Comment by ecshafer
9 hours ago
The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as
> directly elect some kind of president
We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.
> People need to directly elect the MP
They do.
> directly elect some kind of president
I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.
Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.
People directly elects MEPs. And the Parliament literally right now just put a check on the Council.
Many EU nations are not presidential, and personally I prefer parliamentary republics than presidential ones.
The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.
Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P
one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.
give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.
for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))
You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.
Absolutely! That does keep some of the checks. You can do better than that though!
It's like on the Apollo missions where some parts were made by two completely different manufacturers and worked completely differently.
Hybrid political systems are best. Of course if we like democracy (and most people do), then that should be the most common kind of component. But I'd still like to have some different paradigms mixed into the system. And that's exactly what most modern constitutions do, for better or for worse.
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This sounds like the opposite of what should be happening? Like an anti-technocracy aiming for an electorate as little informed as possible?
Why exclude teachers from picking the education minister? If we're restricting votes, shouldn't they be the only ones doing so instead?
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> People need to directly elect the MPs
...
We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
> directly elect some kind of president.
Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).
Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.
> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).
> We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
Probably it is not taught as part of the curriculum in Russia.
Ah, looks like they're American, based on their profile.
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i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.
imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
> the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person.
Generally, a prime minister is less powerful than an executive president, often much less powerful.
> and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
On the face of it, that is the PM's primary role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, the complication is that, in many parliamentary systems, the PM has significant power over the ministers (either via the ability to directly appoint them, or via being the head of the ruling party/coalition/or various other means). But generally, the PM is less powerful in nearly all systems than, say, the US president; in particular the finance minister is often a separate semi-independent power within the cabinet.
> The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances
You're missing a [citation needed] on that.
Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
> Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
How is that an EU problem? Without the EU, like here in the UK, we had non-elected lobbyists pressuring our elected government to implement age checks, message scanning, etc. And it is still continuing.
You're fighting the wrong fight by blaming the EU for this.
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Ask your government why they're sending those representatives. As a citizen you vote for your government, right?
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Vote against the ruling party in your smaller national election
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It isn't popular, but they have a name and address right? Not talking violence, but the number one way of dealing with these sorts is to usually talk things out. If you're really concerned about, get a group of similarly minded people and make it unambiguously evident that this person is championing something a lot of people are not behind. It becomes much harder to ignore or wave off something when people start making themselves known on your doorstep.
And no, this isn't dog whistling violence. It is simply applying signal. The only other message I can think of is engaging an investigative journalist/PI and starting to figure out who is lobbying the person, and start pressuring them.
The article you're commenting on is reporting how directly elected representatives defeated the motion.
Why do you keep lying?
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