Seeing as the last update was 5 days ago, I don’t really understand this.
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The update about what is effectively a delay was relegated to a footnote in a blog post about a whole bunch of other unrelated things, and the phrasing “early 2022” for when shipping is about to start is as vague as it gets.
While this is par for the course in corporate communications, Framework could arguably do a bit better here.
A member state requiring that a retailer support the local language in order to be allowed to sell to the country would lead to that country being dragged to the European Supreme Court and fined heavily for being in violation of basic EU law. Because that country would be violating the single market, which is absolutely core to the whole essence of the EU.
Case in point: the whole video game industry. There is a LOT of EU state languages that pretty much no video game will support. Indeed, the majority of EU languages are unsupported in Steam. And you aren’t seeing Valve S.a.r.l (France) or Valve Gmbh (Germany) being taken to court for not supporting Slovene. That kind of protectionism that you describe is what the EU was meant to eliminate.
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I said EU regulations, not member-state regulations. There is plenty of EU directives that sellers of electronics and other hardware (as opposed to media such as games) have to comply with in order to market their products within the EU (or, more accurately, within the EEA), and that’s part of the harmonisation effort among member states rather than protectionism. Ever seen that big “CE” marking on any of your devices? That indicates the device is compliant with EU directives. Is there any rule among those saying that a laptop manufacturer has to offer all the standard EU national keyboard layouts in order to sell in the EU? I don’t know, and I won’t waste my time checking, but what I meant is that there might as well be.
And I am telling you that no, there is not, because it would violate EU law. There has even been cases of this where Sweden ended up in trouble because it tried to stop sale of alcohol by mail order from Denmark. The Swedish ban on advertisements for alcohol ran into similar problems.
Anything that can be sold anywhere in the EU, can be sold anywhere else in the EU. Extremely few exceptions. (Basically a few specific cases of grandfathered in special things.) Plus, with some minor caveats, in the larger EEA. (For example, computer equipment is open-border to Norway, food is not.) The EU has no regulations saying you need to support every EU language. If that was the case, Steam would be illegal. As would amazon.nl.
This is the point: if a product is fit for sale in Germany, it is generally and automatically fit for sale in Slovenia. And Romania. And Sweden. And those other countries would end up in court if they tried to stop this.
As an even more extreme example: I can order a laptop from System76. It’ll take a while to be delivered because I order from a US retailer, and I’ll end up with import duties because it’s from outside the EEA. But that’s it. If the seller is prepared to deliver, I can order and they can sell to me.
Framework could, in theory, self-declare CE compliance (mostly electrical standards: “this thing will not kill people” etc.) and ship to me straight from the US. Now, they may decide to hold off on that because it can be a customer support nightmare to trade intercontinental with no local representation or local warehousing. But there’s nothing legal stopping them.
And member state regulations are, by definition, not allowed to violate EU regulations. Again: single market. The core of what the EU even is. In a US context: a state is allowed to say whatever it wants, but any time Federal law says something else… Federal law wins automatically.
Finally: keyboard support. If US keyboard was not allowed, the entire computer retail market in the Netherlands would be in violation. I would have to work REALLY hard to find a non-US keyboard on any machine or even any non-US standalone keyboard in a shop here… Getting a “Dutch” keyboard is a niche market. EU doesn’t care.
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While @offtobettershores has a point that national-level regulations exist (regarding power plugs or the like, not so much the keyboard layout), I find @Daniel_Agorander’s observation much more pertinent to Framework’s situation: in principle, a business neither maintaining presence nor actively soliciting customers in other EU/EEA countries could not be expected to comply with any other national-level regulations beyond where they are located. It would be against one of the four fundamental freedoms of the common market: the free movement of goods. There are some exceptions to this of course (such as alcohol, cigarettes, perhaps medicines or new vehicles) but these are outside the scope of Framework’s activity.
Framework only needs to choose one national jurisdiction within the EU, comply with all the regulations there, and they’re good to sell their products online all around the EU/EEA.
So they shouldn’t be complaining how much has to be done for “each country,” and using Germany as a particularly egregious example. It was their choice to be based there, they could have just as well set up shop elsewhere in the EU if it’s really that bad.
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Yes, like another user of the forum said, that’s the DIY version, which I bought and imported to Switzerland myself. 
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Bro, you’re the proverbial pigeon on the chessboard. You did not understand what I said but still wanted to make a lot of points. I have conceded that indeed there might be no such rule, but if so it is not because of any of the reasons you stated.
Yes, that’s the point. EU regulations take precedence over national regulations when it comes to standards and trade. And, if they want to, the EU, not any individual member state, can create regulations concerning the offer of particular keyboard layout or language support. Remembers the EU has 24 official languages, and those are official languages not only of the member states individually, but also of the EU as a whole.
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Yeah the DIY version would be perfect but I would still expect it to be:
- shipped directly from Framework, with import duty, VAT, etc. properly handled
- have some reasonable warranty
However my point was, maybe it would be possible to sell a non-localized version in Switzerland (and EU) for enthusiasts who don’t care about the lack of local adapter, keyboard, manual, etc.
+1 for EU shipping. I am so interested and can’t wait to order
love from Germany
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I’m also looking forward to buy one fr me in belgium and if they are as great as I can see then I will buy loads for companies I work for. So get them over to belgium quickly
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Well my laptop just died on me, so I’m pre-ordering one the second you open up to the EU.
Love from France 
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Yes, but… These official languages are relevant to what the “government” of the EU conducts business in. That’s it. (And there are some jokes about how English could fall out of scope because the Republic of Ireland - previous domicile of mine - didn’t bother registering English as a language and now the UK is out, so we’d have Gaelic but not English… 
)
The point is: your objections of what could be problems are things that are known to violate EU regulation (thus no individual country is allowed to violate them), would mean current vendors (be they Tuxedo based in Germany or System76 based in Colorado) couldn’t do the business they are demonstrably doing.
I am not sure what you think I am missing:
Indeed. EU regulation says: single market. What is sold in one member state can be sold to another. No ifs, buts or anything else. This is the absolute core of what the EU is. You remarked on the CE marking: yes, this exists. It is about the safety standards applying to electronic equipment sold in the EU. Again: if valid in any country, valid in all, because it is a EU standard. A french keyboard is not going to kill you because it is french. Neither will you eat ten kilovolts from a capacitor that was incorrectly grounded because your documents weren’t in dutch.
Your whole idea of:
… is absolute fantasy. The EU has never, ever, given a single crap about that. If you want to find absolute proof of this, go order a computer from Tuxedo. Or System76. This potential issue you are seeing is, demonstrably, one that has not existed, ever, in the history of the EU. And all you need to do to discover this is: order a laptop cross-border. I’ve done this, several times.
Which brings us back to:
This would only be a concern if the EU was requiring that every vendor selling laptops in the EU supports all langauges in all countries.
Let me tell you, it is epicly difficult to find a Slovene laptop here in the Netherlands. Hell, it is epicly difficult to find a DUTCH laptop here in the Netherlands. So, again… A quick look at existing regulations and existing market shows that your concerns do not match reality.
Would just like to add that a keyboard with danish keys would be very nice.
Tho a lot of the laptop keyboards here are nordic in that they are shared between sweden, norway and denmark etc. Which is fine too.
So don’t mind waiting a bit extra if it enables that
I can’t believe we’re still having this discussion, but here we go again:
The EU could impose regulations requiring computer vendors in the EU above a certain size to offer all national keyboard layout, or all the layouts member states bother to include in a list of sorts, as an option to consumers. I don’t know if they do, but they could. That’s all I claimed.
Go to Tuxedo’s websites and you’ll see that they offer a lot of layout options. System 76 is not a EU-based vendor. When you buy a System 76 laptop you are the importer, a non-commercial importer at that, and you deal with customs and you pay VAT and duties directly to tax authorities. The thing doesn’t even come with an Euro powerplug.
And companies like Valve are not selling laptops. They sell media.
Edit: And by the way, Tuxedo does offer Slovenian.
I’m from Slovenia and had an Asus laptop with German layout. I got used to it because its more similar than the US variant (shortcuts and such). Anyway neither the vendor not the company obviously didn’t had issues selling it to me.
Shipito ftw Using them for long time, so far no issues, at least not with them directly. Paying customs+VAT from price with DHL shipping to CZ/EU was painful, but still better than waiting months or years for Framework to establish EU branch…
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Thanks a lot for this. I used the same shipping company as you (never even thought about it). Now all I need to do is to wait until December batch and then shipping here and there
Was it really just 8% for duties? That’s amazing…
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The 8% are the VAT in Switzerland. See this very nice post which explains it in detail: https://community.frame.work/t/waiting-for-eu-sales-or-importing/6806/25
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