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The Council of the EU is a meeting of ministers of various national governments, all of them elected by their respective electorate.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
So the organization that selects the majority of the Commission Members (26 out of 27) is also the one that is the most distantly tied to the voting public. None of the CotEU are directly elected. The council also appears to have a complex rotating Presidency and multiple "configurations" in which different ministers hold varying amounts of power -- all of which adds abstraction and makes it more difficult to hold members accountable at the level of the voting public. If I were being cynical, I would assume that this was a deliberate attempt to insulate the EU executive selection process from any sort of direct electoral accountability. But maybe that's good? I don't know.
- hef19898 3y ago
  All the commission members are elected in the respective member states elections... Ehy isn't that democratic? Rotating presendency, nice thing for an organisation made up of 26 member nations. And all those ministers are nominated following democratic elections in each member state. And as such, they are very much accountable to their electorate every 4-5 years. >> I don't know. I can confirm, you don't.
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    > I can confirm, you don't. I'm sorry if I insulted or embarrassed you. That wasn't my intent. My view is that the design of governing bodies is another area of engineering, and you can learn a lot about design goals by looking at the resulting systems. But I realize this can also become very personal.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Defining structures of government is not engineering, trying to apply the principles to both doesn't work.
      - matthewdgreen 3y ago
        I don’t agree with that statement at all. I think it encompasses a very myopic definition of engineering, and implies that humans can’t build or evaluate government structures on the basis of specific design goals.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

So the organization that selects the majority of the Commission Members (26 out of 27) is also the one that is the most distantly tied to the voting public. None of the CotEU are directly elected. The council also appears to have a complex rotating Presidency and multiple "configurations" in which different ministers hold varying amounts of power -- all of which adds abstraction and makes it more difficult to hold members accountable at the level of the voting public. If I were being cynical, I would assume that this was a deliberate attempt to insulate the EU executive selection process from any sort of direct electoral accountability. But maybe that's good? I don't know.

hef19898 3y ago
All the commission members are elected in the respective member states elections... Ehy isn't that democratic? Rotating presendency, nice thing for an organisation made up of 26 member nations. And all those ministers are nominated following democratic elections in each member state. And as such, they are very much accountable to their electorate every 4-5 years. >> I don't know. I can confirm, you don't.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  > I can confirm, you don't. I'm sorry if I insulted or embarrassed you. That wasn't my intent. My view is that the design of governing bodies is another area of engineering, and you can learn a lot about design goals by looking at the resulting systems. But I realize this can also become very personal.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Defining structures of government is not engineering, trying to apply the principles to both doesn't work.
    - matthewdgreen 3y ago
      I don’t agree with that statement at all. I think it encompasses a very myopic definition of engineering, and implies that humans can’t build or evaluate government structures on the basis of specific design goals.