4 ms·

The EU is overgrown from mild benevolent rules unifying member countries on similar traits to a massive body of law and power that nobody knows. I used to be q

by alecco 8y ago

The EU is overgrown from mild benevolent rules unifying member countries on similar traits to a massive body of law and power that nobody knows. I used to be quite against Brexit but after seeing on of the videos on the EU I am now skeptical. There are 3 big voting bodies: EU Council, EU Parliament, and EU comission. The majority of people don't know the difference and nobody knows the people in there. In the last decade they started micro-managing everything in the EU. Think of gdpr and the new copyright rules. It's starting to resemble a big authoritarian state. Also they apply uniformly the same strategy for countries like Germany/Austria/Netherlands and Greece/Portugal/Italy when they are in very different situations. The former are quite happy with the arrangement, the latter are trapped in a death spiral.

pavlov 8y ago
> ”There are 3 big voting bodies: EU Council, EU Parliament, and EU comission. The majority of people don't know the difference and nobody knows the people in there.” As a pro-Brexit argument, this seems weak. I think most people can’t explain the difference between the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Cabinet either. The EU structure really isn’t that complex when you remember that its power is granted by the member states, so the highest authority is an oversight body consisting of each country’s elected governments — that’s the EU council. The Commission is the executive branch and the Parliament is legislative. That’s it.
- tomp 8y ago
  The difference is that the House of Commons elects the Cabinet; not so in the EU (that's IMO where half of the problem is coming from). In the future, when we're setting up even larger multinational organisations (even a world government), EU will be a good example of what not to do.
  - kazen44 8y ago
    Except that this is simply not true, the head of the european comission is elected through the EU parlement, and the rest is appointed by the council of ministers. (which are appointed by the national elections of each member state). People should stop comparing the EU to any other national system, because it is inherently an supranational and intergovermental system.
    - tomp 8y ago
      haha which part of my comment is "simply not true"?! the parliament doesn't elect the commission, we both seem to agree on that
      - isostatic 8y ago
        That "House of Commons elects the Cabinet" MPs in the house of commons elect the Prime Minister (typically this means the leader of the largest party). Technically it's the Queen appointing them, I believe on advice of the civil service on the basis that they will be able to command a vote of confidence, but in practice it's the MPs themselves. The Prime Minister then appoints the cabinet, most of whom will be elected MPs by their local constituents (in practice at least half of the seats in the UK are "safe seats", meaning the MP is appointed by local party memebrs) The Prime Minister also appoints one of the EU commissioners (and the PM's counterparts in the other EU states also appoint one). The EU parliament elects the president of the commission from a pool suggested by the heads of government. That president then allocates each of the commissioners they've been sent by governments to various roles.
  - pavlov 8y ago
    In the UK, voters elect MPs who choose the Cabinet. In the EU, voters elect national governments who each appoint a member to the EU Commission. The EU Parliament also gets a say in the election of the Commission President. Obviously it's a compromise because national governments don't want to give up their power. But it's not as undemocratic as is often claimed.
    - tomp 8y ago
      I'm not saying it's undemocratic. Just that the purpose of the parliament, and EU parties, is much more limited than it should be; no wonder that people then don't really care about EU elections.
      - kazen44 8y ago
        The trouble with their limited influence has mainly to do with the fact that the political capital to lead european parties take the lead (instead of national ones) is something which is currently political suicide among many politicians. This is a chicken and egg problem, national politicians can always blame the EU for their problems, and the European political parties are not able to prove their worth because they are being held down by national politics of member states. One solutions would be a completely seperate system, but that would require some form of federalisation, which is politically and culturally not feasable at the moment.
- toyg 8y ago
  > The Commission is the executive branch and the Parliament is legislative Er, no. Commission and Council are both legislative and executive at the same time. The oversight organ is Parliament. A lot of the of the ill-will against the EU setup comes from this non-traditional arrangement that betrays Montesquieu for the good of efficiency at scale: it's so hard and slow to write laws in national parliaments, that EU governments decided the model wouldn't work at continental level. You can look at the (in)efficiency of comparable bodies (US Congress and Indian parliament) to see the problem in action every day. So multiple generations of EU politicians decided it would be easier to take hard decisions in a small room (Council), then leave it to the bureaucrats (Commission) to implement them. When the model was criticized for being undemocratic, they begrudgingly agreed to have a Parliament with veto powers. But democracy, once started, is a rolling boulder; so the role of EUParliament has grown with every election. The Commission cannot steamroll measures anymore, so EUP assumed a de-facto legislative role too. This is Good in historical terms and can only get better with time. Already the composition of the Commission has moved from a compromise brokered on purely-ethnic lines by national governments, to a body that also has to reflect the political inclinations of the sitting Parliament, lest they get rejected. Parliament will not rubber-stamp anymore. The problem is that some elements of EU politics continue to be insulated from Parliament. Fiscal matters in particular, where states are completely unchecked, must be tied to Parliament in some way. Until that happens, demagogues will have an easy way to misdirect, talking of "Council" and "Troikas" as some unelected bodies when they are simple smokescreens for national governments to hide behind. It has to be corrected. From a history-buff perspective, the current era is an exciting time: the continent is basically rewriting its constitutional asset in real-time. It's the sort of sea-change that happens once every 200 years; like a Vienna Congress or US Constitutional Convention, but spread over decades.
craigsmansion 8y ago
> after seeing on of the videos on the EU I am now skeptical The EU is almost desperately transparent: http://europa.eu/ http://europa.eu/ > There are 3 big voting bodies: EU Council, EU Parliament, and EU comission. The Council are the elected heads of state of EU members. They decide on the course. The EU commission is tasked with implementing that course, and producing legislation. The EU parliament is tasked with correcting that legislation. Although they have little legislative power, they can dissolve the commission. In the grand scheme of things, the buck stops with them. They are elected directly by EU citizens. > they started micro-managing everything in the EU. The EU takes care of the things almost all members agree on (remember, the Council sets the course). They don't get to be involved in high-coverage contentious politics. > Think of gdpr Yes, a highly popular measure inside Europe, even by tech people who are affected by it. > It's starting to resemble a big authoritarian state. Yes, they will force members to do their bidding with fish-quota, clean beaches, and humane labour conditions. The EU structure is a little complicated, but it's 400 million citizens we're talking about. Its powers are very limited and is derived from 27 countries wanting to interact to try and set a course that benefits everyone, instead of individual countries racing each other to the bottom with disastrous results.
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  > > Think of gdpr > Yes, a highly popular measure inside Europe, even by tech people who are affected by it. I beg to differ. 'Controversial' is more like it. There are some who are in favour of GDPR but there are also those - myself included - who consider it well-intentioned but badly executed.
- alecco 8y ago
  Yes, I mentioned both gdpr and copyright as I'm not disingenuous to just paint the negative side only. And the point was them micro-managing law. You conveniently kept out the copyright one.
  - quonn 8y ago
    What you call micro-managing is really regulations. And those are almost synonymous with the single market. If regulations would not be the same, there could be no single market (that benefits everyone, including companies and workers), because national differences would distort that.
quonn 8y ago
This is simply not true. I know the MPs that I voted for as well as the leaders of the major blocks and those who regularly talk. I sure know who is the german member of the commission as well as the president. And I know the president of the council. This is comparable to what I know about national politics as well. I don‘t know most MPs and can‘t name all ministers. For most of my friends it is the same. Furthermore if people wouldn‘t know that explains very little about the EU.
kamaal 8y ago
>>The EU is overgrown from mild benevolent rules unifying member countries on similar traits to a massive body of law and power that nobody knows. I'm not an US citizen. But one of things that Donald Trump said repeatedly during his campaign speeches, was that globalization largely looked like a unelected bureaucracy running the world economic affairs at their whim without accountability. Transfer of jobs, factories and even small business based on economic centers en-masse across countries.

by alecco 8y ago

pavlov 8y ago

> ”There are 3 big voting bodies: EU Council, EU Parliament, and EU comission. The majority of people don't know the difference and nobody knows the people in there.” As a pro-Brexit argument, this seems weak. I think most people can’t explain the difference between the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Cabinet either. The EU structure really isn’t that complex when you remember that its power is granted by the member states, so the highest authority is an oversight body consisting of each country’s elected governments — that’s the EU council. The Commission is the executive branch and the Parliament is legislative. That’s it.

tomp 8y ago
The difference is that the House of Commons elects the Cabinet; not so in the EU (that's IMO where half of the problem is coming from). In the future, when we're setting up even larger multinational organisations (even a world government), EU will be a good example of what not to do.
- kazen44 8y ago
  Except that this is simply not true, the head of the european comission is elected through the EU parlement, and the rest is appointed by the council of ministers. (which are appointed by the national elections of each member state). People should stop comparing the EU to any other national system, because it is inherently an supranational and intergovermental system.
  - tomp 8y ago
    haha which part of my comment is "simply not true"?! the parliament doesn't elect the commission, we both seem to agree on that
    - isostatic 8y ago
      That "House of Commons elects the Cabinet" MPs in the house of commons elect the Prime Minister (typically this means the leader of the largest party). Technically it's the Queen appointing them, I believe on advice of the civil service on the basis that they will be able to command a vote of confidence, but in practice it's the MPs themselves. The Prime Minister then appoints the cabinet, most of whom will be elected MPs by their local constituents (in practice at least half of the seats in the UK are "safe seats", meaning the MP is appointed by local party memebrs) The Prime Minister also appoints one of the EU commissioners (and the PM's counterparts in the other EU states also appoint one). The EU parliament elects the president of the commission from a pool suggested by the heads of government. That president then allocates each of the commissioners they've been sent by governments to various roles.
- pavlov 8y ago
  In the UK, voters elect MPs who choose the Cabinet. In the EU, voters elect national governments who each appoint a member to the EU Commission. The EU Parliament also gets a say in the election of the Commission President. Obviously it's a compromise because national governments don't want to give up their power. But it's not as undemocratic as is often claimed.
  - tomp 8y ago
    I'm not saying it's undemocratic. Just that the purpose of the parliament, and EU parties, is much more limited than it should be; no wonder that people then don't really care about EU elections.
    - kazen44 8y ago
      The trouble with their limited influence has mainly to do with the fact that the political capital to lead european parties take the lead (instead of national ones) is something which is currently political suicide among many politicians. This is a chicken and egg problem, national politicians can always blame the EU for their problems, and the European political parties are not able to prove their worth because they are being held down by national politics of member states. One solutions would be a completely seperate system, but that would require some form of federalisation, which is politically and culturally not feasable at the moment.
toyg 8y ago
> The Commission is the executive branch and the Parliament is legislative Er, no. Commission and Council are both legislative and executive at the same time. The oversight organ is Parliament. A lot of the of the ill-will against the EU setup comes from this non-traditional arrangement that betrays Montesquieu for the good of efficiency at scale: it's so hard and slow to write laws in national parliaments, that EU governments decided the model wouldn't work at continental level. You can look at the (in)efficiency of comparable bodies (US Congress and Indian parliament) to see the problem in action every day. So multiple generations of EU politicians decided it would be easier to take hard decisions in a small room (Council), then leave it to the bureaucrats (Commission) to implement them. When the model was criticized for being undemocratic, they begrudgingly agreed to have a Parliament with veto powers. But democracy, once started, is a rolling boulder; so the role of EUParliament has grown with every election. The Commission cannot steamroll measures anymore, so EUP assumed a de-facto legislative role too. This is Good in historical terms and can only get better with time. Already the composition of the Commission has moved from a compromise brokered on purely-ethnic lines by national governments, to a body that also has to reflect the political inclinations of the sitting Parliament, lest they get rejected. Parliament will not rubber-stamp anymore. The problem is that some elements of EU politics continue to be insulated from Parliament. Fiscal matters in particular, where states are completely unchecked, must be tied to Parliament in some way. Until that happens, demagogues will have an easy way to misdirect, talking of "Council" and "Troikas" as some unelected bodies when they are simple smokescreens for national governments to hide behind. It has to be corrected. From a history-buff perspective, the current era is an exciting time: the continent is basically rewriting its constitutional asset in real-time. It's the sort of sea-change that happens once every 200 years; like a Vienna Congress or US Constitutional Convention, but spread over decades.

craigsmansion 8y ago

> after seeing on of the videos on the EU I am now skeptical The EU is almost desperately transparent: http://europa.eu/ http://europa.eu/ > There are 3 big voting bodies: EU Council, EU Parliament, and EU comission. The Council are the elected heads of state of EU members. They decide on the course. The EU commission is tasked with implementing that course, and producing legislation. The EU parliament is tasked with correcting that legislation. Although they have little legislative power, they can dissolve the commission. In the grand scheme of things, the buck stops with them. They are elected directly by EU citizens. > they started micro-managing everything in the EU. The EU takes care of the things almost all members agree on (remember, the Council sets the course). They don't get to be involved in high-coverage contentious politics. > Think of gdpr Yes, a highly popular measure inside Europe, even by tech people who are affected by it. > It's starting to resemble a big authoritarian state. Yes, they will force members to do their bidding with fish-quota, clean beaches, and humane labour conditions. The EU structure is a little complicated, but it's 400 million citizens we're talking about. Its powers are very limited and is derived from 27 countries wanting to interact to try and set a course that benefits everyone, instead of individual countries racing each other to the bottom with disastrous results.

BjoernKW 8y ago
> > Think of gdpr > Yes, a highly popular measure inside Europe, even by tech people who are affected by it. I beg to differ. 'Controversial' is more like it. There are some who are in favour of GDPR but there are also those - myself included - who consider it well-intentioned but badly executed.
alecco 8y ago
Yes, I mentioned both gdpr and copyright as I'm not disingenuous to just paint the negative side only. And the point was them micro-managing law. You conveniently kept out the copyright one.
- quonn 8y ago
  What you call micro-managing is really regulations. And those are almost synonymous with the single market. If regulations would not be the same, there could be no single market (that benefits everyone, including companies and workers), because national differences would distort that.

quonn 8y ago

This is simply not true. I know the MPs that I voted for as well as the leaders of the major blocks and those who regularly talk. I sure know who is the german member of the commission as well as the president. And I know the president of the council. This is comparable to what I know about national politics as well. I don‘t know most MPs and can‘t name all ministers. For most of my friends it is the same. Furthermore if people wouldn‘t know that explains very little about the EU.

kamaal 8y ago

>>The EU is overgrown from mild benevolent rules unifying member countries on similar traits to a massive body of law and power that nobody knows. I'm not an US citizen. But one of things that Donald Trump said repeatedly during his campaign speeches, was that globalization largely looked like a unelected bureaucracy running the world economic affairs at their whim without accountability. Transfer of jobs, factories and even small business based on economic centers en-masse across countries.