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Comment by cbeach | Hacker News Reader

> The European Commission is nominated by the European Council and and confirmed by the European Parliament.

> The European Council consists of government officials from the member states where they have been chosen by national democratic processes.

I disagree. Successful elected government officials from member states aren't governing the EU Commission and Council. They're governing their own member states, where they are elected by the public.

Unpopular, unsuccessful ex-government officials from member states are governing the EU, where they are appointed by bureaucrats.

Just look at the uninspiring Commissioners we've suffered over the last few years.

It's telling that the Von Der Leyen Commission scraped in with just 51.4% of MEP votes.

https://facts4eu.org/news/2024_dec_unpopular_eu_I

In her home country Germany, only 33% said she'd make a good Commission president.

https://www.politico.eu/article/most-germans-skeptical-of-ur...

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> Unpopular, unsuccessful ex-government officials from member states are governing the EU, where they are appointed by bureaucrats.

Von der Leyen was not appointed by bureaucrats.

> It's telling that the Von Der Leyen Commission scraped in with just 51.4% of MEP votes.

That's nothing special in European voting systems. Various governments (regional or country wide) in Germany have small, but relatively stable majorities provided by coalitions. That's very different to the mostly two-party systems in the US or the UK.

> Von der Leyen was not appointed by bureaucrats.

It's not clear who specifically did the ceremonial nomination, but it was probably the CDU bureaucracy that made the decision.

The "CDU bureaucracy" ? What is that? The CDU is a political party.

Generally about the appointment of the commission:

https://commission.europa.eu/about/organisation/how-commissi...

> The "CDU bureaucracy" ? What is that? The CDU is a political party.

Right, and like most large organisations it has a bureaucracy.

> Generally about the appointment of the commission

Right, note the vague "suggestions from member states". (Also note that the claimed accountability points have never been activated in practice)

The CDU is a large party, not a particular large "organization" in terms of full-time CDU employees. The bureaucracy of the CDU is in no way responsible for nominating/selecting the EU President of the Commission.

Ursula on der Leyen was 2019 supported by Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) as the future president of the EU commission. That's no secret. Macron also supported her. The European Council then nominated Ursula on der Leyen and she was accepted by the European Parliament. The Parliament is directly elected the citizens of the European Union.

The election of her was kind of unfortunate, since it was signalled by parties that the election to the parliament will also find the proposed EU commission president. But that was not the case. Since a candidate was not found (various parties and governments were not happy with the proposed candidates), the European Council finally proposed Ursula von der Leyen, which then also got a majority in the parliament.

51.4% is a majority. You are free to disagree again, but that won't change the facts. You can just as easily disagree about gravity, evolution or climate change. Still won't change them.

Look, I don't like lots of things about the EU either. But the first step to being able to change sth is to acknowledge the facts. Claiming that von der Leyen wasn't democratically appointed is similar to Trump claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Not a great start.

> democratically appointed

Now there's an oxymoron if ever I saw one!

Where democracy is involved, we use the word "elected" -- not "appointed"

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