The system is far from perfect, but the governments are the other chamber of the parliament in the context of the EU, not the executive power, which is the comm

The system is far from perfect, but the governments are the other chamber of the parliament in the context of the EU, not the executive power, which is the commission (which is nominated by the council, but also voted in by the parliament once again). The member states themselves (which sorry, democratically speaking means their citizens) want to keep the council more powerful than the parliament. Fixing the power disparity has always been hard, since the member state don't really want to give away their power to the EU. Anyway, a "no" vote from the EP means a great deal, your information seems outdated to me. The EC can approve a law proposed by the commission alone only in a restricted subset of topics. Everything else is dealt with with the parliament and the council being on equal footing and acting as a bicameral democracy with equal chambers would when approving a law. The alternative of the current system is to reduce the power the member states hold in the EU creating a real federation or US of Europe. Which for sure will not happen in the short term, and if the EU does not react correctly (and strongly) to this vote, probably never will.