Hacker News Reader

Comment by try-working | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

The European council (which consists of elected country heads) nominates a Comission President and the members of the parliament (elected politicians) vote on the nominated president candidate and need absolute majority to confirm. That president then tries to form the commission with one representative from each member state. The parliament then has to vote again to confirm the commission.

Sure it's not ideal. But compared to China, the population of the EU has influence.

The European population had no say in VDLs appointment and she would not be there if we did.

Each member state elected their own government, which in turned determined their head of state by their own country's rules, then those heads of governments appointed VDL.

Do we even have a real choice with our governments? As a minor yet dramatic exemple, last year in France the Front Populaire won the last parliamentary elections, and according to republican tradition and common interpretation of the constitution, should have formed a government. But that was refused by Macron who named yet again an even more impopular proto-fascist government because it's technically in his power.

I hate to make this argument because the PRC is far from a political ideal for me, but the chinese political system also has elections and votes. Voting is not what democracy is about, and very indirect elections for a vast body with immense powers even less so.

I have yet to meet anyone happy with the european commission policies, except for very minor and timid arrangements such as the USB-C connector (and even then, Apple fanboys complained). The rest is all about destroying every pro-consumer/pro-worker/pro-environment regulation in favor of big multinationals who employs thousands of lobbyists across Brussels and Strasbourg.

Indeed. Every time it is mentioned(without fail) how undemocratic the European Commission is, someone points out that the demos has a say via 3 levels of indirections. But that is not at all what democracy is all about.

I am supposed to have a say about how the country I live in is run. That is democracy. Not that I get to vote on a person who votes on a person who votes on another person who may or may not agree with me.

It's why I live in Switzerland now, and not the EU.

For folks like you there only seem to be Switzerland and Uruguay left

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Dem_Democracy_Indices#/media...

Following that logic, any minister appointed by a head of government is "unelected and has the same level of democratic involvement as that of China's Standing Committee".

But that statement would be bullshit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com