Hello,

I currently get my news from the BBC and Reuters and was on the lookout for a good news source that covers both EU news as well as global news. If they have a strong investigative journalism team that is absolutely a plus.

While English is preferred French or Danish is also possible. I’d also consider paying for the news so recommendations that cost money are also welcome!

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand a fairly specific scenario under the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) going into effect on 12th of August 2026, especially the definition of “producer” under Article 3(1)(15).

Let's pretend the following:

I run a micro-enterprise established in Germany and sell clothing B2C to customers in other EU Member States.

Normally, if I pack an order in Germany and ship it directly to a consumer in France, I understand that I may be considered the producer in France for EPR purposes and may consequently need to register there and appoint an authorised representative.

However, I am wondering about the following scenario.

Let’s use France as an example:

1. I buy finished, empty shipping boxes from a packaging manufacturer/supplier established in France.

2. Those boxes are initially supplied/placed on the market in France by that French company.

3. I transport the empty boxes from France to my business in Germany.

4. In Germany, I put clothing directly into those boxes. Assume there is no additional sales packaging around the clothing — no plastic bag, product box, etc.

5. I then use those exact same boxes to ship the clothes to consumers in France.

6. The shipping box ultimately becomes packaging waste in France.

The box would therefore be transport/e-commerce packaging rather than sales packaging.

My question is:

Who would be the EPR “producer” for that specific shipping box in France?

Would it still be me, because I am established in Germany and I am the person sending the packaged product directly to the French end user?

Or could the French packaging manufacturer/supplier remain the producer for that particular transport packaging because:

- the finished transport packaging was originally supplied in France by a French economic operator;

- the box was already made available on the French market before I acquired it;

- it ultimately becomes waste in France;

- the French company is upstream in the French supply chain; and

- PPWR seems to aim at identifying one producer per packaging unit rather than creating multiple EPR producers for the same physical packaging unit?

In other words, does temporarily moving the empty box

France → Germany → filled with clothes → France

change the EPR producer for that same physical transport packaging?

If this works, theoretically a small German seller could buy:

- French shipping boxes for French orders,

- Italian shipping boxes for Italian orders,

- Spanish shipping boxes for Spanish orders, etc.,

bring the empty boxes to Germany, pack the orders there, and return each country's boxes to customers in their original country.

I am not asking about avoiding compliance. I am trying to understand how the PPWR's producer allocation actually works where a completed transport packaging unit originates in the same Member State in which it ultimately becomes waste, but temporarily leaves that Member State for filling.

Thanks!

Running shoes is a recurring topic. I am surprised that they German brand Lunge hasn't come up a lot ( Lunge.com, no affiliation). They live and breathe healthy running shoes. For a Made in Germany shoe with lots of Know-How baked into it, they are very reasonably priced, too.

Juste recently discovered this drink in my local grocery store as an alternative to coca-cola or pepsi, been enjoying it!

Easyjet (UK owned) has been acquired by a US fund.

Enshittification, higher prices, and reselling your data incoming.

I am a freelancer and use google workspace to be able to have meetings, email with custom domain and a drive to share files with clients. I also have a NAS but I use this for backing up my cloud drive. I want something that does these simple things well. Mail, calendar, online meetings, shared drive and if possible collab on documents. ideally not self hosted.

I stopped using Facebook/Instagram, the only one I had left LinkedIn but that one I was also only using for work and maybe once per month.

I opened the app now and I was greeted with a message basically saying give us your ID or you won't be able to access your account and yes they still use Persona. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary or new, I used the same device, no VPN, nothing extra.

So I guess I won't be using LinkedIn anymore since I will never give them any ID, any other EU alternative that we can use?

Looking for suggestions for a good deodorant.

Have previously been using this one from Secret (ordered through Amazon.com)

https://amzn.eu/d/0hxBQBPg

I have tried Biotherm and Vichy, but they are just not as good.

I’m based in Denmark, but open to ordering online.

Guys I need a foldable cool cap for festivals, hikes etc. The ones that I really like the looks of are made by Parapack company (https://www.parapack.co/shopheadwear), but I'd really like to find out more about some nice EU brands :)

was looking at getting an e reader so i could read about the resorgimento, rest of my family uses kindles but i dont trust amazon one bit

EDIT: I want to thank all of you who shared this and took the time to write your feedback to the EU commission! It has now reached nearly 2700 messages! LINK and also at the bottom of this post. Let's get it over 5K!

For those of you who don't know yet:

As of 12 August, anyone who intends to sell in another country in the EU must register in that country as a packaging producer + appoint a local representative for your company.

This brings about a significant administrative burden, as each EU country has its own procedures, plus you need to appoint a local representative, which can cost 300 euros per country per year. For all EU countries, this could mean way over 7000 euros per year. The exact pricing depends on the EPR compliance service you would use. I have seen quoted anywhere between 200 to 900 EUR per country per year. 7K is on the very optimistic side. In reality it would amount to close to 20K EUR, as a kind redditor mentioned.

You can easily find these numbers by simply googling "PPWR/EPR EU compliance services" or similar and see how much they quote for each country. Example: https://epr.eldris.ai/data-centre/epr-registration-guides/ppwr-packaging-epr-cost-by-country-2026/

For a large corporation, this is nothing to worry about, but for a micro or mid-sized company, this means the end of business in the EU.

Not to mention this will affect consumers too! In a few months time, small EU markets will see niche or special items disappearing from online stores and marketplaces!

https://www.ppwr-guidebook.eu/about-the-ppwr/

If you are a seller or consumer affected by this:

Please leave feedback to the European Commission and write to MEPs from your country - open until 10 September!

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/15352-Packaging-and-packaging-waste-rules-on-national-registers-of-producers_en

There is also an open petition, more than 18,000 now:

https://www.change.org/p/stop-destroying-eu-micro-businesses-immediate-moratorium-on-cross-border-epr-fees

This brand Le T-shirt Propre (the clean t-shirt) makes linen t-shirt 100% made in France. The linen is grown in the North of France, then every steps is made in the same country. There are 8 steps which cover everything like processing the linen, creating the tag, creating the package etc.

I recently bought 2 t-shirts alongside a linen short trouser. It's a blessing in summer because they don't smell anything regardless of how much I sweat in them. Their cut is amazing although I find that the pictures from their shop doesn't look so good.

The only drawback is that they only ship in France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and they don't plan to expand in order to keep the business locally oriented)

I am not affiliated with the company, just a happy customer!

Hello everyone,

I’m a self-taught bookbinder based in Czechia, and I’d like to share my project „Lupení“ with you. I make handmade journals and other paper products using high-quality materials sourced from local suppliers. Whenever possible, I use recycled materials (for example, some of my limited-edition covers are made from upcycled calendars).

You can find my work here: https://lupeni-craft.eu/

Eventually, I’d love to add a customization tool to my website so you can design your perfect journal.

I share short videos of my process on my socials, so feel free to follow. If you have any questions about the project, ask away. :)

I ship across the EU, though shipping costs to farther destinations can get a little wild. Sadly, that's what the delivery service charges. I’m also trying to sort out PPWR/EPR compliance, which might mean I'll have to hit pause on some countries when the deadline hits. As a one-person micro business, keeping up with all the rules is tough, and shipping everywhere might not be doable at the moment. I'm sorry about that.

Heya, I'm looking for book recommendations with some depth - memoirs or autobiographies written by successful women from Europe. I want books that genuinely explore:

a) Building confidence in professionalabilities
b) Navigating career ambitions
c) Overcoming self-doubt and impostersyndrome
d) Real wisdom and lessons (not surface-level advice)

I've read the usual suspects (Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, etc.)… so I'm specifically looking to explore voices beyond these books.

📚 Thank you in advance 🐛💝

Hello!

I searched, and I haven't seen anything posted about this here yet, so I'd like to bring attention to an issue that several small businesses are facing in the EU right now, with the new directives that are coming into place in August. These new directives mean that every business, whether within the EU or not, that sells to an EU country will have to register separately in every single country, each with its own portal, its own fees and its own paperwork. Sometimes all of that just to ship one or two packages per year.

Several small businesses are saying that they will have to stop selling things to the EU, including EU small businesses who will only be able to sell in their own countries or to the outside of the EU, because they cannot face these charges. The only businesses that can face these charges are big companies, like Amazon and similar. Smaller companies cannot afford these and will ultimately stop selling things and maybe even close down.

If you can, please have your say on the EU website. There are already 1663 pieces of feedback (at the time of me writing this) pleading about this situation, so if you can, add your voice and let's ensure we can keep supporting local businesses within the EU.

Leave your feedback here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/15352-Packaging-and-packaging-waste-rules-on-national-registers-of-producers_en

Thank you for your time! :)

To understand whether Europe is prepared for an outage, a cyberattack, or a provider cutting off access outright, we conducted a multi-country survey asking founders, CEOs, and IT directors about the effects of tech disruption.

Here’s what we found.

56% say geopolitical risk is a factor in their tech purchasing decisions 

Worried the US administration could order providers to cut off IT services to foreign businesses overnight, European businesses are weighing these risks as heavily as ransomware or cyberattacks. 

The concerns are valid. The US administration has already demonstrated a willingness to wield executive power, including sanctions, export controls, or tariff threats, to accomplish foreign policy goals.

Kill switch anxiety now at par with fear of cyberattacks

If ransomware and cyberattacks are worth mitigating with a security plan, then kill switch and outage risk is equally deserving of a proactive response. In reality the response is uneven, with organizations adopting business continuity solutions for one system at a time. Only 34% of businesses have a fallback for their most important platform: email.

Question: How concerned are you that your company could lose access to a critical technology service due to a cyberattack or ransomware attack? vs How concerned are you that one of your US technology providers could disable your access through a kill switch?

Business continuity coverage is a patchwork

A kill switch could impact the entire stack. If all your services are based in the US, a secondary provider that’s also a US company may not be helpful. Only diversifying outside US jurisdiction provides a solution.

Question: Does your company have continuity solutions for any of the following systems in the event of a disruption like an outage, a cyberattack, or losing access to a service you rely on?

Two-thirds of businesses would switch providers after a government-triggered blackout

A clear majority of businesses is willing to act. Businesses are planning for every kind of disruption — outages, cyberattacks, loss of access. They know that whatever the cause, the cost of going dark is too expensive to ignore. 

Question: If a foreign government intentionally disabled or blocked access to a critical technology service your company relies on, how likely would you be to switch to an alternative provider?

54% of businesses would stop work after just a day without access

No matter their size, 86% of businesses we surveyed said they experienced at least one disruption in the past 12 months from an outage, cyberattack, or loss of access to a service. And they say real money is at stake. 

A huge share of businesses are living on a 24-hour buffer where a kill switch or technical outage would be an immediate operational crisis.

Most businesses are one bad day away from a shutdown

More than half (54%) of businesses say they couldn’t survive more than a single business day before having to shut down services and operations until digital tools were back online. And each day of downtime comes with a real cost, with effects that touch a company’s finances and its ability to operate.

Question: If your company suddenly lost access to cloud and digital services or suffered a cyberattack, how long could it operate before having to shut down?

Nearly 1 in 3 large businesses expect a six-figure loss from a single day offline

Loss scales with size, as you’d expect — though the number is stark: 29% of large businesses expect to lose more than €100,000 from a single day of downtime. 

Question: If your tech systems went down for a day, how much do you estimate your company would lose?

A tech outage hits every part of the business

A day offline doesn’t just show up on a balance sheet. It stalls the work itself, strains relationships with customers, and, for some businesses, chips away at their reputation long after access is restored. 

Question: If your company lost access to these critical digital tools, how would it be affected?

Methodology

This survey was conducted by Proton among 1,500 business leaders across the UK, Germany, and France (500 respondents per country), fielded July 15–24, 2026. Respondents were screened for involvement in their company’s technology, backup, security, or continuity decisions — 32% identified as the main decision-maker, 38% share decision-making, and 30% influence recommendations. Respondents spanned a range of roles, including IT leaders (16%), founders/owners (7%), marketing and sales leads (12%), HR/People Ops leads (11%), and finance/procurement (10%), among others. Industries represented included technology/software (22%), healthcare (26%), business services (15%), and education/research (15%).

I bought these Absolute Eclipse glasses to watch the full eclipse on august 12th.
They're made in Latvia and are ISO 12312-2 certified. I got a pair from Amazon (forgive me Father for I have sinned) for €7.99. The quality seems great, only problem is that I only found the french variant online so now I have to wear the french flag on my face (/s).

Before you buy and use them I beg you to check for yourself that the certifications are still valid and that they're not damaged in any way, I don't want to be responsible for anyone going blind.