Comment by swiftcoder
13 days ago
> I cannot understand why the European Commission wants to reduce our reliance on FAANG services, and at the same time they make Google Play a de facto standard
It seems to be different branches of the EU? This has been a recurring problem in EU tech legislation - the EU government bodies are sufficiently autonomous that the right hand seldom knows what the left is doing...
To quote Yes, Minister:
> Hacker: One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food, while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to destroy the surpluses.
> Maurice: That is not true!
> Hacker: No?
> Maurice: He is not in the next office, not even on the same floor!
They aren't autonomous at all though. All EU law comes from the Commission, which is a singular body run by a single appointed president, with everyone reporting directly to her. The Commission answers to nobody and the Parliament can't tell it what to do, just rubberstamp what it produces.
This is the best case scenario for coherency in law making. It's designed to be as undemocratic as possible, so there's no need to make compromises or engage in pork barrel politics to get stuff over the line. The incoherency of the EU's approach is just a consequence of the incoherent thinking coming from the top. The EU always has extremely powerful but very low competency presidents, always for some reason those who were failures at national politics.
> The Commission answers to nobody and the Parliament can't tell it what to do, just rubberstamp what it produces.
That's not true. First of all, amendments can be introduced by both the parliaments and council so it's not rubber-stamping. But more importantly they have the right to censure the commission (Article 17(8) TEU and in Article 234 TFEU) and thus force it to resign.
The Commission can ignore amendments from MEPs by simply withdrawing the legislation and trying again, and it does. In theory the Parliament can force the entire Commission to resign at once (not change course), but then it'll just be re-appointed by whatever secret process was used the last time around. The power is hardly useful which is why it's only been used once, IIRC.
In practice the EP doesn't matter. The MEPs rubberstamp everything because they aren't serious politicians with serious ideas. They can't be, because they can't change the law, which means they can't have party positions or campaign on policies. It's fake DDR style politics that pretends on the surface to be democracy, where there appear to be parties and politicians, but they can't actually do anything so the only people who bother to turn up are those who already agree with everything the government is doing and just want to get paid to cheerlead. The EU Parliament is like that: the death of ambition, full of apathetic losers who drift into politics without any real idea of why they're there, or people who are using it as a springboard to national parliaments where some power is still allowed to exist (only in specific areas the Commission hasn't yet taken control of).
So it's all a dummy process designed to look democratic enough to confuse people whilst actually turning Europe into a unified dictatorship.
And it's designed to confuse people. Don't take my word for it. Take the word of the EU's own former leaders who routinely boast about deceiving and manipulating the public:
When people ask politicians today “What will become of Europe?” or “Where is European integration heading?”, we usually give an evasive answer. “We don’t want a super state” that is generally the first thing we say. I must admit that I have in the past often resorted to this kind of thing myself. (Viviane Reding)
Europe's nations should be guided towards the super state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation. (Jean Monnet)
We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided we continue step by step until there is no turning back. (Juncker)
Super democratic attitudes right there.
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Yeah, the actual power in the EU rests with the national governments (i.e. the Council). The Commission can propose laws, but they can't enact them (and for my money, the power to propose laws should go to the Parliament but that won't happen any time soon, unfortunately).
"right hand" pretty nicely fits. The EU/EVP is much more conservative/right wing then many of its citizens are prepared to accept. Its a pretty nice propaganda-machinery that made this possible. Ask a random EU citizen if they are aware that conservatives are leading the EU since 30 years... You'll be surprised.
The current push for more censorship is a left talking point though
Yeah right... That's why the left wing parties in the EP voted against and the conservatives / neoright parties voted in favour of censorship. -.-