"We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back."[0]
But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
I know because my ex did European Studies and knew how to navigate those websites. I for the life of me cannot figure out how she did it if I try now.
Another issue is basically the legal analogy of how certain difficult programming languages impose a selection bias on who actually is willing to learn it, which then leads to an echo-chamber culture where most people underestimate the issues with the programming language.
I thought he did a good work, but I was a student too so maybe I was just impressed with basic stuff (highly likely).
I know in the US we have orgs like Code for America and events like National Day of Civic Hacking. Does the EU have similar groups and events? I wonder if this could be presented to something like that.
Obviously it should be said that such a project shouldn't be needed in the first place in an ideal world, but it does sound like something I might be interested in chipping in regardless (and a great learning opportunity).
There was an episode of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product where he describes how they were trying to find the spending habits of EU MPs, but they were in a basement with no electronic devices allowed, so they hired an army of students to run up and down with notebooks and pens and relay all the information to more students upstairs who had to type it all up and put it online.
Also, keep in mind that this is in the context of getting all member states of the EU to agree on something. People kicking up a fuss is the default situation because of conflicting interests between different states.
Make no mistake about how I feel about this though: it's still pretty horrible even with that context in mind. And as graemep pointed out the rest of the quotes on that page will tell you all you need to know about Juncker too.
I mean, I certainly did not vote for Ursula von der Leyen either.
This is fundamentally different from how a PM is voted in a traditional parliamentary system where an MP leads the party during the election process and elected as PM after a clear victory or negotiations between MPs.
We're a people with a wide spectrum of beliefs - we should be represented by a wide spectrum of MPs... never by a single voice.
1. My first being whenever a single party actually wins a majority.
This is a fair statement. I'm not from the EU but I think it's true for basically any society. Also a lot of the dysfunction in the EU is obviously by design and it's supposed to instill cooperation and deliberation between different stakeholders.
Still, in politics "getting things done" is very important, imo much more important than representation because the main job of a government is to govern and a fairly balanced government that fails to govern will lose support very quickly and become unrepresentative/useless. Also if someone can't get things done, others will do it and force their hand, like the case of the election of the EU commission president. Or practically everything the UN does.
The good thing about a government by a single party or a well defined coalition is that you know what they roughly stand for, what they don't stand for, who is for them and who is against. You can support them or vote against them. In an election one side wins. Being an incumbent is difficult so in the next the other side wins, they are supposed to balance each other that way.
What is the alternative of a de facto coalition between the right, center-left and liberals? Which of these is really in power? Who are you going to vote for if you don't like where the things are headed?
Looking at the EU parliament (or the parliaments of many EU countries) the main alternatives are fascism-lite and actual fascism. That's the risk of plethoric supranational governing bodies like the EU or very large coalition governments, they rob people of viable democratic alternatives.
The council is made up of the prime ministers of the EU member countries, which also were not voted for seats in the EC.
Likewise there was no vote on the Lisboa treaty which effectively put the EC above the parliament and outside its jurisdiction.
I meant that whatever the government metaphorical "you" voted in, has voice in EC.
In fact current Lisboa treaty came into effect after previous reform attempt was torpedoed in part for "taking away sovereignty" by giving more power to European Parliament vs European Council - where the national governments have power.
In some cases less between the states and more between gonvernment and people. The european parliament is elected by the people. But many important matters are defined by the comission consisting of representatives of the member states governments.
Of course the different governments are also elected. But as part of the comission they can act against the will of the people and later blame the EU.
- Jean-Claude Juncker - Jean-Claude Juncker ...Prime minister of ....LuxembourgI mean, I'm not saying Juncker is great, just that reading the random collection of quotes on wikiquotes might not be the best way to judge his work.