FTR. The whole PPWR process started back in 2015, there was a public consultation period in 2020-21, the new rules were entered into force in February 2025 and now the general application happened. So there was plenty of time to prepare, as far as I can see. People that run a business in the EU and now claim to be surprised, they, well, surprise me.

You must be a fellow German. No where else in the world does the objection that bad legislation has been discussed (very negatively I might add, look up the results from consultation period you quoted) for 10 years have any merit on discussion whether that legislation fulfills its purpose.

So what if businesses "had time to prepare"? Its not the governments / especially the EUs job to waste the time of small businesses.

MISTER PROSSER: But Mister Dent the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months!

ARTHUR DENT: Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention to them have you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.

MISTER PROSSER: The plans were on display.

ARTHUR DENT: Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office of an evening?

MISTER PROSSER: Er – ah!

ARTHUR DENT: It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye were they?

MISTER PROSSER: That depends where you were looking.

ARTHUR DENT: I eventually had to go down to the cellar!

MISTER PROSSER: That’s the display department.

ARTHUR DENT: With a torch!

MISTER PROSSER: The lights, had… probably gone.

ARTHUR DENT: So had the stairs!

MISTER PROSSER: Well you found the notice didn’t you?

ARTHUR DENT: Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.

Do you assume regular people spend time on EU portals reading legislation proposals?

Yes, we are surprised to find out how foolish and counterproductive some legislation can be.

It also surprises and bewilders me that businesses (usually tech or tech adjacent) apparently expect and have for some time expected the ability to do business internationally completely without friction. Which is less something I think is a good or bad idea, and far more just simply an unrealistic one. If you want to sell in a given set of countries, I would think it a given that you would have to deal with the regulations and business laws in each of those given countries. The fact that you want to sell hacker/DIY products to people in less developed markets is admirable, certainly, but it doesn't change that. It's an unsolved problem precisely because it's kind of a pain in the ass to do compliance work across a large number of them. It's why large companies have entire departments devoted to regulatory compliance.

As far as I'm concerned the only way you could say this is "killing" any business is if the business in question has, as you said, spent the last decade just assuming they could sell things wherever with no oversight.