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The EU is a farce, an undemocratic virtue signaling organization, and this is why: - The Parliament voted against the first reading of this proposal twice in 2

• munksbeer 3mo ago
  Please could you cite your sources for this. I think what you've typed is not representative of what happened here. My understanding is that the EU Council forced this second-reading, not the Commission. To provide evidence for my argument: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ Look at "Timeline". This is the Council, not the Commission. This is your elected heads of state. This is "democracy" in action. "Council and EPP attempting to bypass Parliament With negotiators still deadlocked on core issues, the Council and the European People's Party (EPP) are trying to sidestep Parliament by reviving the expired Chat Control 1.0. The Council plans to fast-track a rewritten proposal with identical content, effectively circumventing the Commission's right of initiative, democratic oversight, and a fresh opinion from the European Data Protection Supervisor (source)."
  • fosk 3mo ago
    The Commission refused to withdraw the proposal after Parliament rejected it, leaving it on the table. The Council disagreed with Parliament’s rejection, formally forcing a second reading. Both the European Commission and the Council itself are not DIRECTLY elected EU bodies. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
    • aosaigh 3mo ago
      Again, sources?
      • fosk 3mo ago
        Parliament rejects the proposal: https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file/pdf?reference=2025%2F0429%28COD%29 https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file/pdf?r... Council pushes it forward: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026/07/02/council-moves-to-reinstate-interim-measure-to-combat-child-sexual-abuse-online/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026... From the last article: "The Council position will now be examined by the European Parliament, under second reading.". Note that this is technically accurate under absolute majority rules for rejection (not for approving), but practically is where the "cheating" happens - as described in my original parent comment - because of the perverse procedures of the EU that are designed to basically make it almost impossible to go against the agenda. The Commission did not withdraw it: no source because it stayed "pending". The EU procedures are maliciously designed against the Parliament while preserving the technicality of plausible deniability. How do we call this architecture in software? We call it a "backdoor", except this one is embedded in the EU legislative process.
        • munksbeer 3mo ago
          The EU Council are the democratically elected leaders of the member states. How is them deciding the direction not "democratic"?
          • 3mo ago
• flossly 3mo ago
  It's worse than a farce. It's actually evil. The way "they" are pushing chat control, and how Ursula is avoiding justice (she has a huge corruption case hanging over her head but manages continuously cancel court dates); this makes a all too clear. The only way to fix this is EU member states become more critical: but for politicians in those states an EU position is the best promotion they can make. So almost nobody dares to speak out.
  • hk__2 3mo ago
    Her name is von der Leyen. "Ursula" is fine for your friends, but it’s awkward for a public figure. Do you write "Donald" as well?
    • philipallstar 3mo ago
      The "Awkward Police" is not a job.
      • hk__2 3mo ago
        "Snarky commenter" is not either.
    • nancyminusone 3mo ago
      yeah, I do write 'Donald', as do a lot of people. Awkward only if you are talking about the duck or the hamburger clown.
      • achenet 3mo ago
        <HN is the 'well actually' capital of the internet> well actually, it's Ronald McDonald, not Donald McDonald (but Donald Duck's first name is indeed Donald) </HN is the 'well actually' capital of the internet>
        • queenkjuul 3mo ago
          Oh lol, i assumed trump was the "hamburger clown"
• vaylian 3mo ago
  Hard disagree on the conclusion. I agree that the commission and the council have made very unfair moves and it's justified to call them out for it. But we have also seen that the parliament (except for the EPP) was for the most part eager to listen to what people had to say about chat control.
  • PunchyHamster 3mo ago
    AND IGNORED IT
• zkmon 3mo ago
  Some folks (mostly Americans) tend to think that their laws, their definitions of terms like "democracy", their beliefs, their norms, their culture - are all universal. You need to specify which EU laws does this violate. "undemocratic" by your definition. There is no universally precise definition of "democratic". Because I'm sure EU council knows how to be democratic by their own definition of the term. They have an army of legal pundits who ensure that everything is done correctly within their legal framework.
  • fosk 3mo ago
    Literally the voice of the EU voters has been suppressed on this matter despite the Parliament (elected by them) voted twice on denying this full proposal. By any definition of the term, this is not a democracy and it's a technocracy at best. Edit: I am Italian.
    • zkmon 3mo ago
      Are you saying EU Council made an illegal Act that violates the provisions in other Acts? Why don't anyone talk about references to those violations?
      • Oranguru 3mo ago
        They didn't say that; they simply said this is not the way of democracy. Legality has nothing to do with it.
  • hniscensorship 3mo ago
    [flagged]
  • rayiner 3mo ago
    > Some folks (mostly Americans) tend to think that their laws, their definitions of terms like "democracy", their beliefs, their norms, their culture - are all universal. The American system was mostly cribbed from Europeans to begin with. Montesquieu, etc. The structure of the EU is bizarre according to the principles of democratic governance articulated by Europeans themselves.
• abc42 3mo ago
  Two things are not quite correct in your text: 1. The Council triggered the second reading by adopting its own position and sending it back. You made it sound like the Commission just steamrolled it unilaterally. 2. The scheduling conspiracy is false. Parliament itself voted (331-304) on July 7 to fast-track this. Also, the votes in March and July were pretty stable: 311 against in March, 314 against in July.
• pfortuny 3mo ago
  That summurizes it pretty well. The Commission is essentially omnipotent, and there is no relevat judiciary to stop it. This is farcical. Yes, from a PURELY MONETARY viewpoint, Brexit was a disaster. But there are more important things than money. I'm from Spain btw.
  • Roark66 3mo ago
    Exactly, also the ECJ is horribly corrupt (search for the corruption scandal revealed by a French journalist few years ago). Nothing happened back them. This will never become law in my country(Poland). Last time they tried to push it people protested in the millions.
    • dwedge 3mo ago
      > This will never become law in my country(Poland) I'm sorry to tell you, but if the choice becomes lose EU funding or pass it into law, it will happen.
  • deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  • rayiner 3mo ago
    I tried to explain to my wife (American lawyer) how the EU Commissioners are selected and she told me "I'm not having fun understanding this." I had thought it was just the heads of government from each member state. That would make sense given the immense power of the body. But that's apparently not how it works.
    • ktosobcy 3mo ago
      You are mixing it with Council ;) Yeah, EU setup is absurdly convoluted but it's simply a result of the consensus that tires to balance difference sources of power (the people and the countries). Ideally the whole EU population should just vote for MEPs in EU parliment, which the would form the government. But that would completely sidestep member states government which they won't ever agree to. And any even mention of reforminng the EU towards that is immediatelly shoot down because nationalists are screetching about soverignty (which at the same time complain that the EU is undemocratic) So we have the setup with European Council (heads of governments) setting the agenda, Comission (presiden of which is selected by council and approved by parliment) that makes that into law and then Parliment and EU Council (not European council!) votes for it. A coupld of infographics how that works: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20240524STO21650/what-do-the-eu-institutions-do-infographic https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20240524STO... https://static.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2022/03/-large-680_1.png https://static.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2022/03/-la... https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mind-Map-EU-Institutional-Context-scaled.jpeg https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022...
• hniscensorship 3mo ago
  Just like HN. Undemocratic and full of censorship and disinformation. Unintelligent authoritarians run amok.
• rayiner 3mo ago
  > - Once the Commission does that, the proposal goes on second-reading (despite the first-reading having defeated it) and it is established in a very PERVERSE way in EU law that to AVOID passing the proposal in second-reading you need ABSOLUTE majority Wait, that's the rule? On the second go around, the default outcome is for a previously defeated proposal to pass unless you can muster an absolute majority? This seems like if the U.S. President had a reverse veto: it could pass any law Congress rejected by forcing a second vote and the law would pass unless there was an absolute majority against. Didn't the EU people read Montesquieu about separation of powers? He was French!
• mmarq 3mo ago
  We, as humanity, really need to stop equating democracy with direct votes and referenda. There are reasons why some bodies are nominated indirectly and through convoluted procedures. In many countries these processes exist to prevent the rise of fascisms or totalitarianism in general. The EU, in particular, is a community of relatively different states, where you can’t have just direct elections with proportional representation, otherwise the most populous countries will decide for everybody. This is why there is a zoo of directly elected bodies, bodies nominated by the Parliament, others expressing the will of countries’ governments, and complex voting procedures with qualified majorities and veto powers. In practice the EU has struggled to make national governments ratify trade treaties because their devolved regions were worried about beef prices. It’s not an unstoppable dictatorial behemoth that decides against the will of the people, if 10 farmers in Wallonia can stop it. They still haven’t convinced Germany that an Italian baker can open a bakery in Bavaria without attending a local mandatory 5 year Meister training.
• winterismute 3mo ago
  While I agree that this setup is not very good, the EU Commission is essentially the equivalent of a government in a parliamentary or presidential democracy, and almost all such democracies I know about either have or have developed "ways" for the government to "push through" the will of the "chamber(s)". However, we do not consider those as farces as well, or so it seems to me, I guess mostly because those governments are still more or less directly "bootstrapped", and needs to be supported, by the chambers, which is what happens in the EU parliament as well.
  • ktosobcy 3mo ago
    It's mindbogling how ignorant people are when it comes to how the EU is structured and how it works ;(
    • BrandoElFollito 3mo ago
      It's not. The EU for us Europeans is a vague institution, very far from our everyday lives.
      • ktosobcy 3mo ago
        [citation needed] ;) Same could be said for <some level of government>. Quite often people are just generally clueless how things are administered/goverened ;)
        • BrandoElFollito 3mo ago
          No because we know that we have (in France) a president, a prime minister and ministers. We know what they are in charge of (for the basic ministries), everyone knows who the president is, a lot who the PM is, and nobody knows the current ministers. But we know their jobs. They also refer to stuff which impacts us on a daiky basis. The EU as a governing body is a mystery. Not only there are pieces that has almost the same name but are different things, they function in a remote world that does not interfere with ours. Like the UN.
• bulbar 3mo ago
  Without EU, the Europe countries don't really have leverage against super powers or FAANG companies, so we are stuck with it for now, for good and for bad.