Demagogues will always find fertile ground when bashing the EU. It's been a long time since anyone has come out and defended it in a positivist way e.g. guarantor of democracy, free movement of labor, etc.

In the current British debate leading up to the referendum, major campaigners in the 'Stay In' campaign rarely defend the EU, and rather take the line that the UK should stay in the EU despite all it's problems.

What was the turnout at the referendum in the Netherlands?

Part of the problem is that a lot of the reasons that those who are most pro-EU have for wanting to stay are at the same time a bit icky.

E.g. the EU has for a long time acted as a better guarantor for human rights in the UK than the UK parliaments. But going out and saying people should vote to remain in the EU because it ensures EU law will overrule the elected UK governments on human rights isn't going to help win a majority to remain. It's a bad situation to be in where you have to choose between more devolved power and protection of human rights.

Similarly, free movement of labor isn't big selling point to those who aren't already convinced. Those who aren't already convinced aren't seeing this as an opportunity for them to go out and work elsewhere in Europe, but as an opportunity for people from poorer parts of Europe to come to the UK and take their jobs.

> E.g. the EU has for a long time acted as a better guarantor for human rights in the UK than the UK parliaments.

Genuinely curious, when has this come up in the recent past?

How is the EU a guarantor of democracy? Our national governments are far more democratic than the EU. Free movement of labour isn't necessarily something that's good for working people, particularly at the lower end of the income distribution, as that means competition from people who are willing to work for much lower wages.

You know that goes both ways? You're also free to move to a different country where you get paid better. Now you might not want to do that, because you want your kinds to grow up in $country or some other valid reason but it's wrong to paint this as something singularly bad for the working class.

Realistically, how does the ability to move to Poland help the person working in a local car repair shop? Is that hypothetical worth the risk of getting fired in favour of a cheaper worker? What about the job prospects of his/her kids? Free movement of labour helps the owner of the repair shop, not so much the workers.

Freedom of movement is not just about moving to Poland, but also from Poland, as literally millions of workers have done to richer countries.

That's the point...

Go work in a car repair shop in France if they pay better, that's how you profit. Thousands of Polish people moved to the UK and took jobs there.

Imagine a conversation between a pro-EU politician and this car mechanic.

P: Vote for me! Free movement of labour is great.

C: Why? Then I will face competition from people who are willing to work for very low wages, and so will my kids.

P: Yea, but then you can move to France with your family!

C: Ok but I don't want to move to France. I don't speak the language. My friends and family are here. My kids go to school here. And why would wages be better in France, anyway? I'll face the same competition there.

Can you see why this may not be very convincing? On the other hand, imagine a conversation with the owner of the shop:

P: Vote for me! Free movement of labour is great.

O: Indeed, I'll be able to hire cheaper workers.

At this point your appealing to emotion, not reason. Even if individual car repair man is not leaving for France, if many leave to take better paying jobs in France supply is lowering in his home country, which should lead to higher prices (or lower unemployment)

I think the better counter argument is brain drain, it's certainly not advantageous for a country if many of its most skilled citizens leave. Personally, I think it's just wrong to build berries of any sort for your citizens to leave the country.

We are talking voters here. Its appealing both to emotion and logic.

There is plenty of logic of being sceptical when Danes aren't getting jobs at their normal rates because they are being underbid by eastern european workers taking work in their countries while Danes moving to eastern europe won't get the same benefit.

The major problem with the EU is that the expansion towards underdeveloped countries happened too fast.

It's one things when countries are fairly equal, but the difference between the north and the south and the east and the west is quite staggering.

This is all part of why people are skeptical. Both because it's logical to be so and because they are being emotionally afraid about their future.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with the fact that it's a hard sell. The original comment I replied to was stating opinions as fact, not arguing it's hard to convince people of it.

I'm speechless.

That depends on who you are. If you are eastern european and move to Denmark you take the jobs no one wants often way below the "minimum wage"

I think you may have missed my point - I was simply pointing out no one on the "pro" EU side has a positivist story to tell. You may not find those particular arguments convincing, and I chose them at random for arguments sake.

I think many countries joined the EU for different reasons apart from the ones I have suggested above. Despite all the austerity thrown at the Greeks, Cypriots, and other countries their willingness to stay in has remained as strong as ever - why?

And if the answer is handouts, then I'm sorry I don't think that's the whole story. Greece is now so indebted it'll take generations to solve.

The Treaty of Lisbon requires that EU member-states have an executive responsible to a directly-elected Parliament.

The EU has a directly elected Parliament.

The EU has a slightly complicated executive. There is the Council of Ministers, which proposes legislation and which appoints the Commission. The Council is made up of democratically elected politicians (notably, politicians who do not have a direct personal mandate -- appointees to upper houses, for example, are generally excluded from direct personal participation in the Council). The Commission, which generally implements legislation passed by the Council and the Parliament, is chosen by the Council of Ministers and must be approved by the Parliament.

So the Commissioners are somewhat remote from the voting, but are responsible to two sets of directly elected politicians: those forming national executives, and those directly elected to the European Parliament.

There are plans to have the equivalents of Commissioners directly elected on a pan-European basis, however this requires unanimity among the 28 member-states, and that has not yet been achieved.

There are also plans to have more proportional national-parliamentary representation in a future version of the Council. In part this is because there are broad coalitions and complex national structures in a few member-states. Already there is an expectation that ministers show that they speak for the majority of their national parliaments on key matters (e.g. in formal QMV settings). These rules were adopted by elected politicians in the 28 national governments.

The Parliament suffers from MEPs not being very close to their voters -- the electorates are larger (much larger in some proportional representation cases) and they have less direct influence over purely local and personal matters than national or regional politicians. But they still campaign, and some MEPs are better than others at being close to their electorates.

The Commission has the disadvantage of being responsible to two different bodies: the Council and the Parliament, either of which can remove them. For a variety of reasons, a huge number of MEPs represent non-governing parties strongly opposed to some of their national governments' goals. Commissioners are also often former politicians in the party "opposite" the one in power in their home nation-state. (This is an alternate source of pressure by elected politicians to make sure the Council reflects something broader than the narrow interests of the various governments of the day, to the extent that those are mainly aligned party-wise or philosophically, which is not the case on numerous issues).

Freedom of movement within the EU is something supported by the vast majority of elected politicians across Europe -- in the national parliaments, in the national governments that those parliaments directly choose or support, in the European Council (which is, again, those same national governments), and in the European Parliament (directly elected). Criticism of Freedom of Movement should not really centre on being somehow undemocratic, or at least not more undemocratic than all the member states themselves.

Returning to your question, the Treaty of the European Union requires member-states to guarantee your access to your MEP (representing you where you live within the EU) and to local elected officials (again, where you live) as well as to elected members of the national parliaments in the member-state(s) of your nationality (wherever you happen to live). This is a very active area of European law (there are some cases before the ECJ where the Commission and others are supporting nationals of member-states they do not live in with respect to their right to access to members of parliaments of those member-states) and generally taken seriously.

So the EU is a guarantor of your right to complain to several democratically elected officials about their support for free movement of labour within the EU, and to vote on that basis if you wish (e.g., during EP elections or elections in your home state(s)).

32.3%

Thanks. Does that seem like a representative number of the Dutch population?

You know what they say.. average voter enthusiasm can go up and down, but freaks always show up.

The EU should actually be more democratic, giving more direct power to the people, but have you ever wondered why it isn't? The main reason is that national governments WANT the "government" of the EU (the Commission) to be an intergovernmental entity, IE a bureaucracy they can control, and not a government that responds directly to the people of Europe.

The solution should be pretty obvious: let the people of the EU choose the commission directly with their vote.