How do we as Europeans make sure that this ugly piece of legislation never rears its ugly head again.
Right now it is actually the council of the EU that is preventing the law from progressing.
Framing it like you do is ignoring the fact that the only reason we're here in the first place is because a good chunk of member states and MEPs want this law
I think the Council of Ministers also comes into the process. The Council consists of the national government ministers whose purview includes the matter at hand; it's membership changes for each meeting. It's really just all the member governments of the EU, one nation one council-member.
No, once a proposal is made the commission can withdraw it but not amend it anymore
After the proposal is made parliament and the council shuttle back and forth (between each other) proposed changes for up to 3 times (I might be wrong on the exact number)
If the proposal doesn't pass by then (or is withdrawn) it fails
It turns out that in France the MPs who could do that are from the far right and that is why I asked the question above.
I was impressed at how the Euro-skeptic MEPs understood my concerns and took the time to write back to me in detail. They seemed by far the most democratically engaged of all the MEPs I communicated with
Make of that what you will.
I've seen this process up close (for a Member State) and it is reliably slow with a reliable amount of ping-pong and battles between the various parties..
This is Chat Control 2.0, the first bill did not make it through so now they come back with this new iteration. If this one doesn't pass , they'll come back with Chat control 3.0 and so on by next year or the one after.
The EU was a good idea at the start. A bunch of countries wanting to preserve peace and increase trade? Sure sign me up.
That's what it was at the start.
But now, with the open borders between countries, laws that supersedes state laws, talks about having an army and a desire to turn European countries into the United States of Europe, what is the advantage here?
You could have pacts and treaties to foster cooperation and trade. You could share intelligence and help each other out just like any other country in the world does it currently without something like the EU to manage it all.
I think it's very easy to take the benefits of the EU and our resulting prosperity for granted. We need to actually have some power in the US-EU relationship, and the only way is to combine further.
I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
You opinion is that the EU is good because the EU is good. You want the United states of Europe. I don't.
France, Germany, the Northern European countries were wealthy before the EU became the EU as we know it today.
> I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
Yes, Europe, not the EU. That's my point. You can have Europe without the EU. You can have cooperation, trade, security without an overarching apparatus like the EU.
When China was still suffering through the effects of Mao, when India was still a British colony, when Brazil was still under the influence of Portugal, sure.
So sure, Europe could have coasted on the spoils of the colonial era a bit longer, but if Europe wants a table in the 21st century with the US and the rise of India and China, then Europe needs to be a unified bloc out of pure demographic reality.
As a recent example, in a world without the EU, would the countries that are in the EU have been able to stand up to Russia last year in the gas supply? I certainly think Germany at least would have blinked.
The main problems I see on the EU is that it is not integrated enough. There's a lot of bureaucracy that could be optimized if some things were more centralized (e.g.: labor laws, defense spending, etc).