We need to shoot this down again and again until they learn. We need to vote them out of office and fix this corporate corruption in our government.
Most importantly, we need to get non-geeks to care about internet freedom, because as long as they believe the talk about how this is necessary, or simply don't care, the copyright monopolists will be able to get away with pressuring governments to undermine our freedom.
Democratic accountability in the EU is incredibly weak, and the member governments seem to love it because it's great for creating laws they couldn't get away with at the national level.
Of course you can. The European Parliament has the last say on EU laws. There's an upcoming EP election in only a few months. The head of the largest faction (essentially either EPP or ESP) will become head of the commission. There's few times as good as now to contact your local MEP and voice your concerns about article 13.
> Permanently, since there's absolutely nothing MEPs can do to reverse this once it passes, unlike in an actual democracy.
So how's the reversal of the net neutrality decision working out in that democracy again?
What do you mean? Those laws were successfully rolled back in 2017.
Practical question: how do I do it?
Choose your country, it'll open your mail client and then you can let them know what you think.
(The other GroenLinks politician is green, so it's likely that the red one simply missed the vote. Still bad of course, but not evil. He needs to show up next time.)
This has no bearing on the legitimacy of the EU. Members of the commission are selected by the democratically elected government of their respective countries.
People that downplay the democratic legitimacy of the EU really, truly, unequivocally do not understand what they are talking about or have a malicious intention.
People vote for their national parliament. Parliament appoints a government. Those appointed governments then discuss who to appoint in the commission. Europarliament gets a say, but can only accept or reject the entire commission, not specific members in it.
The Europarliament is the only democratically elected body on the EU level, and its power is sorely lacking.
I understand why people say this. The population have not directly voted for these commissioners. They can't simply vote them out. It feels like a step removed from the democratic process, and I'm not sure that's beneficial.
I came across it some time ago and I will probably have to look for it again.