Comment by teekert
2 days ago
This is a nice piece of democracy right here:
"a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028."
"Oh no we can't get a majority to pass the law!"
"Have you tried getting a majority to not pass the law?"
"Worth a shot!"
"It worked, should we also do this multiple times?"
"Of course not! Pass the law, quickly!"
Not only was Chat Control 1.0 already rejected twice by the European Parliament but:
- This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation - 112 MEPs of 719 didn't vote.
- The vote was called only two days before as an "Rule 170 - Urgent procedure" - 73 MEPs missed the vote making it "urgent". Normally it takes months of procedure to come up for a final vote.
I think that means those MEPs are not doing their jobs. They are the representatives of their people, but somehow they left for vacation before the last day of the session. They failed in the most important part of their duty.
Its beyond political malpractice
Around ten years ago I watched some MEPs on YouTube talk about their jobs. A lot of them were scathing. The EP isn't a real parliament and the people in it don't have any real power, so it fills up with cheerleaders and hecklers.
Attendance isn't just low before the summer break, it's low all the time. MEPs miss votes for reasons as trivial as there being a football game on, because why not? It's not like their votes matter much anyway. Everything important is decided upon long before they get involved, they aren't allowed to actually write laws or pass them or repeal them, and so nobody with any political ambition goes there unless they're using it as a springboard to national politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166SAhPB5-Q
> "Mr President, our parliament in the United Kingdom sat for 142 days last year and it was criticized widely for only sitting for that amount of time yet we in Brussels and Strasburg in the plenary and mini plenary, we sit for just five days a month and on three of those days it's only part of a day that we actually sit for. So we end up with debate in this chamber where microphones of speakers are cut off after 60 seconds, 90 seconds or 2 minutes, and we have no way of expanding on a point, we have no way of properly challenging a speaker, we have no means of proper scrutiny of proposed legislation that comes through. Surely it would make more sense to have sufficient time allocated to proper debate to reason debate and those who actually believe in the structures and institutions of this place should surely welcome that. I think my 60 seconds is up."
You can tell it's a joke institution because they regularly penalize MEPs for the content of their two minute speeches. Britain has the concept of parliamentary immunity but the EU does not, so you get "politicians" who are told what they can and cannot say by the leaders of other parties.
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It is a global push to kill technology
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That's why you have a constitution with rights that are not up for vote.
Even relying on people to vote no is not enough.
Some European countries like Germany do, but the EU somehow can override those national constitutions.
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We already have a constitution like that in Italy, not that anyone cares to enforce it though…
The sheer optimism of posting this as an American right now...
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I'm not sure any country actually has a Constitution with rights that are not up for a vote. There is generally a separate, harder procedure for changing the "basic law" or Constitution of a country -- for example, 2/3 of delegates or a 2/3 of states or something of that nature -- but I'd be surprised if there's a country where they have literally no way to change it at all.
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Sounds like an unlawful law to me, but hey. Im an American, what do I know.
> This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation
Surely this was not by someone’s design. Maybe though… you don’t leave a day early for your vacation?
And then people wonder why there’s so little faith in the EU and why there is a perception of them being disconnected from the real interests of the people.
Oh but they keep reposting how phones will have replaceable batteries now, so it's all fine, they are good guys!
I've seen several posts with the photo of Ursula (one of the most hated politicians of all times) associated with the batteries thing.
So 112 MEPs didn't do their job...got it.
Politicians can take vacations. Many things went wrong here but this ain't it.
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Honest question: when Europeans give so much power to EU and usually favor regulations by the government, isn't it natural that the government will try to implement more control? And it looks EU officials do not have to accountable for anything. They will not suffer personally even when their policies wreck havoc. I don't quite understand why Europeans can trust EU at all. Case in point, EU HQs shut down its air conditioning on floors 1 through 7 to prevent electrical overloads, leaving the upper levels used by top officials unaffected. Yet did anyone like Leyen get punished? Note I'm not naive enough to believe politicians don't have special treatment in other countries. But at least in some countries, politicians will not be so shameless that they'd do it in broad day light.
> Europeans give so much power to EU and usually favor regulations by the government
This antecedent is far too broad; what regulations, benefiting whom? It's pretty obvious in this case that the majority of their representatives do not favor at least this type of regulation. In other cases, the majority of representatives favor regulation which prevents private corporations from selling their PII to the highest bidder. So you're going to have to reckon with the nuance of the real world if you don't want to make obviously leading statements like this.
You're right, there are nuances in different policies. I was referring to the general power and consent that Europeans grant to the EU council. In my naive view their power is unchecked. As a result, we can start with good intent and good regulations, but eventually they will abuse their power as its the nature of power.
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The question I would ask next is that if a majority don't actually favor it, who will vote to sanction member countries that refuse to implement it in protest? Giving a central authority significant power likenthis inevitably leads to autocracy per Montesquieu.
Representatives are different to all of the EU bureaucracy and NGOs that make up the long-term powerful influentials in the EU. Representatives come and go.
I don't understand either but just for reference on your point:
Trust in the EU is at its highest in 18 years
'52% of Europeans trust the EU, the highest result since 2007. The level of trust is highest among young people aged 15-24 (59%). Setting another 18-year record, 52% of Europeans say they trust the European Commission, with scoring again particularly high among young citizens (57%). At the same time, 36% of Europeans say they trust their national government and 37% say they trust their national parliament.Three quarters of respondents (75%) - the highest level in more than two decades - say they feelthey are citizens of the EU.'
On the other hand look at who issued this report. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/docume...
> 52% of Europeans trust the EU,
Who was asked, i.e. tourists visiting Brussels? How many were asked? How were they asked, i.e. leading questions such as "you do like the EU don't you"? Who didn't respond?
And more importantly, who is doing the asking? Oh, the EU itself is doing the asking. They are, of course, not biased in any way at all.
These numbers are then provided by the same folks that just timed a vote on our privacy when a) MEPs were known to be on holidays b) reversing the vote procedures, i.e. the 'no's have reach a set minimum c) are happy to sign away our collective privacy.
All that for 52% - all time high. When I was going to school, 52% wasn't a score that I went home to my parents with and told them how good things were going - even if it was an "all time high".
Crazy, how the EU have mixed up mediocrity with democracy.
Just to be clear, here you see the EU, but behind this there are a few corrupt national government officials that are pushing hard for this.
But hundreds voted?
314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions
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Yeah, it always strikes me when this crazy, obviously stupid stuff ends up "49 to 51" like either there are active forces fighting each other ending in an equilibrium, or the equilibrium is arising passively, everyone and their representatives are just randomly scribbling in the circles.
>This is a nice piece of democracy right here:
this is just eu in a nutshell, the irish were made to vote on both nice and lisbon treaties twice (both were voted no in the first vote)
Any time now even the most pro-european EU defender will realise that what was once a trade union has slowly transformed itself into an undemocratic, bureaucratic monster.
A surprisingly large amount of people are quite alright with that as long as they perceive that those undemocratic processes are producing the end results they desire. It's not unique to the EU, though they do play this game very well, or even to this time period. Once the powers have been granted, the public has only limited ability to revoke the power, with many of them easily swayed that it's good for this power to exist by having a red meat issue thrown to them to chew on as a distraction.
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It wasn't really a trade union. It's purpose was to stop the re-emergence of something like the Nazis and to prevent wars. I don't think it's instincts were ever really democratic.
Reddit still thinks the EU represents democracy.
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Only in some bubbles. But most normies I know are massive EU fanboys and showing them the malicious things the EU is doing, they just shrug at best, or call you a Putin supporter at worst.
They'll only realize this when the jackboot is on their neck. But probably not even then because in some EU countries government obedience is like a religion.
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Here in the UK, a large proportion of the population still think the EU is a good idea... Despite all the evidence proving otherwise.
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Well, the No vote triggered some adjustments, so this is indeed relatively democratic. What would be the alternative?
The revised law not passing until it gets a majority would seem more democratic.
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Let's just as enthusiastically revote on the chat control law right now then! Oh, wait... revotes only happen when the bureaucrats/lobbyists want them
And then politician always wonder why nobody has any trust left.
What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around, with the majority being for. I'm guessing that site has it reversed then or I don't fully understand the proposal? Looking at which politicians from my country voted "no" on this site it seems to be mostly the ones that I'd expect to vote "yes", so that would support this site just having the options reversed.
> What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around
They voted for "Proposition de rejet". It's written there, but it's in French.
Found this, source: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/
On 7 July, MEPs voted 331–303 to fast-track the return of Chat Control 1.0 mass scanning. A binding vote follows Thursday, 9 July, where an absolute majority of 361 MEPs is needed to stop it. Take action now to demand they defend your private messages.
"Yes" means stop control, because it's a "proposition de rejet" we're looking at. rejet = reject. Parties in favor of chat control were:
- European People’s Party and
- Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.
Countries in favor of chat control were:
Spain, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Hungary, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus
If you look at the initial vote from July 7, there are a few countries who actually wanted to make it an "urgent decision" (other than the countries above):
France, Czechia, Finland, Croatia, Luxembourg
The selection of countries seems so random. The poorer countries seem to be in favor, no judgment there... It looks like a pay-off list, though.
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Maybe the voters also got confused and that's why it passed?
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Hmm most MPs from Renew, Greens and eurosceptics (ECR) from my country voted yes. I'm a bit surprised since some of those are hardliner Christian conservatives that I'd never vote for under any circumstances.
Democracy is when you just try and try again and again until it passes with 51/49. Then its democratic and legitimized and only evil terrorists would oppose those laws we have all democratically agreed upon.
Also, see the case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru - if you aren't liked by the EU courts, they just accuse you of "collusion with Russia" and ban your bank account via "sanction policies". The ECJ doesn't have to provide any evidence of crime, you have to provide counter-evidence of the absence of crime (and good luck defending yourself without money). The ECJ judges, who interpret and impose these laws, are also not democratically really elected or anything, yet they hold power over your bank account. Makes ya think.
How did you connect the linked Wikipedia article to EU courts and ECJ?
This journalist was not sanctioned by the court.
The court approved the sanctions when he tried to challenge them.
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> Also, see the case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru - if you aren't liked by the EU courts, ...
This was done by the Council of Europe (an organisation made up of a mix of member state foreign ministers and member state parliament members)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...
No court was involved as far as I can tell...
That’s even worse
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Is this the first court system you ever hear about? Judges are never democratically elected.
Except in this case it actually passed 49/51.
>Redfish forced to cease operations as an official subsidiary of Ruptly/RT
>Immediately after Red Media gets founded by the guy, but now in Turkey
>Redfish social media presence gets renamed to Red Media
>Red Media kept staff, equipment and reused content from Redfish
Tbh I'd be pissed if sanctions could be bypassed by simply changing your logo and handle.
I'd go further and suspect the Russian disinformation apparatus just threw them under the bus for "EU bad" points.
It's such a textbook and standard Russian propaganda practice to finance and push divisive and partial views I'm even surprised people keep falling for it.
Another "journalist" the far left (in Spain at least) considers a martyr. The whole coverage of his arrest was a shitshow (Freedom of expression! Poland is fascist! Freedom for Pablo!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Yag%C3%BCe
Then it was shown he spied on Nemtsov, Polish journalists... and he even hugged uniformed GRU officers upon arrival in Russia as part of a prisoner exchange, while wearing a "my empire needs me" t-shirt.
But this doesn't affect only the far left:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Europe
Anti-immigration, anti EU narratives, solid antisemitic (not just anti-Israel) stances, interviews with all sorts of sketchy characters, the whole set. Luckily for de Vlieger, he had sold the operation to literal Viktor Medvedchuk (and then the platform took a further Russia victim, Ukraine bad turn), so he remains unsanctioned.
EU cant claim the moral high ground anymore with the way this was done. They've joined the rest of the world now. This was a win for foreign companies and makes me wonder if the EU has been infiltrated by outside interests.
Oh, yes, thankfully the protections for privacy are much better in the US... right? Right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
Ah, "it's only democracy if you vote my way" argument. We usually call that type of governing something else.
Adding the reminder that these votes and majority rejecting are of unelected bureaucrats, so the way that it was framed was approved from above while making practically impossible to reject but still theoretically possible so people are forced to swallow it.
Soviet Union 2.0
The members of parliament are elected every 5 years by the citizens of the european union. What do you mean with unelected bureaucrats?
You're right, I meant the Commissioners which are the ones essentially designing how to legislate, which is the traditional name for "engineer society behavior"
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Can it be undone? One of the key aspects of any society is that it can in fact change law/policy/leaders/etc without war/rebels. yes harm happens when bad crap gets in but if the system still supports change, it is working.
For all the bad in trump era like roe vs wade among many others. The same mechanism are what allowed roe vs wade to exist. A double edge sword but better than alternative variants of totalitarian multi decade long regimes.
This has an expiration date baked in for 2028 so if no new legislation comes in until then, it will undo itself on its own.
Wow does it become law if the majority of those present opposed it? The American Congress might be utterly dysfunctional, but we’ve never had a law pass despite the majority of members voting against it. What am I missing?
The fact that there was a second vote on a modified law which passed.
Did it pass because a majority voted for it?
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> What am I missing?
Nothing really.
Some will disagree with this, but this is neither new or surprising behaviour from the EU. In the EU if the political class want something, it doesn't really matter what the public want or vote for.
In the US a lot of your dysfunction is from the fact that your political system actually "works". You maniacs actually can vote for someone like Trump (twice), and he can do stuff regardless of how unpopular he is among the political class.
Here in Europe things like democracy and freedom of speech are only permitted if our political class approves. We can decide things like tax rates, but some things we're not allowed to express opinions on, and some things we have no power to vote for or against.
With some exceptions most European democracies work like this and EU is really the gold standard of this system. They have lots of ways to do what they want regardless of how popular it is, and regardless of what the opinions of our elected representatives are.
This is incorrect.
Meet the senate, where most stuff doesn’t pass unless you get 60 votes, not 51
Who is the "political class" of the EU?
In the US, it seems more obvious how corporate money pulls the political strings, but my impression is that corporate influence is a lot weaker in Europe..
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We're currently running a long-term offshore experiment to see if 2A has any measurable impact on dragnet surveillance and the NSA.
There are plenty of things to complain about here, and that is one of them. But that authorization was passed by our elected representatives by a super majority and reauthorized by them multiple times. It was not done by a sneaky maneuver where the majority of congress voted against it but somehow it still became law.
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True, the solution is to just start murdering politicians. Thanks for the advice America.
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