a business established in the EU or EEA (headquarters or “siège statutaire“, central administration, or principal establishment), or
be an organization established in the EU or the EEA
You will need to make sure that you are in compliance with these criteria before January 1, 2021 (0:00 CET).
But the question is do they check the validity of the info for the registered domain?
Or can you get away with putting in a fake address in Europe and no one checks it, pretty much like no one verifies the whois info for a .COM .CO.UK etc
If you pay with Paypal then they can't even verify the billing address for the bank card is in the EU as they don't get to see that info from the Paypal transaction
Or can you get away with putting in a fake address in Europe and no one checks it, pretty much like no one verifies the whois info for a .COM .CO.UK etc
Nope. I think Eurid does some (probably half-assed) checking. If they didn't check they'd be in breach of their contract for running the registry. Which could have unpleasant consequences. BTW that registry contract gets renewed every 5-10 years or so and is just about to go out to tender again.
Nominet checks the contact data for all their registrants:
$ whois -h whois.nic.uk theregister.co.uk
Domain name:
theregister.co.uk
Data validation:
Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 13-Jun-2017
AW-S,
Only if they bother to check. It's not like EURid even wanted all these changes of rules messing with their business - and losing them 10% of their customers. So how much will they bother, so long as whatever criteria they're made to check is fulfilled?
When I lived in Brussels you could pay someone £30 to register in the UK so you could get a Sky subscription and decoder card to watch British telly - and then they'd pass on your bills to you - this was just before online accounts for every service. I guess you'd also need a UK bank account / credit card, but most expats keep one of those back in the old country when they go abroad.
Now admittedly EURid's contract is coming up for renewal, so they may have to be seen to be zealously weeding out the evil British .eu domain holders. But then as the Commission have just forced them to nuke 10% of their customer base, and UK registrations have now collapsed, there might not be all that much competition to get the gig anyway... I'm not sure the .eu domain has been a great success outside Germany and the Netherlands.
The last that I heard, keeping a UK bank account from EU Europe was going to be no go in most cases, with customers already warned that they'd be cut off. Something about needing to set up a separate "Yorkshire Bank" or whichever in each EU country where service was to continue.
I suppose if you are already with Santander then you can't complain.
Actually, you can't complain. https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/brexit-and-santander-uk-plc
In reality I have had nothing but spam email and political propaganda from anything ending in ,eu.
Why would a national company not use its national domain instead of EU. Or a .com if it has global reach?
,eu was is and will always be a political domain used by the EU for political purposes. I can't imagine why any British company that isn't halfway up the EUs arse would use it.
"I can't imagine why any British company that isn't halfway up the EUs arse would use it."
What about a British country doing much if not all its business with EU customers? Is that being half-way up the EU's arse? Is paying the British employees with money obtained by trading with the EU? Or should they be good British citizens, wind up the company and fire their workforce?
In other news, the UK, having just left one freedom of movement area, wanted to set up another English-speaking freedom of movement area with Australia. Because Brexit isn't about xenophobia.
Australia, with its points-based immigration policy, said no.
You've got to laugh, haven't you? Especially if you're a Brit living in the EU.
One might even suggest, fraudulently.
I tried to buy the EU equivalent of my long established uk Ltd company name when the tld was first set up in the "sunrise" period (when names were only available to those with a reasonable claim on them) . That involved some red tape, proof of company ownership/registration and a non-refundable £100. No response until a few days after the landrush period (lower price and no need to prove Ltd company entitlement). That was to say my application was rejected, no reason given.
A third party had bought the name at the start of the landrush. It was not an obvious name and of very limited use to anyone else. Eventually a website appeared, host to a load of dubious advertising links and "for sale". I found another business who had the same experience. The inference one might draw was that perhaps by applying we had indicated that the names had a value so someone involved in the administration delayed the process in order to grab the names at the start of the landrush phase with a view to resell for a much greater price. But I must be mistaken as I'm sure EUrid is a model of the highest standards of integrity.
A lucky escape, and in any case it turns out the EU tld is little used beyond the EU organisation, more like an equivalent of Gov.uk domains.
As the Brexit affair affects all (former) EU citizens, I would like to comment from my German perspective here:
1.) During the immigration crisis, Merkel acted as if she was the empress of Germany and if possible, the empress of the EU. She ignored any German law and requested the other EU nations to follow her ingenious, one-person decision. Despite her own intelligence agency warning her, despite German police warning her. The German parliament was totally ineffective in checking Merkel's one-women-decisions.
I take it Brexit was a shot across the bow of the empress of Berlin.
2.) Ursula von der Leyen is a career politician who failed in her previous job as minister of defence. Needless to say she never was a soldier, but she had proper connections and education. Prince Harry has more qualifications to be minister of defence than she has.
3.) The entire Euro currency thing is a disaster of enormous proportions, procured by incompetent people who are in need of an Imperium. The national currencies we had before allowed for different economies, different wage levels, different culture to adapt. But with the € currency, everybody has to wear a one-size-fits-all shoe. As others wrote, Greece is economically dead, Italy very sick and France sick - due to the € currency.
Only because the politicians and some bankers are too proud to accept they made a mistake.
So to conclude - who wants to be a member of a club of incompetent authoritarians ?
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