EU faces "find out" music

Remember when the European Union, to much fanfare, announced a centralised platform for buying natural gas in order to secure supply at reasonable prices? Right, so apparently, it has been expanding the plan to include metals and critical minerals, and also hydrogen for some reason. In that, it has stepped on the wrong toes.

Per the FT: “Leading industry software suppliers have warned that the EU’s plans, which would require the companies to build a new trading system and then transfer ownership to Brussels, would also undermine European efforts to foster local tech champions. They also warned that the plans were not fit for purpose for how the target commodities were traded.”

That the European Commission has been trying to centralise as much power as it can is not news, at least to some. Others would probably be surprised that software companies are crying foul — and then they’ll try to rationalise it along the lines of “Mummy knows best”. The software companies themselves, however, are in no danger of such rationalisations. The software companies are sounding the alarm. It’s high time someone did.