How exactly is this article painting the EU in a bad light?
The Commission has proposed something that MEPs have pushed back against. Is that not democracy working?
This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected.
If anything the worst thing about the EU is that EU citizens generally can't be bothered to engage with that level of politics; this is how UKIP managed to appear like a real political party because they required relatively little support to get elected to the EU Parliament.
> This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected.
But it is worrying that so often it is Parliament that curbs the EC.
The EC is by design appointed not elected. This is a point of concern on democratic representation. The assumption is that the EC is appointed as a panel of experts. If our 'experts' are so often incompetent or worse pliable to industry lobby then it begs the question of who are we appointing to the EC?
Yep, plus they can propose the same thing (stuff like this, or one of the many attempts to stop e2e encryption) many many times, and they only need for it to pass once, to make "going back" really hard.
I can only speak with any kind of knowledge about the UK system, but doesn't it work with basically the same system? There are unelected bureaucrats appointed by the government who advise them on policies and how they should be implemented. If anything because of first past the post it's a worse system because those policies are likely to become law with the party whipping system. At least the EU is more broadly represented in the parliament, or have I misunderstood?
Also my understanding was that the EC is appointed by the member state governments, so to some degree there is a slight aspect of democracy in that the member states governments were democratically elected. I'm not sure how exactly an individual EC representative holds their term? Can a newly elected member state government replace the existing EC member with a new one if they didn't like the one their opponents had installed?
My issue is not so much that the system lacks democracy. In principle, EC members are appointed by government who consequently was elected into power by the people.
What is worrying is that even for fairly low corruption countries, EC places have basically become 'jobs-for-the-boys' rather than appointing subject matter experts.
You look at the bios, very few have taken a job other than professional politician, some have never left the brussels circle in their proffessional lives. These people can never be Healthcare experts, or Energy experts, or Environment experts. It's nonsensical!
Valid point. Cronyism is a problem in national politics also, additionally revolving door "consultant" positions in big businesses I find problematic.
I'd love to see more direct democracy and/or some kind of merit based "national service" for government. It's quite often the case that those who seek political office are the worst people for the job (of course with exceptions to the rule).
The Commission has proposed something that MEPs have pushed back against. Is that not democracy working?
This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected.
If anything the worst thing about the EU is that EU citizens generally can't be bothered to engage with that level of politics; this is how UKIP managed to appear like a real political party because they required relatively little support to get elected to the EU Parliament.