> The institution is a joke with no real power compared to national parliaments. They don't get to appoint the government, can't propose legislation etc. basica

> The institution is a joke with no real power compared to national parliaments. They don't get to appoint the government, can't propose legislation etc. basically they just rubber-stamp anything which is brought by the commission by them. Barely any anywhere takes the EU elections seriously. Agreed. By the push towards more powerful Parliament is greeted with huge opposition from "nation states" because you know... "sovereignty"... :| > PMs? National governments can appoint anyone they want and often use it as a way to reward their buddies with a very cushy job (with close to zero political accountability) for a few years. Or to get someone influential/popular/etc. but whom the government finds dangerous from the country for a few years. Yes, that's correct but how else do you want to handle it? Ideally there should be two chamber body, lower one (Parliament) with proportional representation and upper one (Commission) with representation of member states (akin to the US) but that's just yet another election (you have EU one, national one and then regional ones)... > The process for picking ("electing") a commission president is a bit different but perfectly illustrates my point. They just appointed the most incompetent high ranking politician they could find in Germany... Yeah... and also corrupted from what I heard. But - case in point, even incompetent and corrupted ones can be elected via direct democracy (Poland, Hungary, Tukey…)? > Just like the head of government in every single non-presidential country in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Austria etc... (the only excpetion is France). Anyway be any objective metric this is more democratic than the EU government. Not sure if those are more democratic or not. Problem may be that those head of states usually wield less power than Commission. AFAIR this year was a push to give Parliament more power but was met with butthurt from nation states... > I agree. But it's an anachronistic and a powerless institution. Basically a retirement program for retired influential politicians... AFAIR HoL can be quite influential and can block certain laws. And it's not abolished because it's unelecetd, so they can have more scrutiny over certain laws without fearing the election... Either way - it's "wobbly wobbly" and complicated :D