That’s the point. There are 27 member states that each have their own regulations that need to be complied with.
The article has more details than your comment implies, such as the fact that some states like Spain have ongoing recurring fees too.
Dealing with changing regulations and fees that are different across 27 states on top of all of the other EU regulations is normal for a big company with a lot of staff and lawyers, but if you’re a small company trying to ship any product you have to start maintaining a list of individual states where you think you can break even and decide if it’s worth doing all of the work to try to sell there.
If you’ve never had to deal with regulatory compliance or shipped physical products this all probably does sound like whining to you, but that’s only because you don’t know how hard it is to comply with regulations for 1 EU state, let alone 27 of them multiplied by all relevant regulations.
the article really doesn't have enough details. the different regulations per country are the least of the problem. the real whammy is having to have a representative in each country, which will cost money every year in every country, not just in some. see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49485957
But how is it different? Because I live in one of those 27 member states, and I'm pretty sure that we had our own regulations before, that they were different from the other 26 states, and that any companies doing business here had to comply with them. Or is it that they were not complying with regulations before and now they will have to?
Before: you make a thing, you stick it in box and mail it to someone in another EU country. Fees paid: postage.
After: for every one of the 27 EU countries you plan to ship to, you must pay hundreds or thousands of euros in registration fees as a packaging producer.
Somehow, regulation believers who think they are sticking it to the big man think this is a reasonable system, and not a complete killer of small time entrepreneurship for those not fortunate enough to have millions in capital.
Do you, is that what the law is? I've seen enough propaganda flying around to not just take this on faith. What happens whenever two countries differ on any other regulation and one company sells outside its home country?
Briefly, for each EU country you sell into you must:
• Register with the government package registry in each country.
• Sign contracts with a "Producer Responsibility Organization" in the country to fund local recycling.
• Track the exact weight of all the packaging materials sent to that country.
• Submit reports and pay recycling fees.
• If you are based outside the EU, you have to appoint a local representative for these matters in the country. If you are based in the EU you are also supposed to do that, but the European Commission has recommended that members states suspend penalties for EU companies that do not do this.
If you use "fulfilled by Amazon" you still have to do all the above for your packaging. Amazon has to do it just for the outer packaging they ship your stuff in.
Officials have recognized this will be a major burden on many small businesses and are working on revising it to address that in legislation due later this year. Many are pushing for something similar to the way VAT is handled to be implemented for this.
The way VAT works is that you register with just your own country (or a country of your choice if you are not in the EU but sell there). You collect the correct amount of VAR on sales to each EU country, but then just file with and pay the country you are registered with. They tax authorities deal with then reporting to the other countries and paying them their VAT.
The very first thing it means is that a firm has to understand the new law and then determine what changes it requires. And as a firm gets smaller that makes the relative burden higher. Of course this shouldn’t imply you never change anything, but it does mean every incremental new regulation is a ratchet that shifts in favor of large firms. The EU estimates this regulation avoids 23Mt of CO2[0], which is about 0.8% of EU emissions. Not sure that’s the place to focus unless you can make a case that it will have spillover effects into other markets.
Realistically if you're a small company, you just do it, until someone tells you "hey you're supposed to comply with X" and then you say "oh sorry, we didn't realise, we'll do that now", repeat for all X. Programmers think the written law is a description of what actually happens - it's not.
0.8% at the size of the EU economy is a huge win. It's slightly smaller than Denmark's fossil fuel emissions. Though, the savings are presumably calculated over several years while Denmark produces it every single year.
I have no skin in this game, but just because they're doing it doesn't mean it's their focus, the EU is big enough to work on multiple 0.8%-size wins all over the place.
It's not about the packaging really. It could be as simple as a bubble wrap envelope. The problem is having to register in every country and some of them levy fees that are insane for small artists. The EU was supposed to be a single entity with simple rules but in this case they want to make things as difficult as possible.
The article could be clearer yes but it's really an issue especially for small self employed artists selling by post in the EU. They're basically being killed off if they relied on shipping to other countries.
And the risks of non compliance are high fines. This was meant to punish AliExpress and their sellers for packaging waste but how are they going to fine Happy Goose Ltd in a basement in Shenzhen? They're not. Business in the EU however are going to be easy pickings. So the Chinese will just keep what they're doing and the EU independent artists are screwed with retarded bureaucracy.
For an Amazon it's a joke paying 200€ to register in a single country, but for an artist that may not even have single package to a certain country every year it's insane. And you can't even register when you have an order to send, you have to do it before.
It's deeply evil and totally meant to kill the little guy or girl.
There's some exceptions for small business but they're mainly bureaucratic, the hefty fees still apply.
Are we sure there isn't some single market principle that overrules the presumption that you'd have to register in every country? AFAIK generally you're allowed to operate in one country and sell things to other countries, under some principle of single market / customs union.
Yes for this there isn't, strange enough. I don't know why either. I read that part of the issue is that the EU still considers part of the waste policy a national sovereignty. But I don't know enough about that to verify that.
this article is a bit confusing because it talks about businesses outside of the EU. the PPWR affects businesses within the EU even more. businesses outside have a good chance to get away with ignoring the regulations because the EU will have a tough time to enforce them outside their borders. businesses in the EU however have no chance to escape.
and this isn't just tabletop games. this is any business shipping anything anywhere. even when just shipping a single package in a year. the problem is that compliance costs several hundred dollars per country per year. among other things, a representative needs to be named for each country[1]. those are going to cost money. that means unless you make thousands of dollars in profits in any single country, you can't afford shipping to that country any more.
realistically speaking, this law is so dumb that i expect that we'll see a revision soon, because it effectively destroys the EU single market for small businesses.
there is talk about exceptions for micro-businesses, but for one those seem to be optional, and they may not apply to cross-border shipping which is the big problem here.
(paragraph 123) when the packaging or the packaged product is made available by means of distance contracts directly to the end user, the producer could also be established in another Member State or in a third country. In such cases, if the producer is established in another Member State, it should appoint an authorised representative for the extended producer responsibility in the Member State where the end user is located.
For all the regulations that have arguable merits, the EU loves to also do stupid ones like this one. As though the packaging of board games is what's clogging the landfills and oceans. The packaging is used to hold the actual game for its whole lifetime!!
If they're really just trying to target industries which DO produce a ton of packaging waste, then they should target it better.
they are not just targeting boardgames, but all packages, and the boardgame boxes are also not what is being regulated, but the packaging the box is shipped in.
It is wasteful inefficient regulation. Just fine companies 10% of revenue for not following the rules and everyone will comply. Give 1% of the fine to the whistleblower. Market mechanisms.
Oh come now. Just pay your corruption tax to a nice middleman that helped create this in the first place. “Nobody thought of what this would do to small businesses”? Oh sweet summer child. Someone did the math.
Seriously. Running a business means complying with regulations, which change sometimes, and yes, can cost money to comply with. It’s ok to raise prices to offset your costs, everyone else will have to as well. That’s a burden that regulators accepted on your behalf.
I really don’t understand the complaining about this. If this is such an insurmountable burden for so many European small businesses, surely your MEP will be receptive to your grievances, yeah? And if you’re not in Europe, ignore the regulation or stop selling to unprofitable member states.
> surely your MEP will be receptive to your grievances, yeah
I've yet to find a country - anywhere in the world - where a member of parliament is receptive to anything that's not the party line to begin with without copious amounts of money involved.
Do you count the MEP who subpoenaed the ATM company that charged a $175 ATM fee? What's your corruption angle there? Wa she getting paid off by a competing ATM company?
The article simply states "we must comply with some regs" and nothing else of substance.
There is no indications of what registration implies nor what packaging is actually required. We get this:
"That’s because one of the primary issues they face is the sheer amount of resources that they need to invest into remaining PPWR compliant."
but no indication of what that means.
This is a whine and whinge piece without any substance. I'm sure there are issues but there is nothing substantive here.
> but no indication of what that means.
That’s the point. There are 27 member states that each have their own regulations that need to be complied with.
The article has more details than your comment implies, such as the fact that some states like Spain have ongoing recurring fees too.
Dealing with changing regulations and fees that are different across 27 states on top of all of the other EU regulations is normal for a big company with a lot of staff and lawyers, but if you’re a small company trying to ship any product you have to start maintaining a list of individual states where you think you can break even and decide if it’s worth doing all of the work to try to sell there.
If you’ve never had to deal with regulatory compliance or shipped physical products this all probably does sound like whining to you, but that’s only because you don’t know how hard it is to comply with regulations for 1 EU state, let alone 27 of them multiplied by all relevant regulations.
the article really doesn't have enough details. the different regulations per country are the least of the problem. the real whammy is having to have a representative in each country, which will cost money every year in every country, not just in some. see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49485957
But how is it different? Because I live in one of those 27 member states, and I'm pretty sure that we had our own regulations before, that they were different from the other 26 states, and that any companies doing business here had to comply with them. Or is it that they were not complying with regulations before and now they will have to?
Before: you make a thing, you stick it in box and mail it to someone in another EU country. Fees paid: postage.
After: for every one of the 27 EU countries you plan to ship to, you must pay hundreds or thousands of euros in registration fees as a packaging producer.
Somehow, regulation believers who think they are sticking it to the big man think this is a reasonable system, and not a complete killer of small time entrepreneurship for those not fortunate enough to have millions in capital.
Do you, is that what the law is? I've seen enough propaganda flying around to not just take this on faith. What happens whenever two countries differ on any other regulation and one company sells outside its home country?
Briefly, for each EU country you sell into you must:
• Register with the government package registry in each country.
• Sign contracts with a "Producer Responsibility Organization" in the country to fund local recycling.
• Track the exact weight of all the packaging materials sent to that country.
• Submit reports and pay recycling fees.
• If you are based outside the EU, you have to appoint a local representative for these matters in the country. If you are based in the EU you are also supposed to do that, but the European Commission has recommended that members states suspend penalties for EU companies that do not do this.
If you use "fulfilled by Amazon" you still have to do all the above for your packaging. Amazon has to do it just for the outer packaging they ship your stuff in.
Officials have recognized this will be a major burden on many small businesses and are working on revising it to address that in legislation due later this year. Many are pushing for something similar to the way VAT is handled to be implemented for this.
The way VAT works is that you register with just your own country (or a country of your choice if you are not in the EU but sell there). You collect the correct amount of VAR on sales to each EU country, but then just file with and pay the country you are registered with. They tax authorities deal with then reporting to the other countries and paying them their VAT.
The EU won't let me read its regulations because it uses Cloudfront. Is this actually true or is it FUD?
> but no indication of what that means
The very first thing it means is that a firm has to understand the new law and then determine what changes it requires. And as a firm gets smaller that makes the relative burden higher. Of course this shouldn’t imply you never change anything, but it does mean every incremental new regulation is a ratchet that shifts in favor of large firms. The EU estimates this regulation avoids 23Mt of CO2[0], which is about 0.8% of EU emissions. Not sure that’s the place to focus unless you can make a case that it will have spillover effects into other markets.
[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-00218...
Realistically if you're a small company, you just do it, until someone tells you "hey you're supposed to comply with X" and then you say "oh sorry, we didn't realise, we'll do that now", repeat for all X. Programmers think the written law is a description of what actually happens - it's not.
0.8% at the size of the EU economy is a huge win. It's slightly smaller than Denmark's fossil fuel emissions. Though, the savings are presumably calculated over several years while Denmark produces it every single year.
Almost a 1% win, just by changing packaging? That seems massive.
0.8% actually sounds pretty good
I have no skin in this game, but just because they're doing it doesn't mean it's their focus, the EU is big enough to work on multiple 0.8%-size wins all over the place.
It's not about the packaging really. It could be as simple as a bubble wrap envelope. The problem is having to register in every country and some of them levy fees that are insane for small artists. The EU was supposed to be a single entity with simple rules but in this case they want to make things as difficult as possible.
The article could be clearer yes but it's really an issue especially for small self employed artists selling by post in the EU. They're basically being killed off if they relied on shipping to other countries.
And the risks of non compliance are high fines. This was meant to punish AliExpress and their sellers for packaging waste but how are they going to fine Happy Goose Ltd in a basement in Shenzhen? They're not. Business in the EU however are going to be easy pickings. So the Chinese will just keep what they're doing and the EU independent artists are screwed with retarded bureaucracy.
For an Amazon it's a joke paying 200€ to register in a single country, but for an artist that may not even have single package to a certain country every year it's insane. And you can't even register when you have an order to send, you have to do it before.
It's deeply evil and totally meant to kill the little guy or girl.
There's some exceptions for small business but they're mainly bureaucratic, the hefty fees still apply.
Are we sure there isn't some single market principle that overrules the presumption that you'd have to register in every country? AFAIK generally you're allowed to operate in one country and sell things to other countries, under some principle of single market / customs union.
Yes for this there isn't, strange enough. I don't know why either. I read that part of the issue is that the EU still considers part of the waste policy a national sovereignty. But I don't know enough about that to verify that.
I'm noticing a whole lot of this gets posted here whenever the EU does anything. It's almost like a propaganda campaign.
this article is a bit confusing because it talks about businesses outside of the EU. the PPWR affects businesses within the EU even more. businesses outside have a good chance to get away with ignoring the regulations because the EU will have a tough time to enforce them outside their borders. businesses in the EU however have no chance to escape.
and this isn't just tabletop games. this is any business shipping anything anywhere. even when just shipping a single package in a year. the problem is that compliance costs several hundred dollars per country per year. among other things, a representative needs to be named for each country[1]. those are going to cost money. that means unless you make thousands of dollars in profits in any single country, you can't afford shipping to that country any more.
realistically speaking, this law is so dumb that i expect that we'll see a revision soon, because it effectively destroys the EU single market for small businesses.
there is talk about exceptions for micro-businesses, but for one those seem to be optional, and they may not apply to cross-border shipping which is the big problem here.
[1] i looked it up: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/40/oj/eng
(paragraph 123) when the packaging or the packaged product is made available by means of distance contracts directly to the end user, the producer could also be established in another Member State or in a third country. In such cases, if the producer is established in another Member State, it should appoint an authorised representative for the extended producer responsibility in the Member State where the end user is located.
For all the regulations that have arguable merits, the EU loves to also do stupid ones like this one. As though the packaging of board games is what's clogging the landfills and oceans. The packaging is used to hold the actual game for its whole lifetime!!
If they're really just trying to target industries which DO produce a ton of packaging waste, then they should target it better.
they are not just targeting boardgames, but all packages, and the boardgame boxes are also not what is being regulated, but the packaging the box is shipped in.
It is wasteful inefficient regulation. Just fine companies 10% of revenue for not following the rules and everyone will comply. Give 1% of the fine to the whistleblower. Market mechanisms.
You'll now pay a compliant packaging company to package goods for you.
How much of the EU's GDP is from fining companies?
Made me chuckle
Fuck all. Your point is what exactly?
Oh come now. Just pay your corruption tax to a nice middleman that helped create this in the first place. “Nobody thought of what this would do to small businesses”? Oh sweet summer child. Someone did the math.
I should search for similar articles when lead was banned in paint or CFC in aerosol cans.
Seriously. Running a business means complying with regulations, which change sometimes, and yes, can cost money to comply with. It’s ok to raise prices to offset your costs, everyone else will have to as well. That’s a burden that regulators accepted on your behalf.
I really don’t understand the complaining about this. If this is such an insurmountable burden for so many European small businesses, surely your MEP will be receptive to your grievances, yeah? And if you’re not in Europe, ignore the regulation or stop selling to unprofitable member states.
> surely your MEP will be receptive to your grievances, yeah
I've yet to find a country - anywhere in the world - where a member of parliament is receptive to anything that's not the party line to begin with without copious amounts of money involved.
Do you count the MEP who subpoenaed the ATM company that charged a $175 ATM fee? What's your corruption angle there? Wa she getting paid off by a competing ATM company?