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European here. The EU is not Europe (although the EU often conflates the two). No citizen ever voted for any of the commissioners that come up with these regu

by cbeach 4y ago

European here. The EU is not Europe (although the EU often conflates the two). No citizen ever voted for any of the commissioners that come up with these regulations.

kramerger 4y ago
Speak for yourself mate. I for one like my society not being a wild wild west run by big corps.
- bennysonething 4y ago
  Do you mean the poster is wrong, we did vote for commissioners? Or do you mean you agree with the policy and don't care how it was arrived at?
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    Why would anyone vote for the commissioners? EU is not structured this way, we don't have a supreme leader or something of that sort and everything is decided through elected or appointed by elected people from 27 different countries. We vote for the EU parliament representatives and they recommend commissioners to the council and the council appoints. A bit like the UK, where they don't elect a prime minister but vote for parties which appoint the prime minister. Notice how UK went through a couple prime ministers without an election? If you want to shoot for technicalities, in the USA people don't vote for the president but electoral college that happens to elect a specific person but they might choose not to.
    - cbeach 4y ago
      In the U.K. the prime minister is an elected MP. We have multiple means to depose a bad PM. How do we depose a bad EU commissioner?
      - mrtksn 4y ago
        You are thinking in UK terms but UK and EU are not analogous. EU Commissioner can't really make some big decisions and almost crash the economy like Liz Truss. Anyway if somehow the EU commissioner manages to be bad and needs to be removed ASAP the EU parliament, which is made of the directly elected officials, can remove the commissioner. EU is undemocratic and the members can't do anything about EU is a myth like Brexit is removing the red tape myth.
        bennysonething 4y ago
        And we got rid of Liz Truss within weeks. Plus the damage she did was limited to a single country. It's actually pretty good proof that the system worked. It's not perfect but the people spoke and she was removed. If I'm in an EU country how do I vote to stop policies that are being handed down. I probably can influence some how but it's a pretty big problem that it seems like we can't. I think this perception was partly to blame for Brexit (which I voted against and hope can be undone some day).
        mrtksn 4y ago
        EU is extension of your government and the directly elected MPs. This means, to influence EU you vote at the elections - both the elections where you choose your country's' govt and the EU parliament elections. Its strange to claim that EU is undemocratic unless it's exactly the same as INSERT COUNTRY. EU is not a 3rd party institution, despite that politicians might talk as if it is. They might say something like "Ah we would love to do that but we can't because of the rules in Brussels" to deflect blame but Brussels is simply the location where people who you voted for and people appointed by the people you voted for gather to agree on these rules. That's why EU often can't agree on something if even one of the countries(which is a placeholder for the people who they voted for or people who are appointed by the people they voted for) don't want. The most recent and well known examples are the policies against the war in Ukraine where Hungary didn't play ball. That's also why UK won't be able to be a better place after Brexit: The EU rules are also British rules, made by British politicians with UK's best interest in mind. The most you can get is sewage on the beaches and border checks when exporting to EU. The border check part is about making sure that if you happen to remove regulations and start producing things like children toys with led paint, these toys won't end in Barcelona or Warsaw.
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago
AmalgatedAmoeba 4y ago
Yes, and I have never voted for my premier or any of the ministers who come up with all these laws… It’s called representative democracy. I’ll grant you that due to the generally low turn out for EU parliamentary elections, the commission’s mandate could be argued to be lacking. Otherwise this is just a nonsense argument.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> No citizen ever voted for any of the commissioners that come up with these regulations. So what? Nobody ever voted for any US president too, if that's your concern. Besides, commission is formed by delegates one for each country and they are not bound to the political institutions of their country exactly to ensure independence from local politics. They represent the interest of the EU. Approval of legislation proposals presented by the commission is the duty of the EU Parliament, which is made by professional politicians elected in each EU country in proportion of the population. Each approved legislation has to be then ratified by the single Parliaments of each country, in accordance with their laws. There is absolutely no lack of representation in EU, believe me! Don't be that person, learn how the institutions of EU work before writing a random populist good-for-nothing comment (which seems to be a very popular sport Europeans like to play here on HN when talking about EU, for reasons I don't fully comprehend).
- cbeach 4y ago
  I have observed the EU machinations in detail while my country decided whether to stay or leave the bloc. And I watched the Copyright Directive vote in the EP - basically the Commission just repeatedly rammed the bad legislation through Parliament until they got the “yes” vote they were looking for. When massive (historically large) public petitions emerged against one of the articles of the legislation, the EU literally just changed its article number (to “rebrand” and dissociate the same legislation from the backlash) and then they pushed it back through Parliament again
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > I have observed the EU machinations in detail while my country decided whether to stay or leave the bloc. meaning? In what way what you observed is relevant to the discussion? How can we be sure that you understood what you observed? because you say so? > And I watched the Copyright Directive vote in the EP - basically the Commission just repeatedly rammed the bad legislation through Parliament until they got the “yes” Boris Johnson, is that you? MEPs are elected by the people of EU (up until not long ago also by the Country that left, and they associated by political family, not by Country of provenance) So now you don't like that either? How did the commission obtained this "yes" if the elected representatives where not in favour of it? please explain. You are not making any sense. > When massive (historically large) public petitions emerged against please, provide evidence of these large massive (meaning hundreds of thousands of petitioners at least, there are 450 million people in EU) petitions (plural) against it. > the EU literally just changed its article number (to “rebrand” and dissociate the same legislation from the backlash) Are you saying that MEPs are all stupid and can't recognize the same article by just swapping its number? An who rebranded it? The EU at large? the 28 countries? (I mean 29, UK was still in, but I guess they are not responsible of what EU has done while they were a member, am I right?) the Parliament? the commission? who exactly? An why? Whose interests this gray entity was serving exactly?

by cbeach 4y ago

European here. The EU is not Europe (although the EU often conflates the two). No citizen ever voted for any of the commissioners that come up with these regulations.

kramerger 4y ago

Speak for yourself mate. I for one like my society not being a wild wild west run by big corps.

bennysonething 4y ago
Do you mean the poster is wrong, we did vote for commissioners? Or do you mean you agree with the policy and don't care how it was arrived at?
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Why would anyone vote for the commissioners? EU is not structured this way, we don't have a supreme leader or something of that sort and everything is decided through elected or appointed by elected people from 27 different countries. We vote for the EU parliament representatives and they recommend commissioners to the council and the council appoints. A bit like the UK, where they don't elect a prime minister but vote for parties which appoint the prime minister. Notice how UK went through a couple prime ministers without an election? If you want to shoot for technicalities, in the USA people don't vote for the president but electoral college that happens to elect a specific person but they might choose not to.
  - cbeach 4y ago
    In the U.K. the prime minister is an elected MP. We have multiple means to depose a bad PM. How do we depose a bad EU commissioner?
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      You are thinking in UK terms but UK and EU are not analogous. EU Commissioner can't really make some big decisions and almost crash the economy like Liz Truss. Anyway if somehow the EU commissioner manages to be bad and needs to be removed ASAP the EU parliament, which is made of the directly elected officials, can remove the commissioner. EU is undemocratic and the members can't do anything about EU is a myth like Brexit is removing the red tape myth.
      - bennysonething 4y ago
        And we got rid of Liz Truss within weeks. Plus the damage she did was limited to a single country. It's actually pretty good proof that the system worked. It's not perfect but the people spoke and she was removed. If I'm in an EU country how do I vote to stop policies that are being handed down. I probably can influence some how but it's a pretty big problem that it seems like we can't. I think this perception was partly to blame for Brexit (which I voted against and hope can be undone some day).
        mrtksn 4y ago
        EU is extension of your government and the directly elected MPs. This means, to influence EU you vote at the elections - both the elections where you choose your country's' govt and the EU parliament elections. Its strange to claim that EU is undemocratic unless it's exactly the same as INSERT COUNTRY. EU is not a 3rd party institution, despite that politicians might talk as if it is. They might say something like "Ah we would love to do that but we can't because of the rules in Brussels" to deflect blame but Brussels is simply the location where people who you voted for and people appointed by the people you voted for gather to agree on these rules. That's why EU often can't agree on something if even one of the countries(which is a placeholder for the people who they voted for or people who are appointed by the people they voted for) don't want. The most recent and well known examples are the policies against the war in Ukraine where Hungary didn't play ball. That's also why UK won't be able to be a better place after Brexit: The EU rules are also British rules, made by British politicians with UK's best interest in mind. The most you can get is sewage on the beaches and border checks when exporting to EU. The border check part is about making sure that if you happen to remove regulations and start producing things like children toys with led paint, these toys won't end in Barcelona or Warsaw.
stefantalpalaru 4y ago

AmalgatedAmoeba 4y ago

Yes, and I have never voted for my premier or any of the ministers who come up with all these laws… It’s called representative democracy. I’ll grant you that due to the generally low turn out for EU parliamentary elections, the commission’s mandate could be argued to be lacking. Otherwise this is just a nonsense argument.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> No citizen ever voted for any of the commissioners that come up with these regulations. So what? Nobody ever voted for any US president too, if that's your concern. Besides, commission is formed by delegates one for each country and they are not bound to the political institutions of their country exactly to ensure independence from local politics. They represent the interest of the EU. Approval of legislation proposals presented by the commission is the duty of the EU Parliament, which is made by professional politicians elected in each EU country in proportion of the population. Each approved legislation has to be then ratified by the single Parliaments of each country, in accordance with their laws. There is absolutely no lack of representation in EU, believe me! Don't be that person, learn how the institutions of EU work before writing a random populist good-for-nothing comment (which seems to be a very popular sport Europeans like to play here on HN when talking about EU, for reasons I don't fully comprehend).

cbeach 4y ago
I have observed the EU machinations in detail while my country decided whether to stay or leave the bloc. And I watched the Copyright Directive vote in the EP - basically the Commission just repeatedly rammed the bad legislation through Parliament until they got the “yes” vote they were looking for. When massive (historically large) public petitions emerged against one of the articles of the legislation, the EU literally just changed its article number (to “rebrand” and dissociate the same legislation from the backlash) and then they pushed it back through Parliament again
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > I have observed the EU machinations in detail while my country decided whether to stay or leave the bloc. meaning? In what way what you observed is relevant to the discussion? How can we be sure that you understood what you observed? because you say so? > And I watched the Copyright Directive vote in the EP - basically the Commission just repeatedly rammed the bad legislation through Parliament until they got the “yes” Boris Johnson, is that you? MEPs are elected by the people of EU (up until not long ago also by the Country that left, and they associated by political family, not by Country of provenance) So now you don't like that either? How did the commission obtained this "yes" if the elected representatives where not in favour of it? please explain. You are not making any sense. > When massive (historically large) public petitions emerged against please, provide evidence of these large massive (meaning hundreds of thousands of petitioners at least, there are 450 million people in EU) petitions (plural) against it. > the EU literally just changed its article number (to “rebrand” and dissociate the same legislation from the backlash) Are you saying that MEPs are all stupid and can't recognize the same article by just swapping its number? An who rebranded it? The EU at large? the 28 countries? (I mean 29, UK was still in, but I guess they are not responsible of what EU has done while they were a member, am I right?) the Parliament? the commission? who exactly? An why? Whose interests this gray entity was serving exactly?