They do. You can just break the law. Especially when it's a civil regulation like using recyclable packaging material, you will not go to jail for that.
You responded to an abbreviation of the original argument. The original was "people had one year to prepare for or protest this". And the impact of a required equipment replacement is dependent on the expected lifetime of the equipment. Practically all equipment lasts more than a year. Disposable items bought in bulk are basically a form of equipment that lasts until you run out. Five years will see about a third of stuff get turned over. I have seen some fluoroscopy equipment still running since the late 90s.
Ultimately "make better rules" is only half the battle. You still need a process for implementation.
The stupid rules were imposed by member countries, and not by the EU. There are several countries, like Italy, Hungary who were not imposed that stupid rules, because EU didn't force anybody to have this level of stupidity in these rules. There is a reason why the article mentions only Germany, Austria, et al, they are the idiots, and not everybody or the EU... Also, nobody forced these countries to have incompatible systems. They chose this.
So no, it's not EU's ruling, but their idiot member states. As usual. And of course, everybody points to the usual scapegoat, regardless of the truth. And probably the truth is, that those specific member states wanted this mess.
The EU is the product of the decisions of its members and structure of the coalition. Outsiders have little reason to distinguish the nuance when the discussion has to do with the EU market as a whole.
I'm in EU. But playing the blame game is not getting us anywhere. If you look at this legislation with the most favorable eyes, it still stopped short of making sure it's applicable, and refused to postpone its application as recently as a couple of months ago when it was already clear it'll be a shitshow. That's at EU level, not member countries.
And if you take off the rose tinted glasses, it's the same... um... what's the word? retardedness. when it comes to the environment. In order to... do what exactly? count carboard boxes better? they created yet another bureaucracy.
This is exactly what I meant by not giving a shit about other people's money (or time=money, in some instances).
