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Well, the position she holds is not democratically elected, she is a representative of representatives, so we (the EU citizens) have to bear with her (and any o

Well, the position she holds is not democratically elected, she is a representative of representatives, so we (the EU citizens) have to bear with her (and any other EC leader) for [*5*] (edit) years just because our "governments" chose her. This essentially means that Germany & France (after Brexit) get to have a common opinion and then it is spread out so that somebody is elected. That is a simplification but it mostly works like that. So, the European Commission is not a democracy, it strictly speaking an oligarchy. The European Parliament is different. But the BIG money is managed by the EC.

mcv 4y ago
Unfortunately the European Parliament doesn't have enough power to check the European Commission. They can't approve or reject specific members of the commission, because the commission as a whole is a done deal between the national governments, and they'd have to reject the entire commission as a whole, which they're a lot more reluctant to do (because there are also always some good people in the commission).
- pfortuny 4y ago
  Well, exactly. Even worse, don't you think?
  - mcv 4y ago
    I think this needs to change, yes. The European Parliament is the only democratic body on the EU level, and as such needs to have more power to at least check the Commission. Mind you, there's plenty about the European Parliament itself that could also use some improvement. They're still moving between Brussels and Strasbourg every month, for example.
    - Aerroon 4y ago
      Even if the EU Parliament gains more power, what difference will it make? The MEPs are from the same parties that the national governments are formed by. They're just grouped together slightly differently.
      - mcv 4y ago
        The difference is that they're directly elected, in proportion to the electorate. Well, almost; small countries are overrepresented in the EP, I believe.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  In many parliamentary republics the parliament accepts and rejects the government as a whole though, there isn't always a specific power to pass a no confidence motion against a specific minister. In practice it still can be done (and it has done by the EU parliament) by threatening to pull confidence on the whole government if a specific member is not removed. Still I'm wholly in favor of giving more power to the parliament.
  - arlort 4y ago
    This is complicated by the threshold required for censure being 2/3 instead of simple majority However the real problem is political capital, if parliament wanted to they could just refuse to adopt any law or budget etc unless X member of the commission resigns or Y bill is proposed by the commission. The power is there, and this is essentially how parliaments evolved over history, wrestling power away from the monarchs (or in this case they'd be wrestling power from the heads of government in the European Concil) But because the EP lacks visibility and people are generally uneducated in how the EU works the MEPs won't take the risk even if they felt it was needed and they will hardly be punished for not taking it because people vote MEPs in based on national politics and not their positions in the EU There aren't really more powers to be given to the parliament, you could make censure of the commission being 50%+1 instead of 2/3 and letting them officially initiate legislation, but those are minor changes and won't change the underlying awareness problem Even in this thread on a platform on which you'd expect people to be reasonably educated and capable of googling before commenting half of the comments about what the EU and institutions can do are completely uninformed Even the article in the submission is attacking the European Commission by discussing claims made by an organization entirely distinct from the EU (The EC draft is deserving of many attacks but it has enough wrong in it not to require bringing in something entirely unrelated)
- CaptainMarvel 4y ago
  Perhaps they should continually reject the commission until it is composed of exactly the members the parliament has selected itself.
arlort 4y ago
The EC's term is 5 years, not 6
- pfortuny 4y ago
  Well, my bad. It always seemed so long to me that I took it to be 6 years. Thanks for the pointer.
  - arlort 4y ago
    It enters into caretaker mode after the election of the parliament, so how long it stays might vary depending on how long it takes for the council and parliament to elect them. But the term is tied to that of the EP For instance this last commission took office in december rather than September/October because there was a huge delay in picking the President and then parliament blocked two/three (don't remember exactly) commissioners so new candidates had to be chosen from those countries.
gambiting 4y ago
>>Well, the position she holds is not democratically elected, she is a representative of representatives, so we (the EU citizens) have to bear with her (and any other EC leader) for 6 years just because our "governments" chose her. So would you say that for example....prime minister of UK is not democratically elected? After all, you never vote for them - you vote for the party in parlimentary elections, then the party selects a representative to be the prime minister. How is that different?
- pfortuny 4y ago
  No, it is not the same at all because nobody has any idea what party/what person/what ideology the next EC leader will have. There is no citizen vote to form a parliament which then will vote for the EC leader. At all. Not even near. It has nothing to do with a representative parliament, really. We do not know who, why, from where the next EC leader will be. At all. At least when you vote for a party (in UK, Spain, whatever), you have some idea what person they will vote for Prime Minister. Nothing of the sort in the EC.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    But EU citizens do vote for an EU parliment - sure, they don't vote for the European Comission, but again, there are all kinds of comissions operating alongside all EU governments, and those are practically never elected democratically. They either form by the institutions that need them, or the government picks them arbitrarily. And anything the EC proposes has to go through the EU parliment to be approved - so in the end your representatives who were democratically elected have a say. EC only proposes laws, it doesn't pass them. Again, such mechanism exists in nearly all EU countries - you have comissions proposing laws, then parliments pass(or reject) them. The comissions don't need to be voted in by the populace, because the final say is given to people who were voted in.
    - pfortuny 4y ago
      No no no no no no no...!!!! That is the trick of the name. The European Commission "sounds" as the "Commission for highways" in the, say Ministry for the Interior. But it has nothing to do with that AT ALL. It is the main government branch of the EU, the "executive". Despite its name. The parliament is just the "legislative". That is the trick they played on us. And, honestly, part of what made British brexiters mad at Europe (not trying to be on either side, hey).
wsc981 4y ago
European Parliament is mostly a toothless tiger though. Little legislative power (most legislation comes from EU Commission), so they mainly vote yes or no on legislation. And if parliament votes no, the EU Commission can always reintroduce the legislation, perhaps dressed slightly different, until the parliament votes yes. Which is the modus operandi of the Commission as described by Juncker in the past: > We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.

mcv 4y ago

Unfortunately the European Parliament doesn't have enough power to check the European Commission. They can't approve or reject specific members of the commission, because the commission as a whole is a done deal between the national governments, and they'd have to reject the entire commission as a whole, which they're a lot more reluctant to do (because there are also always some good people in the commission).

pfortuny 4y ago
Well, exactly. Even worse, don't you think?
- mcv 4y ago
  I think this needs to change, yes. The European Parliament is the only democratic body on the EU level, and as such needs to have more power to at least check the Commission. Mind you, there's plenty about the European Parliament itself that could also use some improvement. They're still moving between Brussels and Strasbourg every month, for example.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    Even if the EU Parliament gains more power, what difference will it make? The MEPs are from the same parties that the national governments are formed by. They're just grouped together slightly differently.
    - mcv 4y ago
      The difference is that they're directly elected, in proportion to the electorate. Well, almost; small countries are overrepresented in the EP, I believe.
gpderetta 4y ago
In many parliamentary republics the parliament accepts and rejects the government as a whole though, there isn't always a specific power to pass a no confidence motion against a specific minister. In practice it still can be done (and it has done by the EU parliament) by threatening to pull confidence on the whole government if a specific member is not removed. Still I'm wholly in favor of giving more power to the parliament.
- arlort 4y ago
  This is complicated by the threshold required for censure being 2/3 instead of simple majority However the real problem is political capital, if parliament wanted to they could just refuse to adopt any law or budget etc unless X member of the commission resigns or Y bill is proposed by the commission. The power is there, and this is essentially how parliaments evolved over history, wrestling power away from the monarchs (or in this case they'd be wrestling power from the heads of government in the European Concil) But because the EP lacks visibility and people are generally uneducated in how the EU works the MEPs won't take the risk even if they felt it was needed and they will hardly be punished for not taking it because people vote MEPs in based on national politics and not their positions in the EU There aren't really more powers to be given to the parliament, you could make censure of the commission being 50%+1 instead of 2/3 and letting them officially initiate legislation, but those are minor changes and won't change the underlying awareness problem Even in this thread on a platform on which you'd expect people to be reasonably educated and capable of googling before commenting half of the comments about what the EU and institutions can do are completely uninformed Even the article in the submission is attacking the European Commission by discussing claims made by an organization entirely distinct from the EU (The EC draft is deserving of many attacks but it has enough wrong in it not to require bringing in something entirely unrelated)
CaptainMarvel 4y ago
Perhaps they should continually reject the commission until it is composed of exactly the members the parliament has selected itself.

arlort 4y ago

The EC's term is 5 years, not 6

pfortuny 4y ago
Well, my bad. It always seemed so long to me that I took it to be 6 years. Thanks for the pointer.
- arlort 4y ago
  It enters into caretaker mode after the election of the parliament, so how long it stays might vary depending on how long it takes for the council and parliament to elect them. But the term is tied to that of the EP For instance this last commission took office in december rather than September/October because there was a huge delay in picking the President and then parliament blocked two/three (don't remember exactly) commissioners so new candidates had to be chosen from those countries.

gambiting 4y ago

>>Well, the position she holds is not democratically elected, she is a representative of representatives, so we (the EU citizens) have to bear with her (and any other EC leader) for 6 years just because our "governments" chose her. So would you say that for example....prime minister of UK is not democratically elected? After all, you never vote for them - you vote for the party in parlimentary elections, then the party selects a representative to be the prime minister. How is that different?

pfortuny 4y ago
No, it is not the same at all because nobody has any idea what party/what person/what ideology the next EC leader will have. There is no citizen vote to form a parliament which then will vote for the EC leader. At all. Not even near. It has nothing to do with a representative parliament, really. We do not know who, why, from where the next EC leader will be. At all. At least when you vote for a party (in UK, Spain, whatever), you have some idea what person they will vote for Prime Minister. Nothing of the sort in the EC.
- gambiting 4y ago
  But EU citizens do vote for an EU parliment - sure, they don't vote for the European Comission, but again, there are all kinds of comissions operating alongside all EU governments, and those are practically never elected democratically. They either form by the institutions that need them, or the government picks them arbitrarily. And anything the EC proposes has to go through the EU parliment to be approved - so in the end your representatives who were democratically elected have a say. EC only proposes laws, it doesn't pass them. Again, such mechanism exists in nearly all EU countries - you have comissions proposing laws, then parliments pass(or reject) them. The comissions don't need to be voted in by the populace, because the final say is given to people who were voted in.
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    No no no no no no no...!!!! That is the trick of the name. The European Commission "sounds" as the "Commission for highways" in the, say Ministry for the Interior. But it has nothing to do with that AT ALL. It is the main government branch of the EU, the "executive". Despite its name. The parliament is just the "legislative". That is the trick they played on us. And, honestly, part of what made British brexiters mad at Europe (not trying to be on either side, hey).

wsc981 4y ago

European Parliament is mostly a toothless tiger though. Little legislative power (most legislation comes from EU Commission), so they mainly vote yes or no on legislation. And if parliament votes no, the EU Commission can always reintroduce the legislation, perhaps dressed slightly different, until the parliament votes yes. Which is the modus operandi of the Commission as described by Juncker in the past: > We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.