Comment by HexPhantom
2 days ago
The EU isn't undemocratic, but it feels undemocratic to many, and that's a legitimacy issue worth taking seriously
2 days ago
The EU isn't undemocratic, but it feels undemocratic to many, and that's a legitimacy issue worth taking seriously
It is not democratic, as long as the President of the Commission is practically chosen by the European Council and the Parliament only can say yes or no.
And as shown in the last two terms of Von der Leyen, saying no doesn't actually do anything, because the same candidate can be proposed again.
The EU feels undemocratic because it focuses on a lot of legislation that doesn't reflect what people want. It also works on some good stuff.
Over the past decade I went from a big fan to someone very troubled about the political goals of the elites.
And, having lived in Brussels, you can sorta see why they're disconnected from the “will of the people”…
What's the problem with living in Brussels? I'm not European, and very curious about that.
They have their own neighbourhood and rarely mix with the rest of the population. Their Dunbar number (the max. amount of meaningful interpersonal connections that a person can maintain) is fully reached within that inner circle of European power.
Ironically, we managed to re-create a Forbidden City full of mandarins and eunuchs, or a new Versailles, only now they wear modern suits.
Scaling power institutions is always tricky, and this is the main risk.
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inglor_cz put it quite well.
Eventually it gets on your nerves how much worse the city has to be to cater to the Institutions.
There's something about non-taxed coddled elites eating oysters and drinking champagne at 9AM on a Sunday that makes you a bit of a cynic.
And then, of course, all your friends works for the research companies that get paid a fortune to provide advice to the Eurocrats. But well, your friend has a Bachelor's in Marketing and she's being considered an expert on Soil Research because… eh, the agency is getting paid.
The Bubble is there and you'll be exposed to it. It's not a good Bubble. It's mostly young MBAs and Political Science majors that think they know how to fix everything.
(And some very talented people, of course. It's not all bad.)
It is undemocratic. Voting for only 720 people in the entire EU apparatus once every 5 years, whilst they are part of across-borders parties is not democracy but oligarchy with the illusion of choice.
Elected officials, elected judges and binding referenda would make it democratic.
We did not elect EU leaders. They keep secrets (COVID vaccin deals), they exempt themselves from ChatControl, they are obliged to store their communications yet internally recommend Signal with disappearing messages. Whats democratic about it?
> We did not elect EU leaders
Did we not?
I voted for the EU parliament. I voted for my government, which forms the council and appoints the commission.
The council is composed of representatives of each state. That means you did not vote for 26 out of the 27 members, and most states don't have special elections for European Council members* -- which means that most of them have not been elected into their Council position.
* the Council of composed of ministers and heads of government. Ministerial posts are distributed among the winning party members in pretty much every country, and only presidential systems have a direct election for their head of government. In constitutional monarchies, the head of government is commonly assigned to the largest party leader, but it's not a directly electable position.
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