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Comment by FirmwareBurner | Hacker News Reader

>Yes. Vote them out. Keep raising it.

OK. How do I vote out Ursula vd Leyen?

She's facing two more no confidence votes in October. You just need to convince all 720 members of European Parliament from 27 countries to get rid of her and her commission. Easy.

You mean the exact people that put her there in the first place despite her unanimous lack of popularity in Europe and especially in her home country of Germany where she failed upwards?

Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good about this type of democracy.

Yes. The same fractions which put her there (EPP and friends) will also pick another puppet who will do their bidding.

Next European Parliament election will be in 2029.

Edit: there was a copypaste of voting requirements here, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/voting-ri.... This is apparently wrong; you can also vote if you're not residing in the EU, only EU citizen. (I thought this was the case, and that link not saying that made me suspicious.) How it is possible that they've put up incorrect information on voting rights, I have no clue.

Actual reference, this time legal text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

Any person who, on the reference date:

(a) is a citizen of the Union within the meaning of the second subparagraph of Article 8 (1) of the Treaty;

(b) is not a national of the Member State of residence, but satisfies the same conditions in respect of the right to vote and to stand as a candidate as that State imposes by law on its own nationals,

shall have the right to vote […]

So either citizenship or residency is sufficient.

I was talking about voting for the position held by Ursula, the president of EU commission, not the EU parliamentary elections.

> How do I vote out Ursula [von der] Leyen?

This can only be done indirectly.

Under https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/11/27/which-meps-bac... you can at least find a chart ("Von der Leyen 2 Commission: How political groups voted") how the political groups in the European parliament voted regarding Ursula von der Leyen's second mandate as European Commission President.

>This can only be done indirectly.

So the short answer is "YOU can't".

She was elected by the European parliament. As an EU citizen, you elect that one.

You vote for a few people from your country to become MEPs. Anything beyond that is out of your control.

> You vote for a few people from your country to become MEPs. Anything beyond that is out of your control.

Just like in your country's own elections.

after how many layers of voting does democracy just becomes plain oligarchy?

Fair question. I'm personally a big fan of what I believe is called direct democracy - getting the populace to vote on a more fine-grained level and individual issues. Not just generic representatives with a bucket list of stuff they say they do and what you suspect they'll actually do. I admit that the EU level feels quite indirect, but I would still carefully call it democratic.

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