> Parliament is elected directly
The institution is a joke with no real power compared to national parliaments. They don't get to appoint the government, can't propose legislation etc. basically they just rubber-stamp anything which is brought by the commission by them. Barely any anywhere takes the EU elections seriously.
> made of PMs of the member states government
PMs? National governments can appoint anyone they want and often use it as a way to reward their buddies with a very cushy job (with close to zero political accountability) for a few years. Or to get someone influential/popular/etc. but whom the government finds dangerous from the country for a few years.
The process for picking ("electing") a commission president is a bit different but perfectly illustrates my point. They just appointed the most incompetent high ranking politician they could find in Germany...
> unelected PM
Just like the head of government in every single non-presidential country in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Austria etc... (the only excpetion is France). Anyway be any objective metric this is more democratic than the EU government.
> and house of Lords.
I agree. But it's an anachronistic and a powerless institution. Basically a retirement program for retired influential politicians...
Agreed. By the push towards more powerful Parliament is greeted with huge opposition from "nation states" because you know... "sovereignty"... :|
> PMs? National governments can appoint anyone they want and often use it as a way to reward their buddies with a very cushy job (with close to zero political accountability) for a few years. Or to get someone influential/popular/etc. but whom the government finds dangerous from the country for a few years.
Yes, that's correct but how else do you want to handle it? Ideally there should be two chamber body, lower one (Parliament) with proportional representation and upper one (Commission) with representation of member states (akin to the US) but that's just yet another election (you have EU one, national one and then regional ones)...
> The process for picking ("electing") a commission president is a bit different but perfectly illustrates my point. They just appointed the most incompetent high ranking politician they could find in Germany...
Yeah... and also corrupted from what I heard. But - case in point, even incompetent and corrupted ones can be elected via direct democracy (Poland, Hungary, Tukey…)?
> Just like the head of government in every single non-presidential country in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Austria etc... (the only excpetion is France). Anyway be any objective metric this is more democratic than the EU government.
Not sure if those are more democratic or not. Problem may be that those head of states usually wield less power than Commission.
AFAIR this year was a push to give Parliament more power but was met with butthurt from nation states...
> I agree. But it's an anachronistic and a powerless institution. Basically a retirement program for retired influential politicians...
AFAIR HoL can be quite influential and can block certain laws. And it's not abolished because it's unelecetd, so they can have more scrutiny over certain laws without fearing the election... Either way - it's "wobbly wobbly" and complicated :D
The policies lately are pro surveillance and pro hardcore socialism.
Which is funny, because SA lives in a perpetual economic and social crisis, but even still, even a poor and somewhat corrupted country like Bolivia or Paraguay is a better prospect than living in a dystopian communist hellhole.
Never said you were. Only that you sound like a Brit...
> I'm from South America.
Greetings from Chile, the lovely state of estallido social de 2019 :P
> It doesn't matter though, both the UK and the EU will crumble apart so fast that
Lol, we've been hearing this as well for the past 20-30 years, mostly from the UK press and Leave campaign :D
> I'm already expecting the hordes of expats trying to find refuge here. > > Which is funny, because SA lives in a perpetual economic and social crisis, but even still, even a poor and somewhat corrupted country like Bolivia or Paraguay is a better prospect than living in a dystopian communist hellhole.
Arm, hasn't "the red wave" just swept the LatAm? Chile? Venezuela? Colombia? Brasil?
Besides you seem to have USA-based definition of "communism", which is even funnier :D
Furthermore, there's a philosophy here: many rules, barely any enforcement (because of reasons stated above).
Ultimately I believe that the EU does have the capacity to do what they say. That's whats scary. Mercosur, not so much.
Chaos & corruption >>> oppressive order
If anything I would argue that Communist/early post-Communist generations in these countries are tainted by a ferocious anti-Socialist streak, which is kind of natural (people reach for the other extreme due to all the Communist abuse).
In my country, Romania, this leads to private development (real estate, businesses, etc) that completely ignores the public domain. Only in the past 5-7 years have people started to wizen-up that the Libertarian paradise is actually hell.
Developed countries in Europe are a lot more mellow regarding capitalism and socialism.
Random example from a supposed hyber-bastion of capitalism, Switzerland. A friend of mine working for Google found an awesome apartment close to work, super cheap. He had to provide a salary slip and the owner - either on his own or due to legislation - basically said: you make too much for this, let people with lower incomes get it, you get an apartment fitting your salary.
That blew my little post-Communist mind. The action practically screamed Communism to me.
You can call it a sort of awakening. You can't build everything on your own. We reach the stars by working together.