They do have a say. They can elect representatives who could change the legal framework and the incentives for the bureaucrats, or even remove the ability of the bureaucrats to regulate certain things. Then these regulations would not get passed and that would be that.
They cannot. The EU Parliament cannot pass, change or repeal laws. Its representatives can't represent.
If you mean elect national representatives, then the EU treaties were deliberately written to only give them one option - exit entirely and be trade sanctioned by the others as a result, who must obey constitutionally even if it's self harm and they don't want to do it.
The EU is designed from the ground up to look slightly democratic from a distance without actually being so. Ordinary people living and working in member states have zero influence over these kinds of regulations which is why stuff like the DMA doesn't reflect their actual legislative priorities, which according to polls for a long time are primarily economic and immigration related, sometimes climate.
If you look at how the political class treated Brexit, you can see why it's so hard to influence these decisions.
If it's not in the EU parliaments jurisdiction, it's in the EU council's. As a rule, all members states have to be democratic and you can simply vote out your EU council member i.e. your head of state. It is democratic.
The EU Councils decisions are taken in secret. You have no idea if it's democratic or not, nor does it matter even if they do hold a vote because by convention none of them ever campaign on the decisions they make there.
To see this, try and find out how Ursula von der Leyen ended up the most powerful woman in Europe. What qualified her for that, who were the alternative candidates considered, what was said during the debate and by whom.
You can't because the entire process was secret from end to end. Was she even voted on? Nobody knows.
Again, the EU is designed to pass itself off as democratic without being so. But so is China.
It's a constitutional fact. The most they can do is propose amendments to laws proposed by the Commission, but the Commission drives the whole process and isn't required to accept them (worst case, they just cancel the law and then try again later).
There is literally nobody you can vote for to if you want to repeal the DMA.
We have a say at a 4th level of derived decision, which is 2 levels more than what people call a democracy. Also, the other political party will do it too.
= We don’t have a say. We voted NO to the new EU treaties in 2008 and the new president decided that electing him meant that we approved the same treaties.
The lower chamber of parliament that votes on the regulation is directly elected and can rewrite and amend proposals. The higher chamber (EU Council) is comprised from government (or state?) heads which are either directly of indirectly elected with a length of 1. The commission (executive branch) that drafts the laws that are amended and passed by the parliament is voted in by a parliament which is directly elected.
Where do you get 4th level of deriviation exactly?
But MEPs can't even introduce legislation, they have to get all of Parliament to ask the European Commission to initiate legislation, and the Commissioners are pretty far removed from direct election. Nobody elected by the citizens can initiate legislation.
Not sure what other mechanism would be possible for creating a rule system like the DMA presuming that the EU countries remain independent. Treaties are too slow, and direct democracy on an issue this complicated is the realm of science fiction (see Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe for a take on this -- particularly the Demarchist faction).
