I'm getting the impression that many Europeans don't seem to have a grasp on how their laws are passed. Is my impression correct? I'm baffled by the commission, Parliament, individual states, and how they interact to make laws. Is this topic teachable to 3rd graders in Europe?

Yes, that is unfortunately the case. Exactly this is creating a feeling amongst many of us that something is fundamentally wrong with the EU as governing and legislative body. Of course, you could reverse that and say: People have to inform themselves properly. But that's just the situation were in right now.

Most of those citizens don't speak any of the languages that the EU operates in. And the EU only translates the result of the legislative process, not the process, so participating in Polish or Greek ... or even French ... is almost impossible. Eventually the outcome of the whole process is translated, but that's it.

And starting next year there will be exactly 0.9% [2] of the citizens that speak the language that the EU government conducts itself. Now it is 13.9% [1], which is not exactly a good number. As if it wasn't already a huge problem that the French and German governments essentially control the EU.

Combine that with the fact that large blocks hate eachother. Like famously the French and German governments, for example, but those are hardly the only examples. Some blocks have actually recently had shooting conflicts with deaths (the Catalan and Spanish governments, if you're wondering, and yes, both have representation, even though the Catalan government gets no representation in the commission or council, the only institutions with real power in the EU).

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(british+population+%2B...

[2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(irish+population)%2Feu...

One could say the same thing about americans and it would probably just as true/false.

Me personally I'm not into that kind of generalisation.

It is taught in schools all over the EU, but the EU is a "new" thing.

I believe most Europeans don't know much or anything about the EU, because our states retain a lot of power, so we already have enough to deal with.

> Any amendments approved on Wednesday will be subject to further negotiations between politicians and member states in a closed-door process known as “trilogues.” Whatever emerges from those debates will be subject to a final vote by the EU Parliament in January. After that, it will still be up to individual member states to interpret the directive and turn it into law.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/11/17845394/eu-copyright-dir...

A couple of YouTubers from the UK went to EU Parliament to make the case against Article 13. Unfortunately, their pleas mostly fell on deaf ears. They discuss the (undemocratic) process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHwaA3fMPgc

The youtuber who's claim to fame is making a video where he shouts 'Gas the Jews' repeatedly? I wonder why he wasn't listened to.

Yes, the comedian who almost went to jail in the UK for making a joke. A joke about how Nazis are bad, at that.

Here are more details on the process following this vote from the EDRi: https://edri.org/press-release-eu-parliament-flip-flops-back...