4 ms·

The EU is a massive body and like any organisation sometimes the stuff they do is good and sometimes it isn't. Trying to assign some deeper hive mentality to it

The EU is a massive body and like any organisation sometimes the stuff they do is good and sometimes it isn't. Trying to assign some deeper hive mentality to it's inconsistencies, like you have, is really just the realm of conspiracy theories.

andai 8y ago
"Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission", popularly referred to as the "unelected bureaucrats". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_procedure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_p... Sounds a bit un-democratic, no?
- pjc50 8y ago
  Proposed is the key word here. You should have a look at how it happens in other legislatures. Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists But many times it's not. Any Congressman or Senator can introduce legislature onto the floor of their house. The requirement that proposals originate in the Commission is problematic. The Council, moreover, is analogous to a meeting of State Governors or Attorneys General. The only truly democratic arm of the EU is the Parliament. Its role at the end of the chain is problematic. (Contrast that with the analog in the American system, the House of Representatives, where appropriations bills are required to originate.)
    - laumars 8y ago
      It's not ideal - I'll agree with you on that. But pragmatically I think it's really more of an illogical debate than one that makes any practical difference. Elected officials are still all too easily swayed by lobbyists and we see all too often that elected governments can get away with pushing unpopular legislation (UK Snoopers Charter, for example) if they want to. The problem with democracy is people vote once every few years and see that as their voice being heard. In the meantime governments are free to do whatever they want just so long as they can win back public support in the weeks leading up to the next election.
      - Silhouette 8y ago
        You keep claiming the Snooper's Charter was unpopular and went through anyway, but sadly you are wrong: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/18/more-surveillance-please-were-british/ https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/18/more-surveillance-pleas... Overall, the UK population has consistently supported stronger surveillance powers for a long time and by a clear margin. For better or worse, we tend to trust our authorities here. And to be fair, most of the time, our authorities do seem to use their powers responsibly, so to some extent that trust has been earned. One problem with this is that whenever surveillance issues have been discussed in the media and these polls have been carried out, they invariably talk about giving powers to the most serious policing and national security organisations using the powers to defend against the most serious of crimes and security problems. However, the reality is often that the laws allow for much more than that, with many more people getting powers and access to surveillance data, with much less control and oversight than the public might expect, to deal with minor issues where intrusive surveillance is wildly disproportionate, but most people who aren't heavily into tech or civil liberties don't realise any of this at all.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    No, it's a fundamental point. The Commission (a vast body of appointees controlled totally by just one man) is the only EU institution that can actually initiate changes to the law. Every other body merely gets to slow it down. This means that if something is on the Commission's agenda, it gets proposed, and if the Commission disagrees, the views of the other institutions are worth nothing. This setup is very clever because it allows the EU to look superficially democratic without actually being so. Look at all the people saying "write to your MEP" on this thread. It's useless, because of the following process: 1. The European "Parliament" cannot initiate changes to the law (i.e. it's not really a parliament). It can ask the Commission to do it on the Parliament's behalf, but the Commission can say no or propose something different. 2. Therefore, political parties in the EP don't have any real policies. They can't: creating a political party that e.g. campaigns for better immigration control is meaningless in the EU because the Commission will just say no. 3. Therefore, the sort of people who go to sit in the EP and try to win EP elections are basically yes-men, people so enthralled with the whole concept of the EU they just want to be a part of it in some small way, along with a small collection of people who are there only to troll and try to get their country to leave at the EU's expense, like Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. The entire system is designed to LOOK like a democratic government but without ever having to respond to what voters actually want.
    - laumars 8y ago
      I'm not going to disagree with you that there are serious faults with the way the EU is structured, but... > The entire system is designed to LOOK like a democratic government but without ever having to respond to what voters actually want. The same could be said for any major democracy I've followed. How often is it UK voters get the policies they (we) want? Who actually voted for the snoopers charter (etc)? What about American voters? Policy over there is often biased against the average voter. The depressing reality is that normal voters opinions don't generally amount for much when it comes to law making. I think Sir Winston Churchill put it best when he said: > Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
- laumars 8y ago
  Proposals are all too frequently written by unelected bureaucrats in any democracy. I don't like it much but at least elected officials do get the final say before it becomes enshrined into law. This is as true for the EU as it is for the UK and American law makings too. Not that I see that as a huge benefit because elected bureaucrats are often even less aware of the subject their making policy on than their unelected peers. Plus while I'm obviously not going to defend the EU's copyright reform proposal (hopefully it will be rejected in July) the other governments I've listed haven't got a much better track record for copyright reform themselves.

andai 8y ago

"Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission", popularly referred to as the "unelected bureaucrats". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_procedure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_p... Sounds a bit un-democratic, no?

pjc50 8y ago
Proposed is the key word here. You should have a look at how it happens in other legislatures. Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists But many times it's not. Any Congressman or Senator can introduce legislature onto the floor of their house. The requirement that proposals originate in the Commission is problematic. The Council, moreover, is analogous to a meeting of State Governors or Attorneys General. The only truly democratic arm of the EU is the Parliament. Its role at the end of the chain is problematic. (Contrast that with the analog in the American system, the House of Representatives, where appropriations bills are required to originate.)
  - laumars 8y ago
    It's not ideal - I'll agree with you on that. But pragmatically I think it's really more of an illogical debate than one that makes any practical difference. Elected officials are still all too easily swayed by lobbyists and we see all too often that elected governments can get away with pushing unpopular legislation (UK Snoopers Charter, for example) if they want to. The problem with democracy is people vote once every few years and see that as their voice being heard. In the meantime governments are free to do whatever they want just so long as they can win back public support in the weeks leading up to the next election.
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      You keep claiming the Snooper's Charter was unpopular and went through anyway, but sadly you are wrong: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/18/more-surveillance-please-were-british/ https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/18/more-surveillance-pleas... Overall, the UK population has consistently supported stronger surveillance powers for a long time and by a clear margin. For better or worse, we tend to trust our authorities here. And to be fair, most of the time, our authorities do seem to use their powers responsibly, so to some extent that trust has been earned. One problem with this is that whenever surveillance issues have been discussed in the media and these polls have been carried out, they invariably talk about giving powers to the most serious policing and national security organisations using the powers to defend against the most serious of crimes and security problems. However, the reality is often that the laws allow for much more than that, with many more people getting powers and access to surveillance data, with much less control and oversight than the public might expect, to deal with minor issues where intrusive surveillance is wildly disproportionate, but most people who aren't heavily into tech or civil liberties don't realise any of this at all.
- repolfx 8y ago
  No, it's a fundamental point. The Commission (a vast body of appointees controlled totally by just one man) is the only EU institution that can actually initiate changes to the law. Every other body merely gets to slow it down. This means that if something is on the Commission's agenda, it gets proposed, and if the Commission disagrees, the views of the other institutions are worth nothing. This setup is very clever because it allows the EU to look superficially democratic without actually being so. Look at all the people saying "write to your MEP" on this thread. It's useless, because of the following process: 1. The European "Parliament" cannot initiate changes to the law (i.e. it's not really a parliament). It can ask the Commission to do it on the Parliament's behalf, but the Commission can say no or propose something different. 2. Therefore, political parties in the EP don't have any real policies. They can't: creating a political party that e.g. campaigns for better immigration control is meaningless in the EU because the Commission will just say no. 3. Therefore, the sort of people who go to sit in the EP and try to win EP elections are basically yes-men, people so enthralled with the whole concept of the EU they just want to be a part of it in some small way, along with a small collection of people who are there only to troll and try to get their country to leave at the EU's expense, like Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. The entire system is designed to LOOK like a democratic government but without ever having to respond to what voters actually want.
  - laumars 8y ago
    I'm not going to disagree with you that there are serious faults with the way the EU is structured, but... > The entire system is designed to LOOK like a democratic government but without ever having to respond to what voters actually want. The same could be said for any major democracy I've followed. How often is it UK voters get the policies they (we) want? Who actually voted for the snoopers charter (etc)? What about American voters? Policy over there is often biased against the average voter. The depressing reality is that normal voters opinions don't generally amount for much when it comes to law making. I think Sir Winston Churchill put it best when he said: > Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
laumars 8y ago
Proposals are all too frequently written by unelected bureaucrats in any democracy. I don't like it much but at least elected officials do get the final say before it becomes enshrined into law. This is as true for the EU as it is for the UK and American law makings too. Not that I see that as a huge benefit because elected bureaucrats are often even less aware of the subject their making policy on than their unelected peers. Plus while I'm obviously not going to defend the EU's copyright reform proposal (hopefully it will be rejected in July) the other governments I've listed haven't got a much better track record for copyright reform themselves.