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Randler posted:The amount of seats each member state gets in the European parliament results in some countries' votes being, for the lack of a better word, more valuable by an order of magnitude, so I'd agree with the council having a way higher democratic legitimacy than the European parliament in its current form. That doesn't apply to their electing a head of state, who acts as an equal council member in many situations? e- I mean look at this poo poo pre:Member state Population Nice (votes/voting weights) Germany 82.54m 16.5% 29 8.4% France 59.64m 12.9% 29 8.4% UK 59.33m 12.4% 29 8.4% Italy 57.32m 12.0% 29 8.4% Spain 41.55m 9.0% 27 7.8% Poland 38.22m 7.6% 27 7.8% baka kaba fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 01:28
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baka kaba posted:That doesn't apply to their electing a head of state, who acts as an equal council member in many situations? I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say.
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Jun 27, 2014 01:47
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Randler posted:I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. I edited - the Lisbon Treaty is eventually going to ditch these arbitrary weights, and have each council members' votes weighted entirely by their state's current population, but right now it's like that up there. In some countries a much lower number of votes is required to elect someone who will become a council member, and wield an equal (or comparable) amount of influence to someone who required many more votes to become a head of state. Those fewer votes are much more powerful And in some situations, they don't even use weighted voting at all. Joseph Muscat of Malta, elected by 167,533 people, has the same voting power as Angela Merkel, elected by over 18 million baka kaba fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 01:57
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baka kaba posted:I edited - the Lisbon Treaty is eventually going to ditch these arbitrary weights, and have each council members' votes weighted entirely by their state's current population, but right now it's like that up there. In some countries a much lower number of votes is required to elect someone who will become a council member, and wield an equal (or comparable) amount of influence to someone who required many more votes to become a head of state. Those fewer votes are much more powerful Ah, gotcha. I consider "One nation, one vote" in the council to be acceptable, because there is one significant difference between the parliament and the council. The parliament is supposed to be the representation of European people (in the sense of European citzenry) and should therefore be judged by standards applicable to intra-national elections, i.e. every vote should weight the same. The council on the other hand is supposed to be the representation of the member states as sovereign nationstates. One of the guiding principles of modern international relations is the equality of sovereign nations and this is the standard by which the voting weights of the council should be judged. How the member states determinated who is their representative in the council is only relevant in so far as their intra-national elections meet generally agreed upon democratic standards. Weighted voting for the council is the same undemocratic bullshit as the parliament.
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Jun 27, 2014 02:09
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Randler, do you think the Bundesrat is undemocratic, with Berlin having more votes per capita than Bayern?
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Jun 27, 2014 08:26
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Torrannor posted:Randler, do you think the Bundesrat is undemocratic, with Berlin having more votes per capita than Bayern? The Bundesrat does not have a lineage of democratic legitimization from the whole German people. It does, however, not require one. Because the Bundesrat's role is not to represent the German people as a whole but merely to represent the state governments' interests at the Federal level. With "Federalism" and "Democracy" being equal constitutional interests (compare Art. 20, 79 Basic Law), the main goal of the Bundesrat institution is to enforce the "Federalism" part. This is unproblematic, because the representation of the German people as a whole and the main legislative power lie with the Bundestag as a unicameral parliament. This is an acceptable design decision, due to the difference in the underlying source of legitimization of the Federal Republic's constitution as opposed to the European Union's treaties. The German constitution is backed up by the German pouvoir constituant while there simply isn't a unitary European pouvoir constituant who could give legitimacy to a similar arrangement on the European level.
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Jun 27, 2014 09:53
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You will literally never find a Parliament for which each vote is perfectly equal unless you do something like use one single country-wide electoral district which would be kind of hosed up. Are you seriously stomping your foot down and getting mad at the idea of a democratic entity that represents a district with (for example) 4,000,000 voters with the same number of representatives as one with 4,000,001 voters and one with 4,000,002 voters? 
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Jun 27, 2014 10:32
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YF-23 posted:You will literally never find a Parliament for which each vote is perfectly equal unless you do something like use one single country-wide electoral district which would be kind of hosed up. This is what we do in the Netherlands and I find it the fairest system by far.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:30
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Yeah there are plenty examples of proportional systems out there without defined sub-national districts. Considering the EU has already a massive image problem, I don't think the current conflict over the presidency is doing favors for it and its system.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:40
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Rompuy has made it official on his twitter(lol) Juncker is going to be proposed to the parliament this July for the Commission. The decision came to votes, with only the UK and Hungary voting against. http://www.euronews.com/2014/06/27/jean-claude-juncker-nominated-as-eu-commission-president/
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Jun 27, 2014 16:00
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YF-23 posted:Are you seriously stomping your foot down and getting mad at the idea of a democratic entity that represents a district with (for example) 4,000,000 voters with the same number of representatives as one with 4,000,001 voters and one with 4,000,002 voters? Randler posted:The amount of seats each member state gets in the European parliament results in some countries' votes being, for the lack of a better word, more valuable by an order of magnitude, so I'd agree with the council having a way higher democratic legitimacy than the European parliament in its current form. So using your number of 4,000,000 it wouldn't be about 4,000,001 and 4,000,002 but about 40,000,000 or 400,000.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:42
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Randler posted:So using your number of 4,000,000 it wouldn't be about 4,000,001 and 4,000,002 but about 40,000,000 or 400,000.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:58
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Really lazy stats using numbers from Wikipedia without any double-checking (Ireland's population growth from the 4 million in 2003 listed here to the 6 millions boasted here was surprising, over 50% increase in eight years, but whatever). So you can see that, if these numbers are actually accurate, the weight of a Malta voter in the EP is over twelve times that of a German voter; his weight in the COEU is over twenty times that of the same German voter. The Netherlands are the most fairly represented country in the Parliament, Poland and Romania are given the fairest weight in the COEU. France is getting the worst deal in the Parliament, Germany the worst in the COEU, and the best deals are respectively for Malta and Luxembourg.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:27
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Cat Mattress posted:So you can see that, if these numbers are actually accurate, the weight of a Malta voter in the EP is over twelve times that of a German voter; his weight in the COEU is over twenty times that of the same German voter. The Netherlands are the most fairly represented country in the Parliament, Poland and Romania are given the fairest weight in the COEU. France is getting the worst deal in the Parliament, Germany the worst in the COEU, and the best deals are respectively for Malta and Luxembourg. None of that loving matters in a parliament setting. The German, French, British and Italian parties rule the blocks and can freely exclude any politician beneath the top 8 if they don't vote according to the block. They have massively more influence despite having a lower ratio.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:46
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Cat Mattress posted:Really lazy stats using numbers from Wikipedia without any double-checking
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Jun 27, 2014 18:47
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Cat Mattress posted:(Ireland's population growth from the 4 million in 2003 listed here to the 6 millions boasted here was surprising, over 50% increase in eight years, but whatever). You're getting Northern Ireland in there too, you want this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland (4,588,252 at the 2011 census)
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Jun 27, 2014 19:11
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Cat Mattress posted:Really lazy stats using numbers from Wikipedia without any double-checking (Ireland's population growth from the 4 million in 2003 listed here to the 6 millions boasted here was surprising, over 50% increase in eight years, but whatever). 6.3 million is for the island of Ireland, which includes both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. 4.3 million is the population of the Republic of Ireland.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:14
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Aaaand Juncker goes and calls himself a "political transsexual". That sort of joke would probably get you a strong rebuke from Tory HQ over here, for god's sake. 
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Jun 27, 2014 21:22
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Maybe it was aimed at Tory HQ? "Hahaha, a joke we can all share, friends"
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Jun 27, 2014 21:34
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At least he is no longer saying that Columbus was Portuguese and a socialist.
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Jun 27, 2014 22:55
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baka kaba posted:But nobody was voting for President anyway? The only choice people had was to vote for an MEP, whose party would gain support and exert more influence over Parliament's activities, only one of which is selecting a Presidency candidate... Given the treaty change and its interpretation, it's hugely disingenuous to claim that you're not voting on the Commission presidency when you vote in European elections; it's like saying "you don't technically vote for a Prime Ministerial candidate in a general election, you just vote for your local MP." A vote for a PES candidate in May was a vote for Schultz, a vote for an ALDE candidate was a vote for Verhofstadt, and a vote for an EPP candidate was a vote for Juncker in almost exactly the same way that a vote for a Tory MP in 2010 was a vote for David Cameron by extension. It's also beyond absurd to claim that the Parliament reflects the will of the people in any meaningful way. Here's the realistic Europe-wide tally of votes from May: Who on earth are these clowns and why would I want to vote for any of them? - 57% My national government is full of retards, gently caress those guys - 30% My national government is kind of OK, or at least better than those losers in the opposition - 10% I actually have an opinion on european politics and wish to express it! - ~3% That is not going to produce a body that reflects the will of the people. There's a reason the lunatic right does much better in European elections than it does on the national stage and it's not because the continent desperately wants them in power - it's because the european electorate as a whole is almost completely disconnected from the european political process so motivated minority groups and protest parties end up being massively overrepresented. As for the relative legitimacy of the Council and Parliament - the members of the Council gain power through high-turnout elections that are extensively covered in the relevant national media and taken seriously by the national electorates, and they work within institutions that voters understand comparatively well. The Parliament is elected in low turnout elections that are not well covered in the media or taken at all seriously by the european electorate as a whole, and they work within an institution whose functioning and powers are not understood by voters. And just to be clear, I'm not saying that Lagarde or any other candidate the Council might have nominated in the absence of the treaty change has more democratic legitimacy than Juncker, I'm saying that for all intents and purposes they have no less legitimacy. The knowing support of <1% of the electorate should not count for much of anything in a sane system.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:09
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But we're not choosing an ideal system here, we're looking at what the options are on the table - Parliament (formed as an overall representation of Europeans' political choices) proposing a candidate, or the Council (formed by people's local and national political choices) doing so. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with what you've said about people voting on domestic lines what with the UKIPs and the my neighbours talk funny, but whatever their motivations they still participated in a democratic election for representation within the EU as a political body. David Cameron was in no shape or form elected on the basis that people were backing his choice for the EU presidency, and I'd be very surprised if most (or any) other EU heads of state won their national elections on a platform of who they'd select for President. LemonDrizzle posted:Given the treaty change and its interpretation, it's hugely disingenuous to claim that you're not voting on the Commission presidency when you vote in European elections; it's like saying "you don't technically vote for a Prime Ministerial candidate in a general election, you just vote for your local MP." A vote for a PES candidate in May was a vote for Schultz, a vote for an ALDE candidate was a vote for Verhofstadt, and a vote for an EPP candidate was a vote for Juncker in almost exactly the same way that a vote for a Tory MP in 2010 was a vote for David Cameron by extension. Yeah, and that's the whole point, the choice of party naturally implies a similar choice of candidate - if people voted in the Tories and didn't realise that meant a Tory government would probably select a Tory PM, does that matter? When Blair resigned and Brown became PM, was that completely undemocratic? Remember, even then people were complaining, because they were unaware of what their vote actually meant. If people don't even know how the UK government works and how people gain positions of power like the Prime Minister, does that weaken the government's mandate? None of this is a strong argument for saying that the public knowingly and explicitly voted to give Cameron a mandate to choose the EU Presidency candidate in 2014, which is the alternative to the Parliament doing it. I'm still not seeing your argument that the Council has more (or even equal) legitimacy on this
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Jun 28, 2014 01:48
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Viewing this as a partially detached pragmatist, the result, whether illegitimate or not, is that the head of the only body in Europe capable of reversing the widespread disillusionment with itself is a retread with a penchant for saying dumb things who won't do anything (at best) and might actively accelerate a followup crisis (at worst). I mean, if that's the best you've got, Cameron's right. I realize it's for the wrong reasons, but ultimately, you've got the right wing leader of a right wing party threatening a popular vote and the left falling all over itself to claim it's a political ploy / deny a vote will ever take place. Does no one else see this as a huge problem? If this is the best the left can do to defend the status quo right now and if the US of Europe project (ie moving in the other direction) is genuinely untenable, at least one country is going to try to leave during the next crisis if not sooner and they'll probably be right. Then what?
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Jun 28, 2014 09:23
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LemonDrizzle posted:Given the treaty change and its interpretation, it's hugely disingenuous to claim that you're not voting on the Commission presidency when you vote in European elections; The base problem is that the Lisbon treaty itself was undemocratic as gently caress. Using it as as a justification for 'democratic' elections in any form is a joke.
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Jun 28, 2014 09:42
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Adar posted:I mean, if that's the best you've got, Cameron's right. I realize it's for the wrong reasons, but ultimately, you've got the right wing leader of a right wing party threatening a popular vote and the left falling all over itself to claim it's a political ploy / deny a vote will ever take place. Does no one else see this as a huge problem? If this is the best the left can do to defend the status quo right now and if the US of Europe project (ie moving in the other direction) is genuinely untenable, at least one country is going to try to leave during the next crisis if not sooner and they'll probably be right. Then what? If any of the major nations decides to take their ball and go it's pretty much all over. The EU has no way to enforce it's rules if the nations decide not to follow them and the threats of stopping trade with member nations that leave are hogwash. For example, if the EU decided to seize trade agreements with the UK on it quitting the project both the UK and half of Europe would fall into a deep recession. It's the economical equivalent to MAD, it's a hollow threat. Instead the EU would be forced to give in to the demands of the UK to keep trade going. This would start a chain reaction with countries like Norway, Turkey and Portugal demanding their own amendments and the foundation of the entire EU project (the trade union) imploding on itself.
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Jun 28, 2014 10:57
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Adar posted:Viewing this as a partially detached pragmatist, the result, whether illegitimate or not, is that the head of the only body in Europe capable of reversing the widespread disillusionment with itself is a retread with a penchant for saying dumb things who won't do anything (at best) and might actively accelerate a followup crisis (at worst). It wasn't like Juncker was a choice that everyone was okay with from the beginning. Sweden and Netherlands were opposed to him, France and Italy stalled on the issue for quite some time and even Hollande was throwing (dumb) names around. If Cameron was half the statesman that he believes himself to be he could've find support in the EU, to at least bring this question to a larger debate. Instead he adopted a position that would pull well with the British electorate "Juncker is a federalist! Centralization", but this didn't pull as well with the rest of Europe, with the exception of Hungary, so Sweden and Netherlands voted in support, and France and Italy votes yes so they could move on with their lives. Cameron is right that Juncker is a terrible choice, but not because he is a federalist, but largely because Juncker was the head of the eurogroup throughout the crisis and the only thing he did was gently caress it up even more. The left is another question entirely. It's nowhere to be found, and the euro-leftist groups are probably going to vote in favour of Juncker, on the basis that it will bring further legitimacy to the Euro-Parliament.
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Jun 28, 2014 11:01
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Electronico6 posted:It wasn't like Juncker was a choice that everyone was okay with from the beginning. Sweden and Netherlands were opposed to him, France and Italy stalled on the issue for quite some time and even Hollande was throwing (dumb) names around. If Cameron was half the statesman that he believes himself to be he could've find support in the EU, to at least bring this question to a larger debate. Instead he adopted a position that would pull well with the British electorate "Juncker is a federalist! Centralization", but this didn't pull as well with the rest of Europe, with the exception of Hungary, so Sweden and Netherlands voted in support, and France and Italy votes yes so they could move on with their lives.
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Jun 28, 2014 11:23
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Xoidanor posted:If any of the major nations decides to take their ball and go it's pretty much all over. The EU has no way to enforce it's rules if the nations decide not to follow them and the threats of stopping trade with member nations that leave are hogwash. For example, if the EU decided to seize trade agreements with the UK on it quitting the project both the UK and half of Europe would fall into a deep recession. It's the economical equivalent to MAD, it's a hollow threat. Instead the EU would be forced to give in to the demands of the UK to keep trade going. This would start a chain reaction with countries like Norway, Turkey and Portugal demanding their own amendments and the foundation of the entire EU project (the trade union) imploding on itself. The EU being what it is today(poo poo), still hasn't stopped it of accumulating a lot of political will and power(?) at the world stage. It has enough image and power that the Ukraine took it's chances and broke off from Russia. You still have most of the Balkans wanting to get in EU one way or another. Despite Erdogan, Turkey still believes it can be part of the EU. Even countries which are not even in Europe like Morocco, Cape Verde and loving Israel want to be closer to the EU. The EU project is quite alive, and we can see that even with the rise of eurosceptics and abstention, Pro-EU still dominates, and forces like FN don't really have the ability to band together with other similar minded parties to make a real change. Though I'm not sure what one takes from the Council vote, but it looks that the UK with this attitude has no real friends or support in the EU. Other than Hungary. This is a situation that the UK got into by itself, and leaving just isn't a real option. Despite the crisis the EU still is the major trade partner of the UK. The EU still buys something like half the exports that comes from the UK, but the reverse doesn't really happen, it's something like 10%, and while there's a lot of investment and trade deficits with the UK going on, nothing that would cause a complete meltdown of the Continental European economy. If anything, the euro crisis shows what kind of absurd and misguided lengths the EU will go to keep things together. The EU would survive without British markets. The UK access to EU markets however, is dependent on their membership, and so is the access to non EU markets, of which the various treaties with the EU facilitate entry. So not only would the UK have to renegotiate EU market access, but so would have to renegotiate with many other countries and markets. Alone the UK has no real bargaining power, nor would it be in any position to dictate any kind of terms to the EU, and you can bet that the fun people down in Frankfurt would push for the most shittiest FTA possible if it meant putting City of London out to pasture. Have no doubt, the UK leaving would be a blow. But not a major blow, and few in the Continent would call it blessing in disguise. As long as France, Germany, and Italy support the project it's in no real danger, and these three are fully committed to it in some shape or form.
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Jun 28, 2014 12:42
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"Breaking off Europe" makes no sense when all the politically important parts of the electorate (i.e. business interests), as well as institutions of sub-national administration are involved in European networks of multi-level governance and basing their decisions on rules and barriers negotiated in the EU. Regardless of popular opinion, no government could survive the upheaval of throwing their entire economy and low-level politics into disarray, breaking the bottom line of all corporations etc. And there's no existing loyalty that would dictate that interested national parties would sacrifice the benefits from continued EU policies just to prop up their national governments. Ultimately any country trying to leave the EU would have to realistically negotiate an Association Framework that would force them to comply with all the EU policies without having any of the political influence coming from membership and voting rights in the EP / Council.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:22
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steinrokkan posted:Ultimately any country trying to leave the EU would have to realistically negotiate an Association Framework that would force them to comply with all the EU policies without having any of the political influence coming from membership and voting rights in the EP / Council. Which is basically the deal Norway currently has.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:33
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Xoidanor posted:Which is basically the deal Norway currently has. This largely ignores that Norway's economy is completely different from the UK. An economy based on oil, fishing, and timber, stable and booming for over 20 years, one of the biggest and best welfare state in the world, and above all it has been working around the limitations of the EEA for 20 years. You also ignore that despite not being a member, Norway contributes annually more money than certain EU-members, and the UK would still have to fork out something around 2 billion every year to the EU without getting anything back. It really fails to properly mention just how big is the democratic deficit the EEA brings, in that Norway has absolute no say on what kind of legislation, regulations, tariffs and market liberalization that the EU decides on, and is largely forced to comply to EU directives. There's probably a good chance that Norway has accepted more EU legislation than certain EU-members, and Norway has no influence on them. Basically what works for Norway, works because it's Norway, a small country with an oil based economy, not because the EEA is a magical thing that gives the good without the bad.
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Jun 28, 2014 20:15
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Your argument runs on the presumption that the EU (Council, Parliament, Eurozone, Trade Union, etc) are all too big to fall which I believe to be false. Both the Eurozone and Parliament are relatively recent inventions (the parliament increasing rapidly in influence over the last decade) and what they both have in common is that they're not very popular anymore. They were both instruments to push the federalization of Europe and as it looks now I feel that they've accomplished the exact opposite. As it stands today the parliament has less democratic legitimacy then ever before as proven by the last election and the Eurozone is benefiting a few select countries while shafting everyone else in it. Sabers being rattled in the UK in fear of UKIP is just the tip of the iceberg. Nationalistic and eurosceptic parties are on the rise in a great number of European nations and as such they also gain more influence. You'd be crazy to argue that they won't react poorly to ECP and EP pushing pro-federalization policy. The UK is in a terrible bargaining position right now (which is why Cameron is stalling with the 2017 date) but that could very well change in the coming years.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:14
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That's an incredibly limited understanding of Europe, and politically loaded one at that. There's not one area of economic activity not transformed and informed by European norms. Transnational networks and lobbying have largely replaced previous forms of basic interest organization. Creation of a singl economic area has had profound effects on functioning of internal security, asylum policies, criminal justice and even civil law. Foreign representation in international regimes - which have also had major influence on European nations (think WTO) - has been largely delegated on the Commission, and implementation of multilateral agreements is also often left on either supranational or intergovernmental procedures (think reforms to the CAP sprung as the result of the Paraguay round of GATT negotiations, and the effects these changes have had on all levels of governance, structural economic policies, policy of employment and wages etc.). In short, the EU isn't too big too fail. It's too comprehensive to fail, and as most liberal theories of IR would admit, European population has more reasons to be loyal to the EU than to the national governments. Mind you, that doesn't mean that the average citizen has high opinion of the EU. However, it means that the people in posts of decision-making capacity (which are the people who really matter in formulating policies) have been forced to recognize the EU as a major part of their whole modus operandi, and can't abandon it without very great costs spread over very long periods of time.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:22
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steinrokkan posted:That's an incredibly limited understanding of Europe, and politically loaded one at that. There's not one area of economic activity not transformed and informed by European norms. Transnational networks and lobbying have largely replaced previous forms of basic interest organization. Creation of a singl economic area has had profound effects on functioning of internal security, asylum policies, criminal justice and even civil law. Foreign representation in international regimes - which have also had major influence on European nations (think WTO) - has been largely delegated on the Commission, and implementation of multilateral agreements is also often left on either supranational or intergovernmental procedures (think reforms to the CAP sprung as the result of the Paraguay round of GATT negotiations, and the effects these changes have had on all levels of governance, structural economic policies, policy of employment and wages etc.). Okay, so the argument is that the people don't support the EU but the elite knows better. This is...significantly less than bedrock ground the project is on there. You can maybe argue Cameron believes in your post and is trying to shore off UKIP, though he sure has been awfully consistent about genuinely disliking large parts of the EU as an institution for reasons that have a genuine basis in reality and that a majority of Britain agrees with. What happens if the stock market crashes again before Southern Europe sees daylight? Because from here I only see two ways forward and a lot of people seem convinced that USE can't happen. That leaves some kind of dissolution - maybe it takes a generation but what the gently caress else would Greece -> Spain -> all the southerners be supposed to do in that scenario?
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Jun 28, 2014 23:42
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Adar posted:Okay, so the argument is that the people don't support the EU but the elite knows better. The argument isn't that the elite knows better; the argument is that the most politically active people don't care about popular opinion, and that foreign policy is made based on economic interests as understood by the liberal theory of the IR. Some basic contributions to this strain of theory include Ernst Haas' / Philippe Schmitter's neo-functionalism, and various versions of the new institutionalism: most significantly Andrew Moravcsik's liberal intergovernmentalism and Frank Schimmelfennig's normative institutionalism. What they ultimately say is that due to building of institutions, national entities lose willingness or ability to revert to national governance, and are rather interested in building upon the existing level of integration to increase their gains. At the same time, abandoning the institutions (which have been designed as part of rational choice strategies employed by member actors) would cause net loss due to the fact that 1) they represent dominant interests defined by the pivotal actors (a game theory concept derived from voting rules of decision-making institutions) 2) they decrease transaction costs regardless of particular interests 3) there is bounded rationality of European actors which prevents radical change of their institutional setting (according to some authors) 4) dissent against common policies decreases political credibility, which is a major source of decision-making power in international regimes such as the EU. In short, the policies of the EU, as well as her institutional framework aren't arbitrary, they reflect upon political and economic facts of the community, and as such can't be assumed to be easily abandoned. I know just writing down a telephone book of theoretical approaches isn't particularly helpful, but the theoretical background of how the EU works is so rich that it's quite difficult to encompass it in any representative way. quote:This is...significantly less than bedrock ground the project is on there.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:14
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baka kaba posted:David Cameron was in no shape or form elected on the basis that people were backing his choice for the EU presidency
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Jun 29, 2014 01:14
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LemonDrizzle posted:David Cameron, like all the other European leaders, was elected to form a government and fulfill the government's traditional responsibilities. If we want to be technical, the Tories weren't elected into power via a parliamentary majority, they formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Cameron was selected to be Prime Minister in the horse trading of said coalition's formation.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:18
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LemonDrizzle posted:David Cameron, like all the other European leaders, was elected to form a government and fulfill the government's traditional responsibilities. Those responsibilities include managing foreign relations. "Foreign relations" encompasses all dealings with the EU. Yes this is all technically true, in the same way that European MEPs were elected to form a parliament and carry out its responsibilities, one of which is selecting a presidency candidate. And we're talking about who explicitly voted on the basis of this specific issue. You can't have it both ways, either you need specific, explicit support from voters on this issue (your <1% number) or you don't
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Jun 29, 2014 01:44
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Well, at this point it's pretty clear that you and I are just going round in circles so I'll try to summarize my position briefly and clearly and then let this discussion lie. The governments of the member states are elected in high turnout elections and are generally considered by their voters to have exclusive responsibility for managing their countries' foreign relations. The European Parliament is elected in low turnout elections and almost universally regarded as an irrelevant talking shop for freaks, losers, and political non-entities who can't hack it in national politics where the actual important decisions are made. As such, there is no possible democratic basis for any transfer of power from the national governments to the parliament, much less for giving the parliament effective control over the European executive or quietly transforming the parliamentary elections into pan-european presidential elections without making any meaningful effort to inform voters that this had happened or even who the candidates were.
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Jun 30, 2014 12:23
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LemonDrizzle posted:The European Parliament is elected in low turnout elections and almost universally regarded as an irrelevant talking shop for freaks, losers, and political non-entities who can't hack it in national politics where the actual important decisions are made. It seems to me that that suggests that actual important decisions haven't been made in national politics for quite a while now.
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Jun 30, 2014 15:53
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