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The EU democratic structure is complex, that for sure. But it's hardly undemocratic. I don't really want to start a rehash of the entire Brexit debate we had i

The EU democratic structure is complex, that for sure. But it's hardly undemocratic. I don't really want to start a rehash of the entire Brexit debate we had in the UK, but the EU does have a serious democratic deficit. Ask yourself this simple question: Can a citizen who is governed by the EU meaningfully influence who is doing that governing? In particular, can a large group of citizens affect who holds power within the EU and vote out those individuals they don't want, so any individual office holder has some degree of personal accountability to the electorate? It would take quite a leap to argue that the European Commission, which is where most of the real power still lies in practice, would meet any of those standards. It is debatable whether even the European Parliament does, though it is at least more directly affected by the public vote. For example in the UK our prime minister isn't directly elected, the general public didn't "choose" Boris Johnson. Instead the conservative party did, via its own methodology which it can change any time it does. Our arrangement here in the UK suffers from a similar problem of failing to faithfully represent the will of the electorate. FPTP is a deeply flawed voting system on purely mathematical grounds, and then the mechanics through which the PM and by extension the government come to power once MPs have been elected can be even more distorted. If you don't think it matters that many of our population have little influence over who occupies Number 10, I would respectfully remind you that one of the first things each new PM does is handwrite four letters that could literally cause the end of the world as we know it.

avianlyric 6y ago
> Can a citizen who is governed by the EU meaningfully influence who is doing that governing? In particular, can a large group of citizens affect who holds power within the EU and vote out those individuals they don't want, so any individual office holder has some degree of personal accountability to the electorate? Erm yes. A large group of citizen can apply pressure to its local government to push for change in the EU, they can also to the same via MEP elections. You just need to remember that a "large group" need to be very large to be considered important relative to the EU 450 million citizens. The UK's total population only makes up 14% of the total EU population, what gives us the right to dictate terms over the remaining 86%? National governments pick the members of the European Commision, so if you're not happy with your European Commission representative, take it up with your national government. As for the member picked by other governments, well you wouldn't expect to have power over an MP that doesn't represent you. > It is debatable whether even the European Parliament does The European Parliament obviously does. The only reason why the UK keeps getting short changed by the European Parliament is because we keep electing idiots into power. Most because our national government like to pretend MEPs don't exist, thus doesn't educate people on the importance of MEP elections, then acts surprised when the European Parliament doesn't represent the UK population. > If you don't think it matters that many of our population have little influence over who occupies Number 10 I think it does matter, I think it matter quite a bit. But I'm not convinced that the general public is the best body to make that choice directly. The whole point of have a representatives is that they have the time and resources to educate themselves on the minutiae of state, and make better decisions than the general public. Not because they're smarter or better, but because they're better informed. My view on the EU debate in the UK has always boiled down to the fact the UK public has simply not bothered to engage with the democratic systems in the EU, so it's not a surprise that those systems don't represent us. The fix here was always for the UK to actually participate in the EU, not just strope, but that would require the UK national government to stop using the EU as it scapegoat for its own domestic failures. At least with Brexit the UK government won't be able to blame the EU for everything anymore, and we might actually get some competent leaders with a real vision for the UK.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  These are the usual arguments in defence of the EU's democratic credentials. The fundamental problem I have with them is that they don't actually meet the simple, transparent standards I set out for meaningful democratic representation. National governments pick the members of the European Commision, so if you're not happy with your European Commission representative, take it up with your national government. How, specifically, should someone do that in practice? Does someone cast an anonymous vote to indicate their preference? Will some robust system then make an objective determination of the outcome based on the popular vote? This is how the people customarily determine their representatives in a representative democracy. In reality, the number of levels of indirection between you or me as ordinary people who vote in elections and Ursula von der Leyen as the most powerful person in the EU government removes any meaningful requirement for her to either achieve a popular mandate before taking office or accept any meaningful personal accountability for her performance while in office. And more generally, European Commissioner is infamous for being a role you give a national politician who is still in favour with the leadership but perhaps has lost popular support. Just look at the past roles of the people who get nominated to these positions by their respective governments. There's an incredible number of ex-representatives, and often not ex- by choice but because the electorate chose not to re-elect them. The European Parliament obviously does. Not in my country. While it operates a PR system, it's a party list, so again at a minimum it fails my personal accountability criterion. The only way for the people to remove a particular individual they don't like from power is, in this case, to remove everyone from that individual's party from power in that electoral region. In fact, this is the same basic problem with many of the situations we've been discussing here. You can in theory indirectly influence which individual holds power. The catch is that your only way to remove them is some sort of nuclear option. Don't like your nation's choice for European Commissioner? No problem, just elect a different entire national government at the last election. Don't like the UK's current PM? No problem, just make sure no-one votes for any MPs in that person's party at the last election. Don't like the current European Commission President? Sorry, I can't help you much with that one because hardly anyone (including hundreds of MEPs, by the way) actually knows how she got the job. The whole point of have a representatives is that they have the time and resources to educate themselves on the minutiae of state, and make better decisions than the general public. Not because they're smarter or better, but because they're better informed. Again, so the theory goes. But as someone who has interacted with various MPs personally, and through them also with senior figures in government on a few occasions, I can promise you that it is a work of fiction in practice. Just look at the nonsense MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate were shouting from the rooftops before the referendum. Or for something a little less inflammatory, try the arguments they've made about regulating business and technology, including in the EU measures we're discussing here and the roughly analogous UK plans also announced today. Those weren't the arguments of well-informed experts who have studied the issues and drawn rational conclusions. In many cases, they weren't even the arguments of a moderately well-informed member of the general public. And they were statements not just from elected representatives but often from senior government figures! The truth is that there is absolutely nothing about our current system of government that requires our MPs to be qualified to make or capable of making better decisions than members of the public who are well-informed about and personally interested in any particular issue. Even those who are intelligent and trying to do a good job, as I'm sure many MPs actually are despite all the negative press they get, can't possibly become experts on everything and don't have the resources to staff it out. And even on issues they do choose to prioritise, unless they are members of the party in power and take a government position with all the strings that are attached to doing so, their power to influence policy is often very limited even when acting in quite large groups. And the same is true of most other elected representatives and political appointments, whether in the UK or EU. This isn't about Brexit, or about being pro- or anti-EU, if that even means anything anyway. It's a problem with systems of government operating at national and international levels where those in power are so well insulated from the voting public that they don't require a popular mandate and aren't required to be accountable to the people for whom they supposedly act. That's not democracy, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word.
bserge 6y ago
> Can a citizen who is governed by the EU meaningfully influence who is doing that governing? In particular, can a large group of citizens affect who holds power within the EU and vote out those individuals they don't want, so any individual office holder has some degree of personal accountability to the electorate? In theory, yes. But it would take a huge group of people. Which is practically impossible these days. So you are right, there is a serious deficit of democracy, not only in the EU, but everywhere imo.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  I realised after I wrote my original comment that I forgot to add a rider along the lines of "without causing profound and possibly unwanted side effects", which is often the fundamental problem with having indirectly elected (aka appointed without a popular vote) people in positions of power. And you're right, this is a very widespread problem today. That doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge the issue and challenge the status quo where opportunities present, of course.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
I don't see how Brexit was supposed to fix an alleged EU democratic deficit when the UK suffers from the same problems - even more so, because most EU countries don't have FPTP. In fact the EC is just the EU's version of the UK cabinet, but on a bigger scale. Everyone present is elected by their national voters, but there are - as yet - no direct EU-wide elections for specific EU posts. Opponents of the EU criticise this while simultaneously being furious at any hint of closer political union which might make direct EU-wide elections possible.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Just to be clear, I'm neither arguing for nor arguing against Brexit here. Personally, I am a politically interested floating voter with no party affiliation. On the specific issue of Brexit, I have always had mixed feelings, for the simple reason that I expect it to have both some good and some bad effects for both the UK and the EU27, and I'm not sure anyone truly knows what the balance between them will end up being in the long term. Something that does matter to me very much is how we run our governments, and that governments act with popular support and are accountable to their people. On this count, I do indeed make very similar criticisms of the way the EU operates and the way our own system of government operates here in the UK.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    In that case I don't understand your point. You seem to be arguing for direct representation in the previous comment and arguing against it in the comment below.
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      I'm not really arguing for or against direct representation as such. I tend to judge democratic systems by their practical effects. Do they result in governments that act with popular support? Are the individuals who achieve power within those governments accountable to the people they supposedly act for, such that there will be consequences for them personally if they don't faithfully act for the people and do a decent job of it? It's true that directly elected representatives are, in some situations, more likely to meet those standards. Indirectly elected officials are, by the nature of the system, not in need of a personal popular mandate to achieve power, nor directly accountable to the people, and the gap widens as more levels of indirection separate the official from someone who actually had to win a popular vote. But I'm not necessarily arguing for directly electing everyone in public office. I don't think that works very well in practice either, because voters get election fatigue and anything but the big ticket elections can easily end up being more about which candidates have the best PR and spin rather than the best policies on the issues. What I do think would be a big improvement in many cases is directly electing the people at the top of a system of government and having appointed officials subordinate to them. Many of the democratic deficits identified in this discussion, from forming the European Commission to choosing the PM and by extension the government in the UK, are examples where the lower level representatives are the only ones who actually have to win an election, and then some number of averages of averages up the tree you get the people with most of the real power being isolated from needing to attract or maintain popular support. I don't think this kind of arrangement is healthy for democracy, and I think forcing direct elections for those most senior positions would go some way to fixing the problem.

avianlyric 6y ago

> Can a citizen who is governed by the EU meaningfully influence who is doing that governing? In particular, can a large group of citizens affect who holds power within the EU and vote out those individuals they don't want, so any individual office holder has some degree of personal accountability to the electorate? Erm yes. A large group of citizen can apply pressure to its local government to push for change in the EU, they can also to the same via MEP elections. You just need to remember that a "large group" need to be very large to be considered important relative to the EU 450 million citizens. The UK's total population only makes up 14% of the total EU population, what gives us the right to dictate terms over the remaining 86%? National governments pick the members of the European Commision, so if you're not happy with your European Commission representative, take it up with your national government. As for the member picked by other governments, well you wouldn't expect to have power over an MP that doesn't represent you. > It is debatable whether even the European Parliament does The European Parliament obviously does. The only reason why the UK keeps getting short changed by the European Parliament is because we keep electing idiots into power. Most because our national government like to pretend MEPs don't exist, thus doesn't educate people on the importance of MEP elections, then acts surprised when the European Parliament doesn't represent the UK population. > If you don't think it matters that many of our population have little influence over who occupies Number 10 I think it does matter, I think it matter quite a bit. But I'm not convinced that the general public is the best body to make that choice directly. The whole point of have a representatives is that they have the time and resources to educate themselves on the minutiae of state, and make better decisions than the general public. Not because they're smarter or better, but because they're better informed. My view on the EU debate in the UK has always boiled down to the fact the UK public has simply not bothered to engage with the democratic systems in the EU, so it's not a surprise that those systems don't represent us. The fix here was always for the UK to actually participate in the EU, not just strope, but that would require the UK national government to stop using the EU as it scapegoat for its own domestic failures. At least with Brexit the UK government won't be able to blame the EU for everything anymore, and we might actually get some competent leaders with a real vision for the UK.

Silhouette 6y ago
These are the usual arguments in defence of the EU's democratic credentials. The fundamental problem I have with them is that they don't actually meet the simple, transparent standards I set out for meaningful democratic representation. National governments pick the members of the European Commision, so if you're not happy with your European Commission representative, take it up with your national government. How, specifically, should someone do that in practice? Does someone cast an anonymous vote to indicate their preference? Will some robust system then make an objective determination of the outcome based on the popular vote? This is how the people customarily determine their representatives in a representative democracy. In reality, the number of levels of indirection between you or me as ordinary people who vote in elections and Ursula von der Leyen as the most powerful person in the EU government removes any meaningful requirement for her to either achieve a popular mandate before taking office or accept any meaningful personal accountability for her performance while in office. And more generally, European Commissioner is infamous for being a role you give a national politician who is still in favour with the leadership but perhaps has lost popular support. Just look at the past roles of the people who get nominated to these positions by their respective governments. There's an incredible number of ex-representatives, and often not ex- by choice but because the electorate chose not to re-elect them. The European Parliament obviously does. Not in my country. While it operates a PR system, it's a party list, so again at a minimum it fails my personal accountability criterion. The only way for the people to remove a particular individual they don't like from power is, in this case, to remove everyone from that individual's party from power in that electoral region. In fact, this is the same basic problem with many of the situations we've been discussing here. You can in theory indirectly influence which individual holds power. The catch is that your only way to remove them is some sort of nuclear option. Don't like your nation's choice for European Commissioner? No problem, just elect a different entire national government at the last election. Don't like the UK's current PM? No problem, just make sure no-one votes for any MPs in that person's party at the last election. Don't like the current European Commission President? Sorry, I can't help you much with that one because hardly anyone (including hundreds of MEPs, by the way) actually knows how she got the job. The whole point of have a representatives is that they have the time and resources to educate themselves on the minutiae of state, and make better decisions than the general public. Not because they're smarter or better, but because they're better informed. Again, so the theory goes. But as someone who has interacted with various MPs personally, and through them also with senior figures in government on a few occasions, I can promise you that it is a work of fiction in practice. Just look at the nonsense MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate were shouting from the rooftops before the referendum. Or for something a little less inflammatory, try the arguments they've made about regulating business and technology, including in the EU measures we're discussing here and the roughly analogous UK plans also announced today. Those weren't the arguments of well-informed experts who have studied the issues and drawn rational conclusions. In many cases, they weren't even the arguments of a moderately well-informed member of the general public. And they were statements not just from elected representatives but often from senior government figures! The truth is that there is absolutely nothing about our current system of government that requires our MPs to be qualified to make or capable of making better decisions than members of the public who are well-informed about and personally interested in any particular issue. Even those who are intelligent and trying to do a good job, as I'm sure many MPs actually are despite all the negative press they get, can't possibly become experts on everything and don't have the resources to staff it out. And even on issues they do choose to prioritise, unless they are members of the party in power and take a government position with all the strings that are attached to doing so, their power to influence policy is often very limited even when acting in quite large groups. And the same is true of most other elected representatives and political appointments, whether in the UK or EU. This isn't about Brexit, or about being pro- or anti-EU, if that even means anything anyway. It's a problem with systems of government operating at national and international levels where those in power are so well insulated from the voting public that they don't require a popular mandate and aren't required to be accountable to the people for whom they supposedly act. That's not democracy, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word.

bserge 6y ago

Silhouette 6y ago
I realised after I wrote my original comment that I forgot to add a rider along the lines of "without causing profound and possibly unwanted side effects", which is often the fundamental problem with having indirectly elected (aka appointed without a popular vote) people in positions of power. And you're right, this is a very widespread problem today. That doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge the issue and challenge the status quo where opportunities present, of course.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

I don't see how Brexit was supposed to fix an alleged EU democratic deficit when the UK suffers from the same problems - even more so, because most EU countries don't have FPTP. In fact the EC is just the EU's version of the UK cabinet, but on a bigger scale. Everyone present is elected by their national voters, but there are - as yet - no direct EU-wide elections for specific EU posts. Opponents of the EU criticise this while simultaneously being furious at any hint of closer political union which might make direct EU-wide elections possible.

Silhouette 6y ago
Just to be clear, I'm neither arguing for nor arguing against Brexit here. Personally, I am a politically interested floating voter with no party affiliation. On the specific issue of Brexit, I have always had mixed feelings, for the simple reason that I expect it to have both some good and some bad effects for both the UK and the EU27, and I'm not sure anyone truly knows what the balance between them will end up being in the long term. Something that does matter to me very much is how we run our governments, and that governments act with popular support and are accountable to their people. On this count, I do indeed make very similar criticisms of the way the EU operates and the way our own system of government operates here in the UK.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  In that case I don't understand your point. You seem to be arguing for direct representation in the previous comment and arguing against it in the comment below.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    I'm not really arguing for or against direct representation as such. I tend to judge democratic systems by their practical effects. Do they result in governments that act with popular support? Are the individuals who achieve power within those governments accountable to the people they supposedly act for, such that there will be consequences for them personally if they don't faithfully act for the people and do a decent job of it? It's true that directly elected representatives are, in some situations, more likely to meet those standards. Indirectly elected officials are, by the nature of the system, not in need of a personal popular mandate to achieve power, nor directly accountable to the people, and the gap widens as more levels of indirection separate the official from someone who actually had to win a popular vote. But I'm not necessarily arguing for directly electing everyone in public office. I don't think that works very well in practice either, because voters get election fatigue and anything but the big ticket elections can easily end up being more about which candidates have the best PR and spin rather than the best policies on the issues. What I do think would be a big improvement in many cases is directly electing the people at the top of a system of government and having appointed officials subordinate to them. Many of the democratic deficits identified in this discussion, from forming the European Commission to choosing the PM and by extension the government in the UK, are examples where the lower level representatives are the only ones who actually have to win an election, and then some number of averages of averages up the tree you get the people with most of the real power being isolated from needing to attract or maintain popular support. I don't think this kind of arrangement is healthy for democracy, and I think forcing direct elections for those most senior positions would go some way to fixing the problem.