EU Democracy Debate

The EU commission is not unchecked. Unelected governments (and instead appointed by the parlament) are the norm in most European states. Why on HN people feel entitled to make such comments? Is it a Krueger effect on politics?

The EU Parliament can’t make decisions, it can only veto the commission which acts as an unelected government (nominated by elected representatives of each country).But I agree with you that this idea of an undemocratic EU is rather false and really dangerous. Everyone feels like this because nobody understands that the commission don’t represent the interests of their country but those of all the European countries which few people are capable of naming years after school.

You're describing the way a normal democratic government works. The EU parliament can't force the commission to do anything other than a mass resignation, which hasn't happened for decades. The "parliament" can't even propose changes to the law, let alone arbitrarily command the Commission like in a virtual government. That means it's not even really a Parliament!

While the Commission have mostly free hands to govern, European Parliament, elected by Europeans can veto their laws and can even veto the commission itself.European Commission is nothing else than an unelected government controlled by a parliament like it happens in most countries.Also, ultimately, the commission is nominated by elected representatives of each country so, depending on how you see the thing, we could even say that they are more democratically nominated than most government

The EU is usually open -- see the TTIP negotiations.The EU Parliament is elected based on popular vote. If populists like Farage are in the parliament, that's only because people vote for them. Hardly undemocratic.The EU Council comprises the elected head of government of each member state. Hardly undemocratic.The EU Commission comprises a president, who is selected by the EU Council and approved or denied by the EU Parliament. The Council also appoints the members of the commissio

You're talking about European Commission, not the European Parliment. This action is being initiated by the directly-elected[1] Members of the European Parliment.For readers more familiar with the US, the closest analogy is European Parliment == Congress, European Comission == Executive Branch [2]. Far from exact, but will give you a flavour of the reason the parent comment is so off base.[1] In the countries I'm familar with they're all directly elected. Not sure if that&#x

It's an election for the parliament, which holds a fraction of the power in the EU. The executive branch of the EU has basically zero accountability to its citizens.

EU Commission does has some democratic element in it. As though they are not elected by the Europeans directly, they are proxy voted by their respective government.This is not new. For example, there are also no ministry election or, yet the government of the day still put people onto that position. This is just one example, if you're coming from the US, you can even think of the even more examples of non-directly elected official making important policies.But judging by your two comm

The eu's Parliament has de facto no power and all of the authority rests with the European commission, which is an unelected entity.

Parliament is elected. Comission isn't, like any comission in any country anywhere in the EU(and outside of it you include the UK). If you don't like the comission then make sure your vote for the parliament matters.