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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 initia
by 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 agoI'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.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- timrichard 8y agoThe appropriate analogy would be that all legislation is proposed by the House of Lords, and then mostly rubber-stamped by the democratically elected House of Commons (many of whom would like to make it into the HoL one day).
- repolfx 8y agoWell, seems pretty often to me? MPs didn't want Brexit. Voters did, now it's happening (maybe, unless the government blinks first in the MAD standoff the EU insists on). Voters wanted stricter immigration, even though many MPs are convinced immigration is a net positive. They are getting it. Voters refused to contemplate tax rises, or so it was believed, so reducing the deficit has been done primarily through spending cuts and the growing economy. Voters are obsessed with the NHS - just a few days ago there was an announcement of a huge pile of new money for it, wasn't there? Seems like whilst it can take time and of course politicians can pass laws nobody asked for, if you take the top 2-3 priorities of the voters at any point, the government is usually responding to them in some way.
- pjc50 8y ago> (voters wanted Brexit) .. according to Dominic Cummings, this was because they were promised a huge amount of money for the NHS. This has been re-announced by Theresa May with no real explanation of where it would come from. And now ... what exactly is happening? There's still a horrifying lack of confirmed detail. > Voters wanted stricter immigration ... They are getting it. Are they? Through which policy changes?
- repolfx 8y agoAre they? Through which policy changes? The "hostile environment" policy and promises that post-leaving, EU immigration will be controlled too.