hbm

France has a point, in a potential UK Farage administration, we could see US, UK and neo-USSR as the new tripartite pact and EU would have helped finance its own subjugation.

EU isn’t equivalent to the states (yet). It’s a loose’ish unions of nations. Passports are nation-issued, as are most professional credentials, but everything is recognised intra-union. In US (and Australia), passports are issued centrally, states are more like a local subdivision, irrelevant abroad.

US driving licenses are admittedly state issued. I suspect it’s more about violation points than anything else. And there’s a drive towards a federal format there as well.

(Sorry if I’m simplifying here.)

I had a Swedish (I’m not swedish, but my first EU style license was issued there) license in NYC and had it renewed through the consulate with laughable little hassle. When I moved to UK (pre-Brexit), again, the swap was smooth. I religiously believe that when I move back to EU, I’ll be able to get an EU license back (unless I hit an age trigger). I actually think the current EU license is awesome. I don’t dispute the underlying criteria for issuing could be improved, but post-issue, it’s pretty great today.

As I read it, at least the physical license will remain issued by member states. It’s a standardisation of license rules and an app (which is probably offered by EU).

(Personally, I’m not sure this is all that important in light of the problems EU is otherwise faced with, and I really hope licenses will remain a national document – recall when Brexit Britain under Johnson didn’t recognise EU in a diplomatic role since it isn’t a “country” – but so be it.)

Using NATO infrastructure would presumably invite US to the table, which is probably not desirable, even today.

Thanks for the link. I was about to extend my Proton mail subscription to the full monty, but backed out when I saw the original incriminating post (which did surprise me, based on what I thought I knew about them). The writeup does offer a compelling argument for that one post having been taken a little too far in todays tribal political environment.

They’re a little swift about locking accounts for spam suspicion. They did so to mine before I had sent a single mail and demanded I contact them through the (locked) mailbox.org mail to resolve it. Had to dispute the charge with my credit card.

My vote goes to Migadu. Slightly complicated UI, but it all works, and they don’t lock accounts before they have seen any indications of misuse.

Runbox is OK too, though they don’t support bouncing inbound mail based on recipient address, so less useful with your own domain.