Both of those are representative bodies; the Commission happens to have more steps in between vote and chair. Do you consider that only people who’ve been chosen by direct vote are legitimate office-holders?
I disagree with both Quartz and Nava.
The ultimate power rests with the Council (member state governments).
Each Commissioner is nominated by their national government, but is not there to represent that government or national parliament. Nor is it there to represent the Parliament. Its job is to implement the treaties and directives agreed by the national governments, through the legislative process aiming at consensus but ultimately for decision by the national governments in the Council.
PS:
The Parliament is indeed not the ultimate source of sovereignty as Westminster is, precisely for the reason that that would be the “European superstate” sovereigntists - and national governments when it comes down to it - across the EU object to.
If Westminster hasn’t over the years established an effective system for influencing /controlling what our national government was doing in the Council, the responsibility for that lies at Westminster.
Uh… I haven’t given any opinion about who holds how much of the power. I was just pointing out that the one body Quartz had given the crown to happens to be representative. So is the Council.
A lot of people accuse the EU of being “undemocratic” because a lot of their officers aren’t elected directly, but neither was the civil registrar who recorded my name change, nor the notary public who verified my house purchase, and yet I’ve never heard anybody complain that notaries and civil registrars are undemocratic.
I would dispute that the Commission is representative, in the way national governments and MEPs are.
I sort of agree, but we should keep in mind the unique nature of the EU treaties, what with the surrender of veto in many areas, and the very broad scope of the treaties, which makes leaving the EU such a huge matter.
Should the commission be more directly accountable to the peoples of Europe? It hinges on how much power the commission has. I think that it either needs less power, or more accountability. You didn’t mention the presidents of the commission, powerful figures who we didn’t vote for and whom I doubt many of us had even heard of before they took office.
I could get behind more accountability of the Commission. What specific changes would you like?
Of course the danger has historically been that proposals to have more direct democracy for such things has caused eurosceptics (remember them?) objecting to it, as potentially being another step towards a federal Europe.
Not in those ways, but for starters, those ways are many.
Right now my region is moving away from a four party coalition which agreed only in not wanting party number five (1) (who still were the most-voted party) to govern, and may be getting a five-part coalition instead, who agree oooooon… you guessed it: that the other party which is still the most-voted party (2) (which under our system makes them the default party to govern unless a different majority can be hammered up) should not be in the government. Note that other Spanish regions don’t have the “default president” rule: if their parliaments can’t come up with a president within a certain period/amount of voting rouds, what they have to do is call up elections again; those regions would not see any of the governments by default that mine has had as being representative.
The previous government of Spain came from a vote of no-confidence, not from elections.
And so forth, und so weise.
1: holders of governments for several years prior
2: and have gained back ground btw. It’s been interesting how studiously every single newspaper has avoided mentioning them. I’m beginning to wonder if the P in UPN stands for Plague.
Do note that beyond the habitual pants-on-head stupidity of “I’m voting for the Nazis as a protest !”, the results were also likely influenced by the new broadcasting rules put in place by the Macron crew which fiddled with how much TV airtime each party was allowed based on various metrics. Ostensibly the rules were put in place to curb the foire à la saucisse feel of European elections (similar to Nava’s champiñones : lots of tiny bullshit parties with absurd agendas forming up for god knows what reason) but FOR SOME REASON very much favoured his own party and the aforementioned Nazis (and the right wing in general - the FN alone had as much airtime as every major leftwing party combined. So, um, as they say, yeah). Since Macron mostly got elected on a platform of “well, we don’t have much of an ideology outside of money, but we’re not the Nazis, so there is that”, draw your own conclusions.
Of course, the results are also a reflexion of the current climate of “ultraliberal profiteers and grifters, or xenophobia über alles” replacing traditional parties more or less everywhere. We’re deffo living in interesting times.
I don’t see how you can legitimately make it more accountable, that’s the problem. The consent to be governed must originate in the people who are to be governed, and there doesn’t seem to be any such desire among the peoples of the various EU countries. I’m not sure how there can be a legitimate EU executive or legislature, unless it has very limited powers, in which case why have all the superstructure of a parliament and commission, rather than just periodical meetings among heads of governments, i.e. the EU’s existing European Coucil.
Someone has to move forward on fleshing out the details of what the Council has, in general terms set out as objectives. And someone has to keep an eye on the details of what they are doing, as well as raise new ideas to influence the next round of objective setting. Hence both Commission and Parliament.
To run absolutely everything through nearly 30 different national governments and legislatures just isn’t practical.
It’s all a complex and gradualistic balancing act.
Precisely. The EU is so successful because the member states agreed to put themselves at one remove from regulatory drafting and enforcement. They are still fully involved and crucial in their enactment and domestic enforcement.
There’s no tidy way to do it - remove it entirely, and you make your country much less sovereign as it is prey for the larger countries who will set the standards.
There’s plenty that can be done on the domestic level to make national governments more accountable for their actions and policies in EU negotiations. The British government suffers from an obsession with secrecy and the Parliament has a general phobia of being proactive in telling governments what to do, preferring instead to simply object to stuff it dislikes. These two things could change.
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