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Comment by joe_mamba | Hacker News Reader

>They are not unelected.

After how many layers does the democratic part get watered down and is just members of the elite picking other elites?

  Role                         | Chosen by                                            | Direct citizen vote?
  -----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------
  Commission President         | European Council proposes, European Parliament elects| No (indirect via EP)
  European Council President   | European Council (27 heads of state)                 | No
  European Parliament President| MEPs elect from among themselves                     | No (indirect via EP)
  ECB President                | European Council, after consulting Parliament        | No

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Those are primarily figureheads with limited power. The EU is not a presidential system. Which is good, because a single person can never well-represent an entire population, directly elected or not.

The council is more problematic, since a blocking majority might only represent 25% of the population (half of the EU member governments, each elected by majority vote), but in this case they voted in favor, so it's as if they didn't exist and the decision lies with parliament, whose composition is determined by proportional representation. Excellent!

The interesting thing here is that the EU is accused of being undemocratic not because special interests killed a law with wide support among the populace, but because all the different bodies might actually agree and pass a law that privacy activists don't like. Legislation by agreement of multiple cross-cutting majorities must clearly be undemocratic!

By this standard there are no democracies in the world. Stop being ridiculous and repeating dumb russian propaganda.

I live in a country where the prime minister is picked by the parliament. I don't directly vote for him.

By your own ridiculous standards, I don't live in a democracy. I fact, any paliamentarism would not be democratic based on that.

>I live in a country where the prime minister is picked by the parliament. I don't directly vote for him.

That's kind of whataboutism. If that works for your country and the people are happy with the arrangement and the results of this system, I don't see an issue.

>By your own ridiculous standards

I don't think direct accountability to the citizens is a ridiculous concept. If you're unhappy with a MEP, your prime minister, you can vote them out or protest till they quit. But the head of the EC, Ursula, is impossible to dethrone by the people via democratic vote or protest. You're stuck taking up the ass from someone you never voted for and don't support.

> the head of the EC, Ursula, is impossible to dethrone by the people via democratic vote or protest

The Commission can be dismissed by the Parliament, with a majority of its members and 2/3 of votes cast

Not the parent, but chill with the aggressive tone.

When you vote in your elections, you almost certainly know who's going to lead the country.

Not so with the EU: look up Spitzenkandidat method and the deviations from it, including von der Leyen in 2019 being parachuted into her post not based on any vote.

No, I would rather people in this thread chilled with misinformation.

My tone is appropriate.

I think those people are largely in your imagination. You seem to be assuming a whole lot of dark motives or unsavoury opinions in reaction to people simply saying the EU is not perfect.

Unrelated to this chat, but I wonder what your political leaning is, just to understand where this aggressive defense of the EU is coming from. I assume you're not left or right, not radical in any direction. Would you describe yourself as moderate/centrist/Starmer's Labour/Macronite?

> I think those people are largely in your imagination.

Nope, they are in this very thread, complaining about "unelected" officials.

Initially I dismissed this as a product of ignorance, but they keep repeating the same bullshit after being corrected. It is clearly bad faith.

> You seem to be assuming a whole lot of dark motives or unsavoury opinions in reaction to people simply saying the EU is not perfect.

That is not the argument. The EU is far from perfect, and if that's the discussion, I wouls have a lot of things to say about it.

> but I wonder what your political leaning is, just to understand where this aggressive defense of the EU is coming from.

I tend to see myself as left of center, although I did drift further to the left over time.

I am not from the UK to describe myself in in the UK political spectrum, although looking from the outside I have the impression Labour is largely ineffective and Starmer is (was?) running the government pretty much as the tories would have.

I am also not French. My understanding is that for French standards Macron is center-right?

Not sure if this answered your question.

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