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> The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. the tradeoff is now there's

> The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. the tradeoff is now there's only one entity to bribe instead of 27 there's almost 50,000 registered EU lobbyists https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20180108STO91215/transparency-register-who-is-lobbying-the-eu-infographic https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/...

pjerem 4y ago
No. EU is governed by seven distinct institutions with distinct roles and interests. You can read more about them here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U... The high number of institutions taking part in governance is in part responsive for the reputation of EU to be "slow" to act but it also means that it's incredibly hard to bribe because you have to bribe different institutions that don't even share the same mindsets. Not arguing there that EU is perfect (it's far from it), but it's really better that what most people think about it, which is because local governments always use the "it's the EU rules, we can't do anything". The thing is, they also omit to remind that ministers and head of states are part of two institutions and that they choose the council of the European Commission. So they are the ones making the rules and those rules have to be accepted by the democratically elected European Parliament. So when a politician in europe blame the EU for anything, they blame rules that they wrote themselves and that have been approved by a democratically elected parliament.
- blibble 4y ago
  this is not a pertinent distinction: member states aren't a single monolithic single institution either the "7 institutions" is also not relevant: Putin wouldn't bother bribing Germany's federal constitutional court or government auditors to push his fossil fuels he'd go after the executive and legislature: exactly the same as if he wanted to influence EU policy
dx034 4y ago
Not all lobbying is bad. That this regulation clearly protects the local tech industry is in the interest of many companies, but also in the interest of many (if not most) of the population.

pjerem 4y ago

No. EU is governed by seven distinct institutions with distinct roles and interests. You can read more about them here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U... The high number of institutions taking part in governance is in part responsive for the reputation of EU to be "slow" to act but it also means that it's incredibly hard to bribe because you have to bribe different institutions that don't even share the same mindsets. Not arguing there that EU is perfect (it's far from it), but it's really better that what most people think about it, which is because local governments always use the "it's the EU rules, we can't do anything". The thing is, they also omit to remind that ministers and head of states are part of two institutions and that they choose the council of the European Commission. So they are the ones making the rules and those rules have to be accepted by the democratically elected European Parliament. So when a politician in europe blame the EU for anything, they blame rules that they wrote themselves and that have been approved by a democratically elected parliament.

blibble 4y ago
this is not a pertinent distinction: member states aren't a single monolithic single institution either the "7 institutions" is also not relevant: Putin wouldn't bother bribing Germany's federal constitutional court or government auditors to push his fossil fuels he'd go after the executive and legislature: exactly the same as if he wanted to influence EU policy

dx034 4y ago

Not all lobbying is bad. That this regulation clearly protects the local tech industry is in the interest of many companies, but also in the interest of many (if not most) of the population.