- This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation - 112 MEPs of 719 didn't vote.
- The vote was called only two days before as an "Rule 170 - Urgent procedure" - 73 MEPs missed the vote making it "urgent". Normally it takes months of procedure to come up for a final vote.
Attendance isn't just low before the summer break, it's low all the time. MEPs miss votes for reasons as trivial as there being a football game on, because why not? It's not like their votes matter much anyway. Everything important is decided upon long before they get involved, they aren't allowed to actually write laws or pass them or repeal them, and so nobody with any political ambition goes there unless they're using it as a springboard to national politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166SAhPB5-Q
> "Mr President, our parliament in the United Kingdom sat for 142 days last year and it was criticized widely for only sitting for that amount of time yet we in Brussels and Strasburg in the plenary and mini plenary, we sit for just five days a month and on three of those days it's only part of a day that we actually sit for. So we end up with debate in this chamber where microphones of speakers are cut off after 60 seconds, 90 seconds or 2 minutes, and we have no way of expanding on a point, we have no way of properly challenging a speaker, we have no means of proper scrutiny of proposed legislation that comes through. Surely it would make more sense to have sufficient time allocated to proper debate to reason debate and those who actually believe in the structures and institutions of this place should surely welcome that. I think my 60 seconds is up."
You can tell it's a joke institution because they regularly penalize MEPs for the content of their two minute speeches. Britain has the concept of parliamentary immunity but the EU does not, so you get "politicians" who are told what they can and cannot say by the leaders of other parties.
The Council, made up of heads of state, set the direction.
The Commission, made up of whoever is nominated by those heads of state, usually some mate of theirs with no democratic accountability or mandate of their own (see: Peter Mandelson), is the body that decides on and creates legislation.
The Parliament, made up of the actually elected members, seems to exist just to rubber-stamp the output of the other bodies. Or occasionally not, but look what happened here, they were asked again until they did * .
Don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot that's good about the EU too, but it's in need of serious reform before it can claim to be a truly democratic set of bodies.
(* Which is incidentally another criticism of the EU, mostly centred around the time of the Lisbon treaty, which was first put forward as the new EU constitution but, after rejection in some popular referenda in some countries, was renamed the Lisbon Treaty and pushed through again. In the UK this caused waves because the populace was not asked at all about the treaty and Gordon Brown was reported to have snuck-off and signed it into law on the quiet)
Well, the UK has only been asked about Europe twice - once to join and once to leave. Unlike many other European countries that frequently ask their populace as a way of standard governance.
The only other UK referendum in my lifetime was the 'alternative vote'
The UK government (no matter the party) just doesn't seem to like asking the public's opinion, on things. And after 2016, I'd be very surprised to see another referendum on anything, any time soon as the outcome of that was opposite to what the 'establishment' wanted (cue the last decade of squabbling). They will instead use the excuse: 'you gave us the mandate choosing us at the General Election'.
In a functioning democracy, the masses would demand higher taxes on the wealthy to fund social support. The oligarchy has already bought out democracy in the US and other places to ensure that doesn't happen. So to keep the masses in line, a system of totalitarian oppression is required.
Even relying on people to vote no is not enough.
The problem is that constitutional courts should then say the law was against the constitution and cancel it, but will that happen?
Germany has implemented EU sanctions against a German journalist, which deprive him and his family of the ability to conduct basically any economic activity in Germany or even to leave the country. He is not allowed to work. No one is allowed to pay him money. He has to petition the government every time he wants to access even a small amount of the money in his own bank account. The same restrictions apply to his close family members, because they are suspected of helping him survive financially. He is barred from crossing any border in Europe, including to leave.
He has not been accused or convicted of anything in court. The only procedure that was required to hand down an economic death sentence was for the EU Commission to put his name on a list.
The German government claims this is all okay, because the journalist can proactively challenge his sanction listing in Brussels. It's a years-long process that will require paying lawyers - using money he is not allowed to access.
Needless to say, this is all highly unconstitutional. But the German government simply doesn't care. They just say they're implementing EU sanctions.
https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2025/article/ancien-espion-su...
The sanctions imposed on December 15 by the European Union against Jacques Baud and eleven other people include the freezing of their assets, a ban on doing business and bans on entering the EU.
“I don’t have the right to return to Switzerland, or even to travel within the EU. I’m essentially being held against my will,” says Jacques Baud.
Regardless, the UK is still run by the same pro-EU loyalists it was run by for decades, and they largely continue EU policy. You will notice that a lot of people are very unhappy about that, but it takes time to completely replace the entire political class of a country - especially when that class bought time by pretending they were going to make a break with EU ideas and demands, whilst secretly planning to do the opposite.
I live in Germany and am -principally- a massive advocate for and proponent of the free (or liberal) democratic basic order ("FDGO" [0]) we have had here for the last decades, and apart from Chat Control, I’m usually very highly pro-EU, too.
But reading this has genuinely left me in a bit of a shock now, and created some (for lack of a better word) FUD I haven’t felt before with regard to these two, eh, institutions governing us.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democratic_basic_order
Currently we have numberplate recognition everywhere and logging of SMS and position info of phones.
So this is just another step into the direction where we will be watched everywhere by our government in case we step out of line.
It would be more surprising if the organisation ultimately responsible for security did not want to.
This isn’t true. Regulations are directly applicable and don’t require national legislation; directives generally do. Individuals affected by a failure to implement a directive can complain to the European Commission, which can bring infringement proceedings against the member state and potentially seek financial penalties.
EU law also has primacy over conflicting national law, and the CJEU’s position is that this includes constitutional provisions. Courts in Germany and Poland have challenged that position, but refusing to comply can put the countries in breach of their EU treaty obligations and lead to infringement proceedings and penalties.
Also, the European Court of Justice has, to the best of my knowledge, not ruled on this yet, either. The fact fight isn't over.
[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
Editing to clarify that this isn't just semantics: under the 'grant rights to the people' model, a government that grants one set of rights is just as legitimate as one that grants another. It was the position of the founders that governments which deny certain rights are infringing on the pre-existing rights of the people. This is the basis for their position on revolution.
But that means I'm familiar with the counterpoints. A government has the power to use violence: to operate a military that can kill non-citizens and a police force that can put citizens in prison. It's a lot more important to put a check on this than on a corp, even though quantity has a quality of its own. One thing to suppress dissidents by saying they can't use your website; another to put them in the gulags.
And then the other big issue is that corporations are just a bunch of people shaking hands. You have the right to free press, so you can write a newspaper that says what you like. You can sell that paper and you can publish people's op-eds if they give you the copyright permissions. You can refuse to publish the ones you disagree with. You can make agreements with the printing company to scale up and with other authors to contribute as you become popular, and, while this shifts the practical considerations, no amount of these agreements changes your principle right to free press.
For these reasons, it's best not to include this in your constitution. I have no idea what to do instead apart from shaming and boycotting unethical companies, which of course doesn't work when most people don't care an iota about the principle of free speech. Look at Athenian democracy and sigh?
Think about what it might mean for
(a) the government to give me the right to live in your house; or
(b) the government to restrict you from expelling me from your house.
The US is founded on certain ideas about natural rights -- hence not granted, per se -- but that's somewhat orthogonal to this whole issue. Even if there were an unwritten constitution, a country could base its institutions, philosophy of lawmaking, jurisprudence, &c, on natural rights doctrine (and for a time, the British did exactly that).
The earlier post mentions "That's why you have a constitution with rights that are not up for vote." but if what they mean is natural rights, that goes well beyond any procedural issue around the basic law.
But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause are not all that uncommon in general.
With regards to Germany, the page says:
...if a constitution provides for a mechanism of its own abolition or replacement, like the German Basic Law does in Article 146, this by necessity provides a "back door" for getting rid of the "eternity clause", too.
It's really hard to have a legal system that literally can not be changed by any legitimate vote -- only by revolution -- because what sits at the bottom of most of them (all of them?) is that the consent of some body politic is necessary and sufficient to legitimate a law.
Surely this was not by someone’s design. Maybe though… you don’t leave a day early for your vacation?
I've seen several posts with the photo of Ursula (one of the most hated politicians of all times) associated with the batteries thing.
What's stopping MEPs from having to do that? Do they have literally zero responsibilities and accountabilities? Because their job is pretty critical for our society an security, even if a trained monkey could do it in theory.
Basically, I don't think politicians should be held to the same standard as some SWE making note-taking apps.
PTO is not a “privilege.” In fact, it is a documented right as part of the employment agreement your company makes you, when you sign that document about the handbook. It should be a legal agreement, but somehow we’ve convinced people their purpose in life is to work for 50-60 years for 40+ hours a week and then have maybe 20 years to enjoy life before they die, happy to be of service to the people.
Public servants deserve MORE time off and MORE money because they literally are ON CALL most of the time. Taking a vacation should be MORE Normal and votes shouldn’t require people to be in person.
You build your government the way you build your country - you should show the utmost respect for those in public service by treating them right and respecting their time.
I wasn't talking about work agreements with civil companies. You brought that in. My comment was in regards to public service only.
I don't disagree about public servants having more time off or more money. But I believe they should be on call. If that means cancelling vacation to vote, so be it. You don't want to have that life style? Don't run for public office.
FWIW, I've had skin in that game. I was stop lossed when I had 4 months left on my enlistment for a 15 month combat deployment. That's public service. Elected officials should be present and ready to serve.
this doesn't seem like oncall?
I’m not American but happy to agree with the OP - being an elected MP is not just a job and if they want to take leave whenever they want to and miss critical votes then I’m sure they would have no trouble getting a normal job instead!
Surely the parliamentary sitting schedule gives them plenty of time off already where they would not miss votes (I know it does in my country)
Sure you can. What unstoppable force is going to prevent you?
You might find out there are undesirable consequences if you make that choice, but that is only if the employer decides to bring undesirable consequences. MEP employers in particular are generally apathetic about having an employee on staff. Extremely so — to the point that they won't even take a minute out of multiple years to say "hi" to the person they hired, never mind give any direction to the employee.
It doesn't have to be that way, but when the employer doesn't care, that is the way it will be.
If you knowingly miss a vote, that’s part of the job. If your OOO gets played, that’s fucking up.
imo that a representative of the people misses a vote should just not be acceptable under any circumstances.
that's of course if we had to take "democracy" as an actually meaningful representation of the people. this was a cheap political maneuver to get a bill passed. happens everywhere. they would have gotten the bill through by any other means anyway.
that would be in an ideal democracy, though, in reality european parlamentarians don't even draft laws, they are only able to sign off on laws drafted by shady appointees of an equally shady and largely unelected (by the people) comission, take it or leave it. that, photo ops and declarations is their whole job, it shouldn't be too complicated to have a fucking substitute when on vacation.
Do you think CEOs take vacation where they cannot be reached? If it does happen, it is a very rare exception.
What's also just as weird is how the EU can just straight up sanction, debank and make European citizens virtually homeless overnight, without even a trial day in court. Absolutely insane.
This is some NAZI/USSR shit, except you don't get executed, you just get deranked and made homeless and maybe die from that on the whims of some bureaucrat in another country.
We gave the EU superpowers to "protect us" but never asked ourselves what happens when they use those powers against us when people vocally don't agree with their agenda.
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
It completely perverts the entire system. With this approach, any law can be passed by a minority; just phrase as a negative.
I propose a new law: "The EU is hereby not not not abolished" ohh look, it failed to gain majority vote! EU is over! Everyone go home! Look at how clever I am finding loopholes!
This was just everyone leaving on a Friday, sort of a work day, sort of not.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/9/plenary-session...
> Plenary sessions of Parliament take place 12 times per year in Strasbourg and last four days
There are 48 days in sessions over a year. You're saying that it's too much to ask MEPs not to take holidays during those 48 days? Am I missing something here?
If we're talking about _direct_ democracy then we have to do the work ourselves but because we don't want to do that (because we want to go on holydays), we give up our rights to those who _want_ to represent us.
That, of course, falls apart once those representing us start to only represent themselves.