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Unfortunately the European Parliament doesn't have enough power to check the European Commission. They can't approve or reject specific members of the commissio
by 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 agoWell, exactly. Even worse, don't you think?
- mcv 4y agoI 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 agoEven 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 agoThe 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 agoIn 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 agoThis 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 agoPerhaps they should continually reject the commission until it is composed of exactly the members the parliament has selected itself.