If you can't move your country representative to veto the bill, then the issue is not the EU: it's your government.
As Europeans we have to stop this very sneaky campaign of "citizens can't do anything" - it's a self fulfilling prophecy and the sharpest tool the lobbies have in the EU.
Your country's government has a say on it, and you have a say on your country's government. Make them accountable.
How would I do that? He is already in that position, I have zero influence on his decisions.
Even if this was passed by the Council of the EU [1] it would be passed by ministers representing over 55% of the states - and over 65% of the EU population - and could be blocked by 4 countries. Now - we can discuss if a government is a democratic institution, but I guess it's a bit of a stretch to argue otherwise.
In other words: democracy requires information and education, either at the EU or at state level. That's not the issue here.
Your country is not a passive agent in this: your country has a say and you need only four countries to stop this. If you believe that somehow you can influence your government when it's emanating laws locally, but not when - the same government - is voting in the Council, you are just doing some magical thinking.
The EU has one main problem: it's local politicians stoking the fire of "It's the EU doing this, not us" - while at the same time passing legislation in the EU.
<Tyranny of the majority arguments go here>
[0] https://europarl.europa.eu/election-results-2019/en/turnout/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_European_Union
You can complain either way. Not participating means you are not participating, and is a kind of a vote too. If <50% people vote, then the vote is arguably illegitimate.
That's not how a democracy works. Unless you're forcibly prevented from voting - or are denied the right to - that's not the case. It is not an illegitimate vote if you decide not to vote.
In the EU Parliament elections it's just people deciding not to vote. As you yourself said: "is a kind of a vote too".
Let me make a practical example: we are having a pizza party and we have a vote for what pizza to order, you say: "I don't care - you guys decide!". When the pizzas show up you may say: "Dang, you got the anchovies pizza - I don't like anchovies!", but not "Why did you guys get anchovies? I don't like anchovies, you shouldn't have ordered that pizza!". They seem closely related, but they are not.
If more than 50% of people in the room say that, the pizza party vote is illegitimate.
Being silent - not voting - is NOT the same as voting against something. Not even close.
If the real reason for why over 50% of the people don't vote was because they don't like any of the parties then they could join up and create an alternative. But this is not what happens.
In the real world when you don't vote you're doing two things:
1 - you're saying you don't care because you find all the options not to your liking;
2 - you're also saying you can't be bothered with creating one.
As long as none is preventing you with addressing the second part: you are making a deliberate choice to not engage in the democratic process. You understand the consequences of that (in)action and you accept them. In no way that invalidates the choices made by the people who engage in it.
Saying that you CHOOSING not participate in the process makes it invalid is an offence to the people who fought to give you that choice and to the people that - to this date - are not given that option.
I'll say this one last time: this defeatist attitude towards the democratic process is exactly what the political establishment and the lobbies who enrich them are counting on, and this is why I considered it one of the main issues with democracy today.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party [0] is doing more for the cause of democracy than people who decide that nothing is going to change, we are going to get anchovy pizza, so why bother with voting.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_...
Edit: Fixed typo - twice
> Being silent - not voting - is NOT the same as voting against something.
I never said it always is. However not voting does not mean being silent. I explained this in my analogy where most of the people said not interested in the pizza.
Similarly people who are vocal about politics in their life, online, participate in political fights in workplace, whether individually or through unions, other creative activities and so on are already participating in democratic processes. They are already not silent. The fact that some of them do not participate in a given vote they don't like does not diminish that.
> then they could join up and create an alternative. But this is not what happens.
Of course it happens, in general. Maybe you mean that in your country it does not happen, or it does happen but not everybody who does not vote is involved in that. So what? There are other ways to participate in democratic processes which I mentioned above.
Individual countries are equally corrupted by big businesses and authoritarian leaning, but you can generally count on inefficient flip flopping right-left parties to not do too much damage in any direction.
The EU seems to be way more efficient in getting us straight to 1984 or Soviet Russia V2.
It is representatives of the countries in the Council of the EU voting these legislations through: hold them accountable as you would hold them accountable locally.
Don't fall for the narration of the EU as a third party where your local representatives have no say. If four countries veto the bill, the bill is dead. 4 out if 27 - all done by influencing your government representative in the Council.
I don't think a central government for a single country is a good solution and I think an entity who can force countries to legiferate is even worse. Countries got pulled in into Europe because of the trading opportunities, not because they wanted a quasi-Federal Government.
We're witnessing a slow decline into dystopia and making the 0.1% richer and richer every day. VATMOSS and European regulations killed small business favouring Amazon. Covid lockdowns killed small business favouring Amazon.
I'm not sure whether the representatives are complete idiots who believe to the propaganda or who assume their voters are complete idiots (eg: I can't vote against protecting children, no matter what or people will think I'm a monster; I can't vote against massively complicating VAT laws or people will think I'm favouring Amazon) or malicious entities who just want more power in the hands of the government, but the net results has been always negative (not only in Europe).
I don't care how representation works in Europe or anywhere else, the facts speak for themselves: most governments end up behaving in ways that benefit big businesses.
Political activism is about making these "small issues" big and visible. It's not easy, it's not cheap and it doesn't always work. Yet it's something that can and should be done at the local level. And I really mean: local.
Your country's representative is of a political party that - I am guessing here - also runs in local elections. Your town, your province, your region - and that's how you start. You possibly can't talk to your ministers, but you can talk to your local politicians. Make sure they understand that their local power will see the consequences of national and EU politics, let them bubble up the issue.
Will it work for sure? Probably not, maybe yes. Is it better than taking ourselves out of the equation? Absolutely yes! Making sure that the local politicians understand that their national counterparts will affect their local success is a way of making them accountable.
Second, the issue is the presence of EU influence in my country: Whereas before joining the EU the local parliament would have a nuanced discussion and vote, often with results very different from partisan membership, now the party that won 4 years ago (that does NOT mean >50%) decides all by itself how it's going to vote in the council, and only the biggest issues of all can be helped, but breaking the government for every smaller thing is not feasible.
Not in every country. More often, the head of the government is voted for by the national parliament, meaning, only the people having installed them have a form of mandate. (Which is also true for the Commission, BTW.) The people with the actual mandate are in the European Parliament.
Could someone more knowledgeable weigh in on what the EU has to show as far as a "human rights record" ?
No, I said "when you realize", not that it is the "single piece of legislation".
There are many other reasons for that stance, such as the fact that nation's people can influence and check their government's laws with more success than it can do that to a supernational undemocratic bureaucratic organization.
> The EU is top-tier in a wide range of areas spanning from human rights
They have full mouth of it, yes. They issued some great declarations and legally binding resolutions, I agree. In case of vaccines, almost all EU governments act in direct violation and EU has no real power/wish to stop them.
This would seem to contradict your original post, no?
- an unstoppable authoritarian juggernaut to which countries have foolishly ceded their sovereignty and are now paying the price in the form of draconian regulation
- a weak and ineffectual symbolic union which issues empty proclamations that countries are free to ignore without consequence
Which is it?