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You keep spreading this, but the eurocommssion president gets appointed by the European Council, which consists of democratically elected heads of state. She i

You keep spreading this, but the eurocommssion president gets appointed by the European Council, which consists of democratically elected heads of state. She is no less democratically elected than the prime minister of a parliamentary republic... They get appointed by the democratically elected parliament.

gizajob 17d ago
Her doublethink and doublespeak needs repeated illumination. She has never been part of any democratic process to put her in that role. In a parliamentary democracy the prime minister is an elected minister who leads his or her party. Von der leyen is a technocrat. “Demos” means “the people” en masse.
- cromka 17d ago
  Sounds like you're moving goalposts here
vrganj 17d ago
Or the President of the US, which is also appointed by the democratically elected Electoral College...
- phoronixrly 17d ago
  LMAO, right, just as representative! Get this Brexit-era disinfo off my screen...
- gampleman 17d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector - this is actually pretty interesting.
lou1306 17d ago
To be frank, it is a quite eccentric way to appoint an executive leader: imagine POTUS being chosen by state governors. > She is no less democratically elected than the prime minister of a parliamentary republic Well I would say this is arguable. Sure, her power is ultimately resulting from a popular mandate. But, if your country elects the head of state directly (say, France) then there are two "hops" between a popular mandate and the head of the EC. Whereas, if you are in a parliamentary system, it's three "hops" (MPs -> head of State -> EC president).
ExoticPearTree 17d ago
> You keep spreading this, but the eurocommssion president gets appointed by the European Council, which consists of democratically elected heads of state. It does not matter who elects the EU commission, there needs to be a popular vote across the EU for every commissioner job and the EU Commission head. What we have today in EU is pure BS: every country gets a commissioner based on that country's influence within the bloc and every time a new country joins the EU, a new commissioner role just happens to be created. I want to be able to choose from a number of candidates who should run the EU, not the prime minister or the president of a member country. Everybody who holds even a little power in the EU construct needs to be voted by EU citizens, not appointed by who knows who. This second- or third-hand "democracy" is not a democracy at all.
- ben_w 17d ago
  If this is your standard, that's fine. The US (electoral collage and 2 senator seats per state) and the UK (government ministers don't need to be MPs) also fail at this definition, and I would like them to be better in general too.
- scrollaway 17d ago
  > there needs to be a popular vote across the EU for every commissioner job and the EU Commission head. Your talking points are misinformed and pretty ridiculous which makes me think you're a troll rather than having a faithful argument. But on the off chance you are trying to have a real discussion: The Council and Parliament both get elected and the commission cannot do anything without them, so it's not like the system is not democratic. I don't see the US asking for their attorney general or supreme court justices to be democratically elected. At some point you have to trust that the people you actually elect will appoint people who know what they're doing. Just because there's someone in the chain you're not doing a round of elections on doesn't make the system bad. You need the system to have agency at some point.
  - ExoticPearTree 17d ago
    > Your talking points are misinformed and pretty ridiculous which makes me think you're a troll rather than having a faithful argument. But on the off chance you are trying to have a real discussion: The Council and Parliament both get elected and the commission cannot do anything without them, so it's not like the system is not democratic. No, I really believe everybody with a shred of power in an office needs to be elected, especially at the EU level where their decisions can affect hundreds of millions. Again, second- or third-hand democracy is not really democracy. > I don't see the US asking for their attorney general or supreme court justices to be democratically elected. At some point you have to trust that the people you actually elect will appoint people who know what they're doing. Well, maybe they should. And should also limit their mandates from life to maybe 4-8 years. And no, it does not mean that if I vote for someone I will trust that someone completely. They will, at some point, take some decisions that are contrary to my interest but in their own political interest. So they do not really have a desire to represent me fully, just enough. > Just because there's someone in the chain you're not doing a round of elections on doesn't make the system bad. You need the system to have agency at some point. No, they need to be voted in. This is how we get in situations where unelected officials, like the EU commission is, make decisions that affect my life without any consequences for them. The system needs to be tied to the people's wish at every corner, and if the people don't like someone, they should be able to vote them out on a recall vote just as easy as ordering pizza. I would like to see a system where confidence votes are cast every six months or so for everyone (parliament, president, prime-minister - you name it). And if they fail, they get booted out the next day and fresh elections are held in the next two-three weeks. And the cycle repeats. Either they work for the people to keep their jobs or not. Super simple.
CodesInChaos 17d ago
The appointment of the commission president is quite different from how the German chancellor is determined: 1. The majority of representatives in Bundestag represents (up to rounding issues) the majority of voters. 2. Parties advertise their chancellor candidate before the election, and voters take that into account when choosing which party to vote for. Being chosen democratically isn't a black and white thing. It becomes gradually less democratic as you separate voter intent and outcome further. This isn't just a function of how the election process itself works, but also voters being informed. Practically no voter would have predicted von der Leyen becoming commission president when they cast their vote, making her appointment not very democratic.
rbehrends 17d ago
This is incorrect. The European Parliament elects the Commission President, not the European Council. In fact, von der Leyen narrowly squeaked through in 2019, getting 383 votes with 374 votes required (with her making it being attributed to her hawkish stance on Russia to an extent, which supposedly earned her additional Eastern European votes). The European Council does nominate the candidate and infamously in 2019 overrode the informally agreed on spitzenkandidaten process, by which the nominee of the political group (EU Parliament equivalent of parties) with the most seats should have gotten the nomination. That said, the EU Parliament is not bound by the nomination. It can very obviously reject any candidate it doesn't like, though of course the dynamics of candidate selection are heavily influenced by the European Council's nomination power. But yes, there's nothing per se undemocratic about it and I'm a bit bewildered by people asking for direct election of the President rather than cleaning up the existing process, given that most EU member states elect their heads of government indirectly.

gizajob 17d ago

Her doublethink and doublespeak needs repeated illumination. She has never been part of any democratic process to put her in that role. In a parliamentary democracy the prime minister is an elected minister who leads his or her party. Von der leyen is a technocrat. “Demos” means “the people” en masse.

cromka 17d ago
Sounds like you're moving goalposts here

vrganj 17d ago

Or the President of the US, which is also appointed by the democratically elected Electoral College...

phoronixrly 17d ago
LMAO, right, just as representative! Get this Brexit-era disinfo off my screen...
gampleman 17d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector - this is actually pretty interesting.

lou1306 17d ago

To be frank, it is a quite eccentric way to appoint an executive leader: imagine POTUS being chosen by state governors. > She is no less democratically elected than the prime minister of a parliamentary republic Well I would say this is arguable. Sure, her power is ultimately resulting from a popular mandate. But, if your country elects the head of state directly (say, France) then there are two "hops" between a popular mandate and the head of the EC. Whereas, if you are in a parliamentary system, it's three "hops" (MPs -> head of State -> EC president).

ExoticPearTree 17d ago

> You keep spreading this, but the eurocommssion president gets appointed by the European Council, which consists of democratically elected heads of state. It does not matter who elects the EU commission, there needs to be a popular vote across the EU for every commissioner job and the EU Commission head. What we have today in EU is pure BS: every country gets a commissioner based on that country's influence within the bloc and every time a new country joins the EU, a new commissioner role just happens to be created. I want to be able to choose from a number of candidates who should run the EU, not the prime minister or the president of a member country. Everybody who holds even a little power in the EU construct needs to be voted by EU citizens, not appointed by who knows who. This second- or third-hand "democracy" is not a democracy at all.

ben_w 17d ago
If this is your standard, that's fine. The US (electoral collage and 2 senator seats per state) and the UK (government ministers don't need to be MPs) also fail at this definition, and I would like them to be better in general too.
scrollaway 17d ago
> there needs to be a popular vote across the EU for every commissioner job and the EU Commission head. Your talking points are misinformed and pretty ridiculous which makes me think you're a troll rather than having a faithful argument. But on the off chance you are trying to have a real discussion: The Council and Parliament both get elected and the commission cannot do anything without them, so it's not like the system is not democratic. I don't see the US asking for their attorney general or supreme court justices to be democratically elected. At some point you have to trust that the people you actually elect will appoint people who know what they're doing. Just because there's someone in the chain you're not doing a round of elections on doesn't make the system bad. You need the system to have agency at some point.
- ExoticPearTree 17d ago
  > Your talking points are misinformed and pretty ridiculous which makes me think you're a troll rather than having a faithful argument. But on the off chance you are trying to have a real discussion: The Council and Parliament both get elected and the commission cannot do anything without them, so it's not like the system is not democratic. No, I really believe everybody with a shred of power in an office needs to be elected, especially at the EU level where their decisions can affect hundreds of millions. Again, second- or third-hand democracy is not really democracy. > I don't see the US asking for their attorney general or supreme court justices to be democratically elected. At some point you have to trust that the people you actually elect will appoint people who know what they're doing. Well, maybe they should. And should also limit their mandates from life to maybe 4-8 years. And no, it does not mean that if I vote for someone I will trust that someone completely. They will, at some point, take some decisions that are contrary to my interest but in their own political interest. So they do not really have a desire to represent me fully, just enough. > Just because there's someone in the chain you're not doing a round of elections on doesn't make the system bad. You need the system to have agency at some point. No, they need to be voted in. This is how we get in situations where unelected officials, like the EU commission is, make decisions that affect my life without any consequences for them. The system needs to be tied to the people's wish at every corner, and if the people don't like someone, they should be able to vote them out on a recall vote just as easy as ordering pizza. I would like to see a system where confidence votes are cast every six months or so for everyone (parliament, president, prime-minister - you name it). And if they fail, they get booted out the next day and fresh elections are held in the next two-three weeks. And the cycle repeats. Either they work for the people to keep their jobs or not. Super simple.

CodesInChaos 17d ago

The appointment of the commission president is quite different from how the German chancellor is determined: 1. The majority of representatives in Bundestag represents (up to rounding issues) the majority of voters. 2. Parties advertise their chancellor candidate before the election, and voters take that into account when choosing which party to vote for. Being chosen democratically isn't a black and white thing. It becomes gradually less democratic as you separate voter intent and outcome further. This isn't just a function of how the election process itself works, but also voters being informed. Practically no voter would have predicted von der Leyen becoming commission president when they cast their vote, making her appointment not very democratic.

rbehrends 17d ago

This is incorrect. The European Parliament elects the Commission President, not the European Council. In fact, von der Leyen narrowly squeaked through in 2019, getting 383 votes with 374 votes required (with her making it being attributed to her hawkish stance on Russia to an extent, which supposedly earned her additional Eastern European votes). The European Council does nominate the candidate and infamously in 2019 overrode the informally agreed on spitzenkandidaten process, by which the nominee of the political group (EU Parliament equivalent of parties) with the most seats should have gotten the nomination. That said, the EU Parliament is not bound by the nomination. It can very obviously reject any candidate it doesn't like, though of course the dynamics of candidate selection are heavily influenced by the European Council's nomination power. But yes, there's nothing per se undemocratic about it and I'm a bit bewildered by people asking for direct election of the President rather than cleaning up the existing process, given that most EU member states elect their heads of government indirectly.