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Comment by ThalesX | Hacker News Reader

> But calling the EU not being democratic is going too far

I'm an EU citizen. I have minimal saying in who our commissioner is and what members of the cabinet get chosen.

I have a vote which I give to whatever party. After that, the vote for commissioner is secret; I have no idea who voted for what. After that, the negociations for the cabinet are secret; I have no idea what the criteria are and what the plans are.

I'm not putting us in the bucket of non-democracy just yet but I don't feel it's that far.

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> I have minimal saying in who our commissioner is and what members of the cabinet get chosen.

We get to vote for our country representatives, who then vote for the MEPs. I don't think there is any EU-wide rule that prevents the MEP nomination process from being open - that'd be country-specific legislation.

I'm not talking about MEPs. The commissioner is not a country representative, I'm talking about the head of the European Commission, miss Ursula von der Leyen as it currently stands.

There is no rule preventing it from being open, there is also no rule forcing it to being open.

Your MEPs could certainly propose that.

In a democracy is it possible for a government to commit illegal things and get away with it simply by ignoring the complaints, filed police charges etc?

In a democracy the government as well are supposed to be accountable by the rule of law. As they are not it is a failed democracy.

Are you aware of the history of the US Senate? It had exactly the same problem. Senators were appointed by the political elite of each state.

But, once one or two states decided to elect their senator, it was game over. The other states gave up, and now all the senators are elected.

It's true that both the commission and (perhaps even more powerful) the council of ministers are not democratic. But this is in the hands of each individual country to change. And it's national level politicians who are currently the obstacle. All find it easier to blame the EU than to take responsibility for change. But if one country takes action to increase , even a small one, the public in the others will realise they all can.

Is this not similar to ministerial roles and civil servant positions in most governments? You don't vote for the commissioners directly, but your elected representative (leader of your government) does, and that's your path to express preferences & drive accountability. If you don't like the selection, take it up with them.

In the UK for example, the people elect members of parliament as their representatives, but MPs choose their party leaders, and the governing party leadership chooses its ministers without any public consultation or debate. What's the difference?

In the UK, politicians will often U-turn if they sense that a policy will make them unpopular and make the next election harder to fight. Governments can and do get punished on polling day every five years. Sunak paid for his unpopularity and the record of his government. Could any EU voters do anything about Ursula getting a second term? (and once again she was the only name on the ballot and then only just scraped through). The EU commission is not concerned with democratic accountability. Power is concentrated in the Commission and Council. There's a very weak link back to the electorate, but it's homeopathic democracy.

Again, this is not different to local democratic processes.

Voters typically cannot directly stop somebody being named leader of their party or given a specific role within government for multiple terms. If you dislike them, you pressure your elected representative to change that.

Almost all representative democracy is accountability through a representative, not directly through control of government internals & positions.

Again, my point was that even though we only have one direct representative, the governing party as a whole will be punished in the next election if they become deeply unpopular. If your rulemakers are immune to voter displeasure, it isn't a healthy democracy. You said "if you dislike them, you pressure your elected representative to change that". If as an EU citizen you are angry with the performance and direction of Ursula and the Commission, there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

A big difference is that in my neck of the woods, each party or coalition needs to come up with a governing document where they sort of tell you what their priorities are for the next 5 years.

In the EU we find about it after we vote, after they discuss in secrecy.

Is this different from your own government?

Yes, in that we find out what we voted for after the vote instead of before.

So we are in complete agreement.

This is generally called "representative democracy" and is mostly what people talk about when they talk about "democracy" in public conversations. The alternative is "direct democracy" and while it exists (like in Switzerland), it isn't nearly as common, sadly.

But representative democracy still is democracy.

This is not representative democracy. This is, at best, buffered representative democracy.

Arcane electoral rules make for weak representatives who gather power by making back room deals.

The real (but not constitutional) power lies in the commission that is appointed, not elected, and has been vacuuming power to itself in increasing amounts.

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