Comment by realityking
13 days ago
> 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.
I sadly agree with what you wrote, but on this point
> 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
I have to disagree. There are many (or, "at least a few I know personally"? [1]) people who sit in the Parliament with a real intention of making good. Their power is simply null, though.
1. David Sassoli (deceased, ex president), Guy Verhofstadt (Renew), Patrick Breyer (Pirates), to name a few I follow.
I only know the name Verhofstadt but he's a hard-core federalist, no? Sure, people who define good as the EU taking everything over can genuinely view their "work" as doing good, but it's the sort of thing I meant by cheerleading. The Commission needs no encouragement and would be doing exactly the same things regardless of whether Verhofstadt existed or not.
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).