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Comment by sam_lowry_ | Hacker News Reader

> Isnt the commission basically just he executive branch of the EU?

The European Commission is both the executive and legal branch. They propose the legislation that the European Parliament can only approve or reject. On the other hand, the European Patliament can not propose anything at all.

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It's common for the executive branch to have the right to propose legislation, and often the main way legislation is proposed in many countries.

While I agree this should ideally also be available to the EP, it doesn't make the EC a legislative branch. It's very much the executive.

That’s not quite accurate. There is an extended process in which the Parliament and the Council can give input and propose and discuss changes to the Commission’s proposal, to work out a compromise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_pro...

How feasible is it in practice? In the US, it's possible in practice to remove officials via impeachment as well as amend the constitution, but in practice they are almost impossible to achieve. In practice the legislature is almost deadlocked for most non-budget bills as well, so the executive ends up running the country, with an assist from the judiciary.

Reaching agreement through the trilogue is the standard practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogue_meeting#Increasing_us...

Yes, and they are non-public and they effectively excluse parliamentary debates.

You are even less accurate. The Council is not an independent body. It represents the member states directly.

The Commission is elected by member states and thus represents them indirectly.

And all of them represent the EU citizens who elected both the Parliament and the Member States governments. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. The point I tried to make is that the Parliament has significant input to the legislation in the process, it’s not just a binary yes or no.

The commission is not elected, it is appointed by the member states (I think it should be elected, but I'm in the UK so wouldn't have a vote anyway)

Appointed, Thanks for the correction.

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