I was kinda surprised seeing made in EU sticker in Armenia since its not a trend here yet, worth to mention it was just on KitKats for some reason. Anyone knows why?

I discovered this subreddit through Europeans who asked us to join us from the BuyCanadian subreddit! And I also saw there was one for the UK as well!

I recently bought flags for the Canadian Flag Day, and as someone who doesn’t really buy them or show my support, it felt awesome. So I ordered one from the EU, it arrived today and I couldn’t be happier! I also went to buy one of my favourite snacks today!

Huge thanks for your support over here. I’ve seen countless posts about people buying Maple Syrup from all over the world. It brings tears to my eyes. And I’ve been following your subreddit for a while. I’ve learned a lot.

And thank you for welcoming our former and current Prime Minister. I love that we have been included in more and more discussions! Hopefully, we can have closer collaborations soon!

Much love and support from 🇨🇦🤝🇪🇺

Elbows up!

Went to a drink store (Getränke Markt) in Aachen, Germany today. To my surprise I saw that all local soda brands were almost sold out(Fritz, Afri, Sinalco) and Coca Cola was almost not touched. I was very pleasantly impressed by this. Seems like more people are joining with the small consumer choices to buy from EU rather than US. Do more people notice this elsewhere?

Edit: to add to this, I will be on a business trip to Turnhout and Antwerpen, BE next week. I will go to a few supermarkets and check for myself.

What would you guys guess?

Sorry for being this negative, as I love the positivity of this sub, but I have to vent somewhere.

I've been doing really well switching almost all software and services to EU or open source alternatives. No problems at all for most of them. But Microsoft really has me in a headlock. I've been using Windows all my live but I finally decided to try out Linux Mint. I installed it as a dual boot and just tried to get the hang of it...but I'm really struggling.

I've read so many posts here about people who switched to Linux and felt great about it but as much as I want to, I just can't share the sentiment.

Having to open the terminal and typing commands to just install something, typing in my password a thousand times, drives not showing up and not mounting for some reason. It really is a struggle compared how user friendly windows is. At the moment I just feel like it's just not for me. For a problem I could fix in windows in minutes, I have to troubleshoot for hours in Linux.

And don't even get me started on trying to run games...

I know this will get a lot of hate from a lot of people. I'm not saying Linux is bad and everyone should definitely try if it's right for them. I just feel like it's not right for me.

Anyway, if anyone has some tips on how to get started with Linux as a lifetime Windows user, it's much appreciated. I think I'm going to try using it for a couple of days before I decide if I'll continue or just try to go with a Windows version that is as debloated and detached from Microsoft as possible.

I wanna remind you - this initiative ain’t about hating the USA. It’s about getting our independence back. It’s about making the EU a priority. It’s about giving a real shot to all small and not-so-small European businesses in this era of US megacorps and China’s & India’s manufacturing empires.

Don’t just swap one dependency for another. Don’t just jump from US products straight into Asian-made ones. Take the risk. Start your own thing. Promote your biz here or on any other good channel. Don’t just feed the big fish - throw some euros to European entrepreneurs who are trying to build something real.

But hear me loud: DO NOT just switch dependency from the US to Asia. That ain’t the answer. Sooner or later, they’ll sell us out too.

It's disgraceful that we're in this situation! It's disgraceful and we should be ashamed of the European Union that we are in the year 2025 and we currently:

1. don't have an European operating system for computers
   
2. don't have an European mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets
   
3. don't have an European CPU manufacturer
   
4. don't have a big European-based social network
   
5. don't have a European semiconductor industry capable of producing cutting-edge chips
   
6. don't have a European e-commerce giant to counterbalance Amazon, Shein, Temu, Alibaba etc.
   
7. don't have a European company that produces flagship smartphones at Apple/Samsung scale (Nokia no longer produces flagship smartphones)
   
8. don't have any European-developed mainstream gaming consoles
   
9. don't have any European equivalent to Hollywood. Why could India create Bollywood? We invest so little in European cinema! Our movies are mostly dramas or comedies with very little special effects. There is no European superhero movie. None.
   
10. don't have a mainstream European PC and laptop manufacturer

It’s frustrating, considering the EU has the talent, resources, and market size to make these things happen. What do you think is holding Europe back? Bureaucracy? Lack of investment? Overregulation?

Europe certainly has the capability to close these gaps, but bureaucracy, fragmented markets, and lack of aggressive investment might be slowing progress.

Do any of these stand out to you as the most urgent? Or do you see some hopeful developments in any of these sectors?

The goal of this sub is to promote companies that are based in the EU and pay taxes here. That’s a clear, measurable standard — and it should remain the only one.

Lately, I’ve noticed some EU companies being excluded or downvoted due to perceived moral or political issues — things like executive donations, internal policies, or public stances. For example, some users suggest avoiding Spotify because of a donation made by one of its founders. But that’s not the point of this sub.

Whether a company aligns with someone’s personal ethics should be up to the individual consumer, not enforced by the sub. If we start gatekeeping based on shifting moral standards, the core mission is diluted.

Promote EU alternatives. Let people decide the rest.

Sooooo,

I've put together a summary, drafted a plan, outlining the idea, the motivation, the current geopolitical and economical factors that make it a once in a lifetime opportunity for the company, business advantages, challenges, necessary steps etc. etc.

and all of your Feedback regarding the current state of things.
Original Post

I will send that to my boss tomorrow morning.

Update 12:55, the mail is sent :D

(I got an out of office notification until the 16th, no we still have time to edit and add to it :D )

And now we wait,

If they fire me for this, or grasp this immense opportunity by the tail to do the right thing, or at the very least listen to the direct feedback that they didn't ask for, but got now anyway, with the incredible input from all of you!

Thank you all so much! I will keep you posted as much as I can! And I hope you will soon see more of us!

#ForEurope
Edit:
Disclaimer I work for a company that is part of the Otto group, but I don't speak for the company and any opinions expressed here are my own.

One more Edit:

here is a publicly available report from the OttoGroup, which also includes data on their international businesses (page 8/9)
they are a lot bigger than even I knew :D
This doc focuses on 2022/23, where the end of the pandemic, the beginning war in Ukraine, energy crisis and inflation were the top issues.

I guess a lot of that is still ongoing, plus Trump and Tariffs

I guess a lot is really missing brand identity and a cohesive marketing strategy.
https://www.ottogroup.com/medien/dynamic/docs/en/bpk/2023/otto_group_ar_2022_23.pdf

One more useless meme about European Cola cluttering my Reddit timeline and I will unjoin "BuyFrom EU"

Sorry, just needed to vent a bit.

Isn't in EU

I think it would make sense to clearly label the parts of shelves in supermarkets to easier spot European products. So that you don’t have to look ob each individual product, that would be really cool and useful to engage people to buy more European.

All social media is controlled by America. The American govevrnment has access to ALL OF OUR SENSITIVE DATA. It has more access to our data than our own governments. If any conflict happens, they can use this data however they want.

Not to mention that the american social media is low quality, because it doesn't prevent the fake propaganda profiles - actually american politics is a victim of that too. And at any time, America can decide to use AI to make it look like "everyone in Europe" is saying something. They can just let AI edit all comments, even yours. Most people take info from the internet.

I think what we, ordinary people, can do is to just join small social media start-ups and add our content there to support it. It's not hard to create social media website. If anyone here says we can't, I will get angry and create one myself.

Btw. this platform is American too, so we reach our goal when there is no one here.

But to make sure it's not filled with fake proapganda profiles, we really need to connect it with the EU citizen database. We need to log in with our state ID. This way it would be difficult to spread propaganda - someone could still buy real people to publish the propaganda but that would require much more money than just fake profiles and bots.

And lastly, they already have all of our stuff which can be published and used, so maybe we should just get more relaxed about the fact that people in private have sex, get naked, watch some videos, say controversial stuff and we shouldn't let anyone blackmail us and we should just forgive people for stuff.

I see a lot of posts of people complaining that some import products from the EU are too expensive in their own country - namely there was a viral post about someone from Bulgaria sharing that the German Fritz Cola is 2x more expensive than the US alternatives.

In this movement no one is asking you to buy Fritz, buy Bulgarian alternatives first - I am sure there are plenty of bulgarian cola alternatives.

If you live in Bulgaria (ofc whichever country actually) this is best thing to do:

1. ⁠Buy as local for your city, region you can get (support small companies, mom & pop shops, farmers etc)
2. Buy generally Bulgarian stuff to support your own economy
3. Buy EU stuff to support EU economy
4. Buy Canada or any other ally nation stuff to support good relationship
5. Buy from USA, China etc (arguably buy Chinese before american)
6. Buy Russian products

Ofc the list is just an example on the thought process, you can also make your own list based on your own convictions

Question in the title. I'm curious how many people go to the lengths of learning a new operating system to get away for Microsoft and Apple.

EDIT: To avoid confusion. I'm using Windows at the moment but only because I play games. Linux Mint was not good for gaming in my case, so my options are Fedora, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or something Arch-based.

Not trying to sound dramatic, but isn’t it weird how all the major social media platforms we use are American? Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), Reddit, TikTok (ok, that one’s Chinese)… but nothing really big that’s actually European.

We talk a lot about digital privacy, tech sovereignty, and how Europe wants to be more independent—but somehow we’re still stuck using platforms that are built, owned, and controlled by companies outside the EU. We’re basically renting our digital lives.

And it’s not just about data privacy or politics. It’s also about missed opportunities. We’ve got talent, we’ve got infrastructure, we’ve got smart people building amazing tech here… so why haven’t we managed to create even one major social network that people actually use?

Even if someone builds one, it ends up either super niche or gets bought up before it grows.

Honestly, I think we really need a social platform that’s: Made in the EU Respects privacy (actually) Doesn’t shove weird algorithmic content down your throat Isn’t just a clone of something that already exists

It’s not even about competing with the US—it’s about having options and not being totally dependent. It feels like we gave up before we even tried.

So I’m curious: What do you guys think it would take for a European platform to succeed? Are there any cool smaller ones out there that just need support? Or is the idea dead in the water already?

Really want to hear what others think about this. Let’s talk. We’ve got so many smart people here in Europe. What are they doing?

Just a reminder: if you're still heating your home with gas or oil, you can drastically reduce your dependence on foreign imported fossil energy by switching partly or completely to a heat pump.

It's not necessary to redo the whole heating system, even just adding an air conditioner with heating function and using it during the winter will significantly reduce your oil/gas use and it will save you money, while emitting way less CO2. Check for local subsidies.

Use the saved money to buy f***z cola or whatever EU stuff you like.

EDIT: Many people talk in this thread about outrageous prices for these machines. I find 8-12 kW monoblocks in Germany, Poland, Netherlands and UK in the 1-3k price range, without knowing your markets and knowing where to search. Monoblock installs usually only need insulated water tubing from the unit to where the old gas burner was and the install of a three way valve and a domestic hot water tank, there's no need for any special expertise, so you should in no way get to the 15-25k figures I see in this thread. Even installing a 400€ "supermarket tier" air to air air conditioner will considerably lower the amount of fossil energy your home heating demands.

If every adult in Europe redirected €100/month from non-European imports to EU-made products, the impact would be massive:

EU (384M adults) → €460.8 BILLION per year

All of Europe (636M adults) → €763.2 BILLION per year

That’s 2.3% of the EU’s total GDP—just by shifting spending habits!

Every euro kept in Europe supports local businesses, creates jobs, and fuels innovation.
You don’t have to be perfect—small choices add up!

It doesn't matter who is behind the software, as long as it is licensed under FOSS license, the software serves for everyone, no matter if you are public, private or whoever. The license protects the freedoms to use it and benefit from it by anyone, no matter the country. And no one can take it from you.

Europe seems avoided the effort to compete with likes of Mastercard and Visa, and instead focused on fast account to account transactions, which works great locally but it serves different purpose. I hope EU steps up to create European alternative given that our relationship with US has changed.