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What do you call a state with an unelected president? This role has come about with no citizens in the EU being asked to approve it or vote for it. Being selected by a handful of bureaucrats is a creepy technocracy with zero pretensions for being a functioning democracy. Foolishness to see it any other way.

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It highly depends. Everything from "monarchy" to "indirect democracy".

Even the Americans don't elect their president directly, they have a special council inbetween to distribute more power to the sparsely populated states.

Russia is a direct democracy (the people do directly elect their leader) but also the example of why technicalities like that make no difference in how fair politics are.

Who, in Europe, even knew they were getting a de facto president who they could not choose? This is meant to be a rationalised organisation with lofty egalitarian ideals, and yet it has to struggle to compete against descents into chaos and corruption in USA and Russia.

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