Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?

> Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?

How is that an EU problem? Without the EU, like here in the UK, we had non-elected lobbyists pressuring our elected government to implement age checks, message scanning, etc. And it is still continuing.

You're fighting the wrong fight by blaming the EU for this.

This is a highly solvable problem, one that is solved by not overloading the national elections with to different concerns.

EU has checks and balances that were intended for a trade union, not a nascent superstate. If we don't implement proper checks and balances in a real fucking hurry, we'll wake up one morning and realize the EU has turned into another Soviet union, and by then it'll be far too late to do anything about it.

Ask your government why they're sending those representatives. As a citizen you vote for your government, right?

How badly would you say the council or commission have to mess things up before they saw any voter-initiated repercussions what so ever with a system of accountability that requires voters to consider punishing the council or comission more important than their own national elections?

If accountability is to work, it has to be more than an abstract theoretical possibility.

It isn't abstract. Your government sends representatives to represent its platform and priorities. If you don't agree with the reps you need to elect a different government.

It's a abstract because you will never ever see a situation where voters neglect national elections to adjust the EU council or commission. Maybe it's what needs to happen, but the way thing are arranged it just won't.

Why "neglect"? You're voting for a government that does the things you want.

Vote against the ruling party in your smaller national election

That's a system of accountability in name but not in practice.

Even if there was an option in the national elections that didn't want this stuff, convincing a majority of voters to disregard national politics for an election cycle to have an imperceptibly small impact on the council members is such an unlikely outcome the council or comission would de facto be committing genocides before voters would be mobilized, and even then it's unlikely they'd face any repercussions.

I’m sympathetic to wanting a directly elected upper house instead of the council but it’ll be a hard fight to win.

The Parliament should also be empowered to initiate legislation.

It isn't popular, but they have a name and address right? Not talking violence, but the number one way of dealing with these sorts is to usually talk things out. If you're really concerned about, get a group of similarly minded people and make it unambiguously evident that this person is championing something a lot of people are not behind. It becomes much harder to ignore or wave off something when people start making themselves known on your doorstep.

And no, this isn't dog whistling violence. It is simply applying signal. The only other message I can think of is engaging an investigative journalist/PI and starting to figure out who is lobbying the person, and start pressuring them.

The article you're commenting on is reporting how directly elected representatives defeated the motion.

Why do you keep lying?

That's the parliament. What about the council and the commission? Am I not allowed to hold them accountable? Does my power as a citizen only extend to a fourth of the balance of power?

They keep getting away with these attrition tactics with regards to implementing near Stasi levels communication surveillance. What about the day they're pushing to give the council unlimited powers, or to abolish voting rights, or to purge jews?

The council is made up of heads of state, so no more undemocratic than your own countries executive, and the commission is selected by the Council and approved by the EU parliament.

Russia and China has elections too, they are a necessary but not sufficient criteria for democracy. Just because there are elections doesn't mean the people can actually hold the government accountable.

Every. Single. Democracy. in this world uses a variation of system like EU so please stop bloviating about Russia and China.

Again, why do you keep lying about it?

The parliament holds them accountable like it just did in the article you're comme nting on.

Again, why are you aggressively lying here? Why are you misrepresenting workings of EU despite them following every single democracy out there?

The Council and Commission are representatives of your democratically elected national government. You as a citizen of your country get to pick said government.

If the EU were to not exist, your representatives in the Council/Commission (e.g. your national government) would be more powerful because they wouldn't be checked by the Parliament, not less.

Your problem is with your government, they just successfully deflected it to the EU in your mind.