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I love that argument now parroted all over the Internet. Love it because what these people actually eman is they want an elected president, which would legitimi

by cromka 19d ago

I love that argument now parroted all over the Internet. Love it because what these people actually eman is they want an elected president, which would legitimize EU even more, hopefully with its own constitution.

gizajob 19d ago
That would be the next step but they seem to be getting on fine with an unelected president.
bawolff 19d ago
EU already has a constitution (?)
- mattashii 19d ago
  Nope, it doesn't. It's current legal basis is a series of treaties, the attempt to create a constitution failed when in 2005 the various countries' local referenda on supporting an EU constitution failed to garner the required support. FRA' referendum failed 45-55, and NLD's consultative referendum on June 1 also gave a solid "no" (38.5% yes vs 61.5% no).
  - bawolff 19d ago
    > It's current legal basis is a series of treaties But that meets the normal definition of a constitution. Just because the document isn't named the "constitution" doesn't make it any less of one. Most countries have constitutions that look like EU's legal basis. America style constitutions are less common. The later attempt to consolidate the constitution failing, doesn't make the previous legal basis any less of a constitution.
    - mattashii 19d ago
      That's fair criticism. The deeper reason why it's not a constitution is because it's not the cornerstone of legal, moral, and existential rights of the signatory constituent countries. These countries each have their own constitution that they are beholden to, with no higher authority to fall back to. The Treaty of Maastricht (and later, Lisbon) can't be guaranteed to have precedence when called upon if they conflict with the constituent countries' constitution(s), and all legislation covered under the treaties must be implemented separately and completely as locally applicable laws before going into effect. The EU regulations generally prescribe a deadline for implementing such regulations, but a country could (and sometimes does, see e.g. Hungary under Orban) break its obligations under the Treaty and ignore or never implement the agreed-upon regulations, and the EU would be unable to do much to enforce its regulations.
  - gizajob 19d ago
    But as it’s proven time and time again, when there’s democratic pushback and rejection of its ideas, it just ignores the democracy and continues with the ideas regardless. The Lisbon treaty being rejected has just led to all its aims being implemented piecemeal anyway. And nobody in Europe asked for or voted for having a president, yet here is Ursula speaking for everyone today, again.
- cromka 19d ago
  As others said. Constitution and an elected president would pave way into a common military.
  - freehorse 19d ago
    Yeah, good to make it clear that militarization of europe is what is actually debated, not democracy.
    - cromka 19d ago
      Who said that?
freehorse 19d ago
Not necessarily. One can eg want more power to the actually elected part of the EU structure and less power to the commission. Imo electing or not a president does not necessarily help with democracy, as the US example shows. And in europe most countries do not have a strong presidential system, except France and 2-3 others. So I doubt having "strong elected president" is what people actually have in mind for the EU. People bring this up they may consider EU to be historically a centralized power structure. Whether it can practically be actually democratized or not is a matter of debate. One can bring up the democratic deficit of EU without harbouring actual thoughts or hopes that it can be fixed.
- eclark183 19d ago
  [flagged]

by cromka 19d ago

gizajob 19d ago

That would be the next step but they seem to be getting on fine with an unelected president.

bawolff 19d ago

EU already has a constitution (?)

mattashii 19d ago
Nope, it doesn't. It's current legal basis is a series of treaties, the attempt to create a constitution failed when in 2005 the various countries' local referenda on supporting an EU constitution failed to garner the required support. FRA' referendum failed 45-55, and NLD's consultative referendum on June 1 also gave a solid "no" (38.5% yes vs 61.5% no).
- bawolff 19d ago
  > It's current legal basis is a series of treaties But that meets the normal definition of a constitution. Just because the document isn't named the "constitution" doesn't make it any less of one. Most countries have constitutions that look like EU's legal basis. America style constitutions are less common. The later attempt to consolidate the constitution failing, doesn't make the previous legal basis any less of a constitution.
  - mattashii 19d ago
    That's fair criticism. The deeper reason why it's not a constitution is because it's not the cornerstone of legal, moral, and existential rights of the signatory constituent countries. These countries each have their own constitution that they are beholden to, with no higher authority to fall back to. The Treaty of Maastricht (and later, Lisbon) can't be guaranteed to have precedence when called upon if they conflict with the constituent countries' constitution(s), and all legislation covered under the treaties must be implemented separately and completely as locally applicable laws before going into effect. The EU regulations generally prescribe a deadline for implementing such regulations, but a country could (and sometimes does, see e.g. Hungary under Orban) break its obligations under the Treaty and ignore or never implement the agreed-upon regulations, and the EU would be unable to do much to enforce its regulations.
- gizajob 19d ago
  But as it’s proven time and time again, when there’s democratic pushback and rejection of its ideas, it just ignores the democracy and continues with the ideas regardless. The Lisbon treaty being rejected has just led to all its aims being implemented piecemeal anyway. And nobody in Europe asked for or voted for having a president, yet here is Ursula speaking for everyone today, again.
cromka 19d ago
As others said. Constitution and an elected president would pave way into a common military.
- freehorse 19d ago
  Yeah, good to make it clear that militarization of europe is what is actually debated, not democracy.
  - cromka 19d ago
    Who said that?

freehorse 19d ago

Not necessarily. One can eg want more power to the actually elected part of the EU structure and less power to the commission. Imo electing or not a president does not necessarily help with democracy, as the US example shows. And in europe most countries do not have a strong presidential system, except France and 2-3 others. So I doubt having "strong elected president" is what people actually have in mind for the EU. People bring this up they may consider EU to be historically a centralized power structure. Whether it can practically be actually democratized or not is a matter of debate. One can bring up the democratic deficit of EU without harbouring actual thoughts or hopes that it can be fixed.

eclark183 19d ago
[flagged]