But we're talking about the EU here, the second largest democracy in the world. Of course they're accountable to the electorate. This isn't a dictatorship.
At least in national elections there are parties campaigning with a platform and then I can decide which platform I like best. How often the platforms of the elected parties get translated into reality is another question, but it can at least plausibly be described as demos kratos. Maybe the EU is "democracy" in some modern sense of the word, but in the original sense of the word it is not. (I'm not even saying that's a bad thing. Maybe it is in fact better to have elites deciding.)
I fail to see how you cannot do that in European Parliament elections. If anything, EUP elections are more democratic than average, by way of using a proportional-representation system that matches voters' preferences more closely than almost any European voting system.
And if you're saying, "but it's the Commission proposing laws!", they don't pull stuff out of thin air: the Commission effectively tries to implement an agenda that European Council members agree together. And who is EuroCouncil? National governments, whom you vote for. Also, the Commission doesn't work alone - directives are effectively drafted in concert with Parliament committees, because in the end they have to be approved by such Parliament.
Greece is a democracy, the EU is a bureaucracy.
From Berlin xHainers to Parissienne Bobos, from Munich Schwabing to Noord Amsterdam, there isn't a single citizen in the EU with discomfort of his vote becoming dilluted from a x-millionth to an x-hundredmillionth.
That's why Ursula von der Leyen is so popular.
Are you just unhappy the electorate is so large? What would the appropriate size be? Mayoral? Households? That'd really maximize the power of your vote.
But then, how would we organize at the level beyond that? Warring tribes? Go back to when Germany and France were constantly at war?
I don't love vdL either. I think the EU is in need of reform. But I still think it's fundamentally a good idea and I think vote dilution is just inherent to a large democracy.
I'm only surprised they haven't got rid of the ability of countries to secede the union yet. I'm guessing all these pushes for further integration are an attempt at de facto making it impossible to secede, even if not legally.
And that design is there to keep sovereignty of membership countries - so it is strange that you are surprised that there is still the ability of countries to secede the union. Most powerful entities in EU are national governments of countries. Who is appointing Commissioners? Member states. Similar like national governments are appointing its ministers. Then there is veto and of course, who has last word in everything? Heads of states / prime ministers.
This said, majority-rule can only increase in European mechanisms, because a continent cannot be paralized by the needs of a tiny minority on every possible choice. Does the US Senate (effectively the equivalent of EuroCouncil, with almost-equal representation for each US state) require unanimity on every choice? Obviously not, or it would never get anything done (and even like that, it struggles massively to approve anything these days).
[citation needed]. Please don't just throw out wild claims without any proof. As far as I'm aware, every single element of the EU is democratically legitimized in one way or another. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
> I'm only surprised they haven't got rid of the ability of countries to secede the union yet.
Why would they? If you don't want to be on our boat, feel free to sink on your own. We don't need the dead weight.
Vote with your money, don't dictate the rest of the country with your wants.
In other words, it's antidemocratic.
Democracy is a scam, it's just an oligarchy.
The wealthiest will do media campaigns to manipulate the public into electing their people and then these people will do whatever the elite want.
That was my point above.
"Democracy is a scam" = trolling, please refer to the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"The wealthiest will do media campaigns to manipulate the public" => that I agree with, but this is really old and has always been like that, not only in democracies. I'd even say that democracies are the places where this is happening the least, compares to state-owned news like Russia or China.
We need Swiss-style referendums-on-everything. Now it feels like oligarchy managed by lobby groups no matter what you vote for.
Ah, yes, nothing like asking 450M people for their opinion on something they know nothing about.
This is how Brexit happened, isn't it?
Obviously democracy needs educated citizens who don't take the responsibility lightly. That's why citizenship shall be a big privilege with even bigger responsibilities. We have to have a lively discussion. Otherwise it's people who cry loudest win.
I love Brexit as a democratical move. People voteds and government followed through. Now citizens will live out consequences, for better or worse. And they can make next decision accordingly. That's so much better than enlightened oligarchy guarding the masses from their own wrong feelings.
That's like raising kids. If you guard kids from their own painful decisions, they'll never learn. Eventually they'll be adults and they'll keep doing dumb decisions. You have to let them experience some pain to teach them a lesson.
It is an association of democracies, led by an undemocratic executive that is increasingly out of control. At the moment it is busily destroying its own economy in a way that is baffling to many of its citizens.
If it doesn't evolve into something more democratic it probably hasn't long to go.
The US president campaigns before a democratic election. The people know who they can choose before they vote. Same with the UK.
There is no democratic vote, with or without proxy, before the appointment of the Commission.
Why the downvote btw? This isn't reddit.
Err, yes there is. The directly-elected European Parliament first elects the President of the European Commission, and then has to vote to appoint the entire Commission.[0]
And before they do they they hold hearings with each of the different commissioner-nominees to evaluate their suitability for the role, demanding that people are replaced or given different portfolios if they are not suitable.
Nominations for the role of President must take in to account the results of the election,[0] and the European Council nominates somebody from the largest party in Parliament. I wish that Parliament had stuck to its guns in 2014/2019 and rejected the nominees that weren't spitzenkandidaten but hopefully the new proposals tabled by Parliament creating transnational lists for Parliament will change this.[1]
[0] Article 17(7) of the Treaty on European Union
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220429IP...
Of course there is. The commission is chosen by the countries elected representatives (and confirmed by the directly elected EU Parliament)
The downvotes are justified
The chances of it happening are low, but the vote of the people might not be upheld.