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> Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? Every country I hav

> Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? Every country I have ever lived in had a similar arrangement, I control who are elected to parliament, parliament votes for president, and the president serves at the pleasure of partliment. Not that this is an endorsement of the EU or Ursula von der Leyen, I'm not an EU citizen, don't live in an EU country, and don't care to live in one either. I think the main issue with EU is that it too much is decided at the EU level, but this to me is not related to it using a parliamentary system or Ursula not being elected directly by EU citizens, I think it is more related to what powers they can exercise.

turbinerneiter 4y ago
The point is the promised us something else. Many (of the interested) people in the EU are unhappy about some democratic shortcomings of the EU. The only directly elected body is the parliament and it is not very powerful. There is too little power at directly elected bodies and too much power at elements, that are far from the voters reach. At the last election they wanted to address that and promised that the lead candidate of the party with the most votes will be the commissioner. That didn't happen. Instead we got vdL, who was in trouble as Minister of Defense in Germany for some hiring consultants without proper process and for ... deleting messages from her phone. The whole situation is extremely painful for people like me, who support the EU. The tone-deafness, the disrespect for the voter. It is painful.
- varispeed 4y ago
  This is exactly the issue why many people voted for Brexit. There was a feeling of disconnect between the people and the power. Now it may seem like a complete disaster, but we feel that our vote matters more now. It's a shame the EU has not addressed this and they don't seem to be doing it anytime soon. The most painful side effect of this is increasing corruption and lack of sense of responsibility among politicians. They feel like they can do whatever they want and there is extremely slim chance they get booted out or investigated.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted was because they didn't want the influx of (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over. That and the idea that they would have a lot more control after brexit while in reality the world is more complicated than that. E.g. they lose negotiation power in important trade deals because nowadays Britain is just a tiny island with little to say. A lot of other laws are influenced by international treaties between bigger economical powers as well.
    - scarygliders 4y ago
      > Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted was because they didn't want the influx of (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over. Yeah no, that's 100% inaccurate, which a study you can read at : http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/?p=1153 http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/?p=1153 will show... Quote:... What reasons do people give to justify their vote choice for Leave or Remain? And, what are the reasons they think the other side voted as they did? New briefing note CSI Brexit 4: People’s Stated Reasons for Voting Leave or Remain. Summary of the findings: Several different surveys and opinion polls have asked Britons why they voted the way they did in the EU referendum. The two main reasons people voted Leave were ‘immigration’ and ‘sovereignty’, whereas the main reason people voted Remain was ‘the economy’. Analysis of data from the Centre for Social Investigation’s longitudinal survey on attitudes to Brexit bolsters these conclusions. Among four possible reasons for voting Leave, ‘to teach British politicians a lesson’ is ranked last by an overwhelming majority of Leave voters, contrary to the claim that Brexit was a ‘protest vote’. Among four possible reasons for voting Remain, ‘a strong attachment to Europe’ is ranked last by a sizable majority of Remain voters, consistent with the claim that Britons have a relatively weak sense of European identity. When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making. ---end quote. As for losing negotiation power, since Brexit the UK has negotiated multiple Billions of GBP worth of trade deals around the world. The OECD and the IMF are forecasting that the UK economy will be above the Eurozone economy. (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02...) How's that for a tiny island.
- r12343a_19 4y ago
  Covid killed democracy.
  - _heimdall 4y ago
    If you ask Biden, democracy killes Covid. The one year anniversary of our Covid Independence is coming up soon!
nwellnhof 4y ago
> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? The EU parliament can only "elect" a president nominated by the European Council, just like it can only approve laws proposed by the European Commission. It doesn't have the right of initiative, only veto power.
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago
  They could veto all laws that don't change this. So to me it as democratic as Democratically elected representatives want it to be. That being said I have to agree it is not ideal if they can only approve or veto.
BadOakOx 4y ago
> > Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens > But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? This is a common argument when criticizing the EU, but in the end everybody is elected by the people of EU (directly or indirectly). Here is a quick video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU
- throwaway45631 4y ago
- junofan 4y ago
  China works the same way. The concentric circles of power approach allows the powerful to exercise tight control at each tier and minimize upsets.
  - synotna2 4y ago
    Every country works the same way?
- wronglyprepaid 4y ago
  > Here is a quick video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU Good video, thanks.
toyg 4y ago
> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment Technically she was nominated by the European Council, i.e. the heads of state of the 27 member countries. EU Parliament is called to approve or reject the nomination of the entire Commission, which is theoretically set up by the candidate president (in practice national governments have a big say, and there are formulas to guarantee representation in the cabinet for every country in a cyclical manner). Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text messages.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  > Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text messages. Then the proper quest is if you trust 27 heads of state, only 1 of which you have any political influence over.
  - toyg 4y ago
    At some point, everyone's freedom ends where someone else's begin. If you want a continent-size government (which, let's be honest, in a world of superpowers you do), you'll have to compromise with another 450k citizens and their representatives. Americans manage to do it, after all. Also, EUParliament gives us a direct say in practice. People worried about the democratic deficit in the EU should push their own governments to relinquish more powers from Council to Parliament.
    - blibble 4y ago
      > If you want a continent-size government I really don't get who looks at the existing continent-size governments and says "yeah, I want that to be the model for how I'm governed"
      - Paradigma11 4y ago
        The alternative is to be governed by a continent size government of another continent.
pndy 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U... In short: the EU citizens vote for Member of the European Parliament who represents own country and the Europarties. Citizens have no direct control over: the European Council, the president of the council, the European Commission and the president of the comission. You might get the feeling that as EU citizens we have little control over what runs over our heads on EU levels and because of this, a criticism might be observed over how truly democratic the EU is and if some bodies of the EU represent their citizens or particular goals of the Comission and their members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_E...
- toyg 4y ago
  The point is: national governments have control over most EU mechanisms. National governments are elected by "you", so "you" should trust them to carry out "your" interests. If you don't, the problem is not the EU as much as the way "you" elect your own government, surely?
  - an9n 4y ago
    This really is jumping through hoops to excuse the fact that a citizen of the EU has no way of directly removing these people via their vote.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      And generally, you can't either vote for or remove a specific minister either. Like personally I would like if you could, at both national and EU level, but the fact that you can't isn't a specific failure of the EU.
    - swores 4y ago
      That's true of most countries, the best we can do with our vote is hope that when mixed with many other votes it leads in the direction we prefer, sometimes in a direct count, often in a multi-staged affair where your vote may or may not influence a local MP/senator/whatever which will then potentially influence which political party's leader becomes the PM/president/whatever. Maybe (surely) the EU could be restructured to be even more democratic, but isn't that also true for pretty much every country in the world?
posterboy 4y ago
> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? Yeah but no. I guess there's an electorate, as much as there's active components in homeopathic snake oil. > I think it is more related to what powers they can exercise. Nothing of that changes the statement that Mrs., err, von der Leyen is not directly voted by citizens. The word mongering is immaterial to the metacommentary on power structures. Which you acknowledge and leave pretty much unspecified. If I understand the top comment correctly, there is fear of corruption or whatever, and it's simply disengineous to blame that on the electorate. As a point of reference, Fukuyama (end of history, etc.) outlines how corruption is a normal tendency en route to regulated democracies. In this view, where local patriotism and consequent nepotism are concerned, it sounds to me very much like the electorate shares in the blame, and that the organized societies on the next level, the model democracies, must have grown out of this. I rather doubt that this is the case. Sure, the aristratic family name may be a statistical fluke, especially where family names pass through paternal lineages. It is nevertheless part of the bigger picture. TL;DR: Yeah comissioners to the parliament are voted but no they aren't. This is not debatable.
- malermeister 4y ago
  I don't think one can seriously quote Fukuyama these days anymore. Does it feel like history ended in the 90s? Seems like the past few years had decades worth of history to offer...
- synotna2 4y ago
  And?I I don't believe it's common to elect ministers/department heads anywhere?
cycomanic 4y ago
While the parliament voted vdL they have very limited power. IIRC they can't really do much more than confirm the person nominated by the European council, which is not an elected body.

turbinerneiter 4y ago

The point is the promised us something else. Many (of the interested) people in the EU are unhappy about some democratic shortcomings of the EU. The only directly elected body is the parliament and it is not very powerful. There is too little power at directly elected bodies and too much power at elements, that are far from the voters reach. At the last election they wanted to address that and promised that the lead candidate of the party with the most votes will be the commissioner. That didn't happen. Instead we got vdL, who was in trouble as Minister of Defense in Germany for some hiring consultants without proper process and for ... deleting messages from her phone. The whole situation is extremely painful for people like me, who support the EU. The tone-deafness, the disrespect for the voter. It is painful.

varispeed 4y ago
This is exactly the issue why many people voted for Brexit. There was a feeling of disconnect between the people and the power. Now it may seem like a complete disaster, but we feel that our vote matters more now. It's a shame the EU has not addressed this and they don't seem to be doing it anytime soon. The most painful side effect of this is increasing corruption and lack of sense of responsibility among politicians. They feel like they can do whatever they want and there is extremely slim chance they get booted out or investigated.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted was because they didn't want the influx of (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over. That and the idea that they would have a lot more control after brexit while in reality the world is more complicated than that. E.g. they lose negotiation power in important trade deals because nowadays Britain is just a tiny island with little to say. A lot of other laws are influenced by international treaties between bigger economical powers as well.
  - scarygliders 4y ago
    > Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted was because they didn't want the influx of (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over. Yeah no, that's 100% inaccurate, which a study you can read at : http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/?p=1153 http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/?p=1153 will show... Quote:... What reasons do people give to justify their vote choice for Leave or Remain? And, what are the reasons they think the other side voted as they did? New briefing note CSI Brexit 4: People’s Stated Reasons for Voting Leave or Remain. Summary of the findings: Several different surveys and opinion polls have asked Britons why they voted the way they did in the EU referendum. The two main reasons people voted Leave were ‘immigration’ and ‘sovereignty’, whereas the main reason people voted Remain was ‘the economy’. Analysis of data from the Centre for Social Investigation’s longitudinal survey on attitudes to Brexit bolsters these conclusions. Among four possible reasons for voting Leave, ‘to teach British politicians a lesson’ is ranked last by an overwhelming majority of Leave voters, contrary to the claim that Brexit was a ‘protest vote’. Among four possible reasons for voting Remain, ‘a strong attachment to Europe’ is ranked last by a sizable majority of Remain voters, consistent with the claim that Britons have a relatively weak sense of European identity. When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making. ---end quote. As for losing negotiation power, since Brexit the UK has negotiated multiple Billions of GBP worth of trade deals around the world. The OECD and the IMF are forecasting that the UK economy will be above the Eurozone economy. (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02...) How's that for a tiny island.
r12343a_19 4y ago
Covid killed democracy.
- _heimdall 4y ago
  If you ask Biden, democracy killes Covid. The one year anniversary of our Covid Independence is coming up soon!

nwellnhof 4y ago

> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? The EU parliament can only "elect" a president nominated by the European Council, just like it can only approve laws proposed by the European Commission. It doesn't have the right of initiative, only veto power.

wronglyprepaid 4y ago
They could veto all laws that don't change this. So to me it as democratic as Democratically elected representatives want it to be. That being said I have to agree it is not ideal if they can only approve or veto.

BadOakOx 4y ago

> > Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens > But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? This is a common argument when criticizing the EU, but in the end everybody is elected by the people of EU (directly or indirectly). Here is a quick video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU

throwaway45631 4y ago
junofan 4y ago
China works the same way. The concentric circles of power approach allows the powerful to exercise tight control at each tier and minimize upsets.
- synotna2 4y ago
  Every country works the same way?
wronglyprepaid 4y ago
> Here is a quick video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU Good video, thanks.

toyg 4y ago

> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment Technically she was nominated by the European Council, i.e. the heads of state of the 27 member countries. EU Parliament is called to approve or reject the nomination of the entire Commission, which is theoretically set up by the candidate president (in practice national governments have a big say, and there are formulas to guarantee representation in the cabinet for every country in a cyclical manner). Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text messages.

bcrosby95 4y ago
> Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text messages. Then the proper quest is if you trust 27 heads of state, only 1 of which you have any political influence over.
- toyg 4y ago
  At some point, everyone's freedom ends where someone else's begin. If you want a continent-size government (which, let's be honest, in a world of superpowers you do), you'll have to compromise with another 450k citizens and their representatives. Americans manage to do it, after all. Also, EUParliament gives us a direct say in practice. People worried about the democratic deficit in the EU should push their own governments to relinquish more powers from Council to Parliament.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > If you want a continent-size government I really don't get who looks at the existing continent-size governments and says "yeah, I want that to be the model for how I'm governed"
    - Paradigma11 4y ago
      The alternative is to be governed by a continent size government of another continent.

pndy 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U... In short: the EU citizens vote for Member of the European Parliament who represents own country and the Europarties. Citizens have no direct control over: the European Council, the president of the council, the European Commission and the president of the comission. You might get the feeling that as EU citizens we have little control over what runs over our heads on EU levels and because of this, a criticism might be observed over how truly democratic the EU is and if some bodies of the EU represent their citizens or particular goals of the Comission and their members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_E...

toyg 4y ago
The point is: national governments have control over most EU mechanisms. National governments are elected by "you", so "you" should trust them to carry out "your" interests. If you don't, the problem is not the EU as much as the way "you" elect your own government, surely?
- an9n 4y ago
  This really is jumping through hoops to excuse the fact that a citizen of the EU has no way of directly removing these people via their vote.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    And generally, you can't either vote for or remove a specific minister either. Like personally I would like if you could, at both national and EU level, but the fact that you can't isn't a specific failure of the EU.
  - swores 4y ago
    That's true of most countries, the best we can do with our vote is hope that when mixed with many other votes it leads in the direction we prefer, sometimes in a direct count, often in a multi-staged affair where your vote may or may not influence a local MP/senator/whatever which will then potentially influence which political party's leader becomes the PM/president/whatever. Maybe (surely) the EU could be restructured to be even more democratic, but isn't that also true for pretty much every country in the world?

posterboy 4y ago

> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were elected by EU citizens? Yeah but no. I guess there's an electorate, as much as there's active components in homeopathic snake oil. > I think it is more related to what powers they can exercise. Nothing of that changes the statement that Mrs., err, von der Leyen is not directly voted by citizens. The word mongering is immaterial to the metacommentary on power structures. Which you acknowledge and leave pretty much unspecified. If I understand the top comment correctly, there is fear of corruption or whatever, and it's simply disengineous to blame that on the electorate. As a point of reference, Fukuyama (end of history, etc.) outlines how corruption is a normal tendency en route to regulated democracies. In this view, where local patriotism and consequent nepotism are concerned, it sounds to me very much like the electorate shares in the blame, and that the organized societies on the next level, the model democracies, must have grown out of this. I rather doubt that this is the case. Sure, the aristratic family name may be a statistical fluke, especially where family names pass through paternal lineages. It is nevertheless part of the bigger picture. TL;DR: Yeah comissioners to the parliament are voted but no they aren't. This is not debatable.

malermeister 4y ago
I don't think one can seriously quote Fukuyama these days anymore. Does it feel like history ended in the 90s? Seems like the past few years had decades worth of history to offer...
synotna2 4y ago
And?I I don't believe it's common to elect ministers/department heads anywhere?

cycomanic 4y ago

While the parliament voted vdL they have very limited power. IIRC they can't really do much more than confirm the person nominated by the European council, which is not an elected body.