Both the European Commission and the Council itself are not DIRECTLY elected EU bodies. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
Council pushes it forward: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026...
From the last article: "The Council position will now be examined by the European Parliament, under second reading.". Note that this is technically accurate under absolute majority rules for rejection (not for approving), but practically is where the "cheating" happens - as described in my original parent comment - because of the perverse procedures of the EU that are designed to basically make it almost impossible to go against the agenda.
The Commission did not withdraw it: no source because it stayed "pending".
The EU procedures are maliciously designed against the Parliament while preserving the technicality of plausible deniability. How do we call this architecture in software? We call it a "backdoor", except this one is embedded in the EU legislative process.
Unlike the European Parliament which is directly elected by EU citizens. Conveniently, the EU citizens have been silenced on this matter despite the Parliament denying this full proposal not once, but twice.
I dont understand this line of reasoning about EU:
Ministers are appointed by people we vote. In most democracies the entire government is appointed and maybe indirect voted as a whole (by parliament and maybe directly by citizens).
What I am trying to say is people who proposed this are representatives of those countries (even if indirect their citizens votes vor the party that appointed them).
So representation is not the problem. The problem is citizens (at large) voting only on personal interest and not thinking or not understanding the second order effects. If you don't like what Council did here make sure next round of elections the party that proposed those ministers will not get elected in your country an should not have the power to form a government.
We seem to expect country officials to be even better when playing at EU level and think about yet a greater good than they are doing in their own countries.
For effective representation, you need a feedback loop between the voting and the policymaking at the other end. If you add all these layers in-between, voters are going to have a hard time figuring out how their voting is actually changing outcomes. Imagine trying to play a video game that has huge lag between the control input and what the character on screen is actually doing.
Why I find it hard: EU is another abstraction on top of what we already have: local, regional, national. EU is not just an alliance but a real governing body with legislative and executive branches.
Having an average (as in normal) citizen of a country have to think about their local interests, regional (as in around their local cities), national and global interests is too prone to manipulation. As we saw with Brexit and other campaigns. Too many of us are too focused on self interest and locality to be able to dedicate enough time to global matters.
IMHO of course
As I understand it, the EU can legislate in any area it wants. And member states are required to enforce EU law as if it were their own domestic law. The EU can even sue member states for failing to implement and enforce EU law.
So it seems like the EU government is both extremely powerful (the nationalism issue), but also very insulated from European voters (the representation issue).
[1] And I think most people would say that the federal government isn't even allowed to regulate individual use of marijuana. There's a 2005 Supreme Court case to the contrary, but I don't think it would turn out the same way under the current Supreme Court.
Here is a clear list of areas: https://commission.europa.eu/about/role/law/areas-eu-action_...
Also EU does not have a government. There are 3 powers lets say:
- EU Council which represents the countries governments
- The EU Commission representing EU interests
- The EU Parliament representing citizens
We go back to what I said: when introducing a new level of abstraction we got a new governing power. But lets never forget that except the EU Parliament all the others are formed by people proposed by countries governments.
Thus as EU citizen one:
- influences EU direct by voting the EU parliament
- influences EU indirect by voting who rules their countries which will then send people to EU Council and Commission
As you notice the countries governments have more power (2 out of 3) than the EU parliament even if they are different kind of powers.
Still in the end each citizen that goes to vote is deciding the direction of EU in three ways (one direct citizen to EU and two indirect citizen to country to EU). Want more federalization then vote parties that go that way. Want more nationalism then vote that way. But nobody (or few people) really think then consequences of what they vote in their own countries and how that affects everybody in EU.
No head of state was involved in the discussion we are having today.
By the way my personal opinion is that the confusing names are by design, to give the appearance that head of states are involved in decisions that have nothing to do with them, democracy in the EU is just an illusion.
The entire point of the EU design is that ultimately the member states national governments (the heads of) are the most powerful and set the direction. It was done this way because people didn't like the idea of EU ministers. There was even a huge objection to the change that introduced the Parliament, the MEPs that you are now saying should hold ultimate power.
And this is the problem. People decide up-front that the EU is "not democratic" and then they adjust their arguments and data to fit this narrative.
Macron sits in the EU Council and it has nothing to do with this.
These are not European bureaucrats, they are the ministers of justice of each member state.
Sorry, what are you talking about here?
The Commission is subservient to the EU Council. The EU Council consists, by design, of all the heads of the nation states.