Comment by constantius
2 days ago
I don't disagree with this: I'm saying that unless the power is of the Council and Commission is restrained, all the goodwill of the Parliament is an uphill battle and all people of the Member States are subjected to the corruption of unelected people like Ursula von der Leyden or of (temporarily?) problematic policies of some of the Member States' governments (like Denmark on Chat Control).
You can't restrain the power of the Council. The Council is the member states. What you're proposing would take power away from the member states and hand it to, who? People already think the EU is undemocratic, imagine after that.
The main problem is that people still do not understand how the EU works. They don't understand that almost everything comes from the direction the member states push from the Council.
And in fact, I think the member states like it that way, or why else wouldn't they educate people more?
> hand it to, who?
To the people.
There are many ways to restrain the Council that'd make the EU more democratic: enforce more/full transparency into the Council's decision-making, expand the powers of the Parliament (making the Council into the upper house basically), enforce the Spitzenkandidat method for appointing the EC President, allow referenda on major issues to bypass the Council.
None of these is perfect, but they would streamline the democratic processes within the EU by lessening the role of the Council as intermediary.
I agree that the Council themselves would never allow that however.