5 ms·

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

by 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?
  - hef19898 4y ago
    But in most EU countries the current government can actually be removed a vote of non-confidence by the respective parliaments. More often than not with a simple majority vote. US style impeachment has much higher hurdles to pass.
- native_samples 4y ago
  The problem with this argument is as follows: 1. National governments do not have control. That implies that for each government, they could ensure the outcome they wanted, which is impossible in a shared legal system. In the era of the veto, you could argue that they had at least the very minimal level of control over change (by stopping it), but the EU has been systematically removing national vetos. 2. Even when vetos did exist, they were hardly 'control' as a regular person would understand it. That would be akin to arguing that as long as a car has a working brake you're in control even if you can't move the steering wheel or stop the engine. 3. We don't actually know the national governments control who becomes EU Commission President. We believe this to be the case because in theory the treaties say that's how it works, but the EU routinely violates its own treaties. For example the treaties say that the Commission gets Commissioners allocated and the national governments control those assignments. In practice the former president (Juncker) boasted in public that he vetoed any commissioner he didn't like. This is not allowed under the treaties but, happens anyway. 4. The actual process by which vDL became President is entirely and completely opaque. The national leaders walked into a locked room and ... something happened. Then vDL was announced as leader. How was that decision arrived at? Which countries voted for her or against her, and why? Was there even a vote at all? Are leaders being threatened or bought? The question may sound absurd but actually the EU has quite bad problems with corruption, and effectively buying support via massive subsidies to poorer countries is a core tactic. The point is, nobody can answer these questions because the EU is completely opaque. vDL refusing to release critical negotiations in direct violation of EU law is entirely expected from this system; the EU has lots of laws and regulations but they are always ignored the moment they become inconvenient. No system that claims to be democratic can tolerate such levels of opacity. One last point. The assumption in your argument above is that if voters elect a politician they will actually represent the people who elected them. At the individual / leadership level it is fairly well known that the EU routinely corrupts politicians into going against voter's wishes by offering to hire them into the Commission temporarily after they lose elections. These jobs come with absolutely massive "pensions" that are well out of line with any normal pension, which require virtually no work to obtain, which can be claimed before reaching retirement age and which can be rescinded if the recipient is disloyal! In effect these so-called "pensions" are legal bribes. The extent of the pension bribes problem can be seen in the scale of EU payments to UK politicians (who of course all became strong remain supporters): https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/why-britain-politicians-argue-to-remain-in-the-eu-pension/ https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europe...

by pndy 4y ago

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?
- hef19898 4y ago
  But in most EU countries the current government can actually be removed a vote of non-confidence by the respective parliaments. More often than not with a simple majority vote. US style impeachment has much higher hurdles to pass.
native_samples 4y ago
The problem with this argument is as follows: 1. National governments do not have control. That implies that for each government, they could ensure the outcome they wanted, which is impossible in a shared legal system. In the era of the veto, you could argue that they had at least the very minimal level of control over change (by stopping it), but the EU has been systematically removing national vetos. 2. Even when vetos did exist, they were hardly 'control' as a regular person would understand it. That would be akin to arguing that as long as a car has a working brake you're in control even if you can't move the steering wheel or stop the engine. 3. We don't actually know the national governments control who becomes EU Commission President. We believe this to be the case because in theory the treaties say that's how it works, but the EU routinely violates its own treaties. For example the treaties say that the Commission gets Commissioners allocated and the national governments control those assignments. In practice the former president (Juncker) boasted in public that he vetoed any commissioner he didn't like. This is not allowed under the treaties but, happens anyway. 4. The actual process by which vDL became President is entirely and completely opaque. The national leaders walked into a locked room and ... something happened. Then vDL was announced as leader. How was that decision arrived at? Which countries voted for her or against her, and why? Was there even a vote at all? Are leaders being threatened or bought? The question may sound absurd but actually the EU has quite bad problems with corruption, and effectively buying support via massive subsidies to poorer countries is a core tactic. The point is, nobody can answer these questions because the EU is completely opaque. vDL refusing to release critical negotiations in direct violation of EU law is entirely expected from this system; the EU has lots of laws and regulations but they are always ignored the moment they become inconvenient. No system that claims to be democratic can tolerate such levels of opacity. One last point. The assumption in your argument above is that if voters elect a politician they will actually represent the people who elected them. At the individual / leadership level it is fairly well known that the EU routinely corrupts politicians into going against voter's wishes by offering to hire them into the Commission temporarily after they lose elections. These jobs come with absolutely massive "pensions" that are well out of line with any normal pension, which require virtually no work to obtain, which can be claimed before reaching retirement age and which can be rescinded if the recipient is disloyal! In effect these so-called "pensions" are legal bribes. The extent of the pension bribes problem can be seen in the scale of EU payments to UK politicians (who of course all became strong remain supporters): https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/why-britain-politicians-argue-to-remain-in-the-eu-pension/ https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europe...