At the end of November I mentioned that Amazon seemed to be freezing Ireland out on some product lines. Frank commented that the dreaded WEEE was the reason. And, sure enough, a few weeks later Amazon said as much.
WEEE is the result of an EU directive. It's representative of what's so annoying about the EU. On the one hand the EU's primary benefit was the creation of a single market.
The combination of the single market and the growth on online retail should have vastly expanded the choice for Irish customers. But, the WEEE undermines all that the single market provided because what non-Irish online retailer is going to put up with all the administrative work involved in levying the required charges, etc.? So the Irish consumer is left without any non-Ireland based retail option. The Irish retailer is protected from any online competition by the WEEE.
