Nobody was ever stopping individual member states from prosecuting Temu - they just don't do it because I don't know why, it's too much work? So finally after decades (because this is a decades-long issue with Aliexpress etc) they set up a EU-wide framework and once it starts acting, it's again EU's fault it took so long? They can only do what the member states delegate to them.
But it will eventually get better because in addition to DSA there are other steps; the importers have to declare a responsible person in the EU, the packages will get more expensive etc.
> Nobody was ever stopping individual member states from prosecuting Temu
As a general principle, the EU commission handles all international trade and member states are not allowed to impose tariffs or rules on what has been imported into other member states.
I say general principle because in many cases pre-existing legislation was allowed to continue, however anything new and any changes went through the EU commission (meaning the executive branch has full control, not parliament as generally was the case, even against the wishes of both the EU parliament and member state parliaments)
So no, the EU commission was stopping member states from doing this. So yes, it is very much the EU's fault it took so long.
Oh and, look up the history of the EU commission. If you think the EU commission will help anyone against big business, well, look up their history until you find "European Coal and Steel Community" and look up some of the scandals they were accused of. And yes, they're better than they were in 1951, but that's coming from a pretty damn bad start.
> So no, the EU commission was stopping member states from doing this.
No it wasn't. I wrote 'prosecuting', that is a term from criminal law, and that still is in the agenda of the member states. If Temu is breaking law, which it probably is when they were fined for selling "illegal products", then the states should have acted, but they didn't.
> If you think the EU commission will help anyone against big business
My argument is that the government lets certain companies get away with large scale law violations, to the point that it killed local companies.
Both of your arguments are "but it's this slightly different part of government that's responsible: see it was X, not Y".
Ok fine, you're right but that doesn't refute what I said. Obviously people look at the effect of what government does as a whole. The net effect of what the entire government did was letting a LOT of companies get away with a lot of crimes, to the point of bankrupting a great deal of European businesses.
I don't understand. The EU purposefully advantaged Chinese companies for decades to the detriment of EU companies. I don't understand how anyone can either believe this was an accident or say it really was someone else.
The EU did nothing like that - it's quite simply a lie you are proclaiming here, and once again, the EU only does what the member states agree upon. China was for decades an important export market so chinese imports were accepted as a part of the deal by majority of the EU countries (otherwise they would simply change the rules). Now the tide is turning, many European imports are not needed anymore in China and so it is to be expected that chinese imports will be less welcome here. You may or may not agree with this politics, but there is no sinister conspiracy you are implying.
But all of this is still very much off topic in this discussion about the illegality of some imports (because that's a completely different issue than trade barriers and tariffs). And since you seem to claim (hard to tell really since we are veering offtopic all time) that the members states were powerless to act against those imports, I remember that even back in 2014 in our paltry Slovakia I had to personally visit our "Regional Public Health Office" and sign a form that the tea I imported from Yunnansourcing (less than 2kg in total) really is just for my personal consumption, otherwise they wouldn't let me have it or I would have to pay for maximum residue limits testing. And of course that was after I already paid the import duties. So when this much attention was possible in Slovakia for a small amount of tea, why wasn't it possible for any random package from China everywhere else? Because many countries simply decided they don't care although health and security is still their responsibility.
The EU is the member states. And I don't claim it is a sinister conspiracy, I simply claim the result is that the EU let Chinese companies get away with violating laws that EU companies would be sued and destroyed for.
Most packages out of China weren't tested at all in Western Europe. That's why the baby toys with lead paint ... was discovered by diagnosis, not by import checks. In other words: a whole bunch of children had their lives destroyed (lead contamination in children leads to permanent stunted brain growth in tiny doses. In other words, there is NO way medical fix once it happens, it is permanent life altering damage to those children, just like if you cut of an arm, except less visible)
Needless to say, Chinese companies didn't pay for anything ... and if you were caught painting baby toys in lead paint in Europe, we're talking billions in damages.
So there was nothing like those checks in the Netherlands or the UK. Nothing remotely like what you describe.
But it will eventually get better because in addition to DSA there are other steps; the importers have to declare a responsible person in the EU, the packages will get more expensive etc.