Please don't use the mere existence of the "Mickey Mouse" parliament as an evidence of direct representation to the EU as the parliament have literally none of the roles or authority of a real parliament but is mostly ceremonial, like the president of the EU.
The real power is and have always been with the council of ministers who is appointed by the member governments, and in practice only responsible to the member parliaments and not the EU parliament, who barely have authority to overrule the larger and more permanent commission, let alone propose any legislation.
Don't get me wrong I am pro EU but the current structure is pretty strange and mostly dysfunctional in trying to spread the pain evenly and prone to being dominated by large corporate interest groups.
Not a single piece of EU legislation (both directive and regulation) can be enacted without a majority in the EU parliament.
The only difference to national governments is the lack of a right to initiate legislation. But in practice, they just stick anything they want into any vaguely related piece of regulation. They do have the power to amend.
Even if what you stated was true(which is isn't for all cases) it's still a complete reversal of how every single other democratic parliament works as the EU parliament cannot propose anything.
It's correct that the commission(which it itself fairly powerless) have to ask the MEP for yes and no on directives, that is not the case on all regulations passed by the council of ministers as the council can choose to bypass the EU parliament, in cases where no disagreement exist within the council.
- process heavily skewed in such way that it's extremely rare to throw Comission proposals entirely
- current procedure for reaching comprosive between EP and Comission is: small working group hashes out compromise text with no public oversight, is then rubber-stamped by plenary
- crucially, low citizen visibility into EP's working, no oversight
The last point is, I believe, crucial. EP is a dumping ground for politicians who failed nationally and gets virtually no press attention. What happens in national parliaments is news, covered in detail, even though the importance of EP, as the place where things can be influenced, is much bigger.
the appointed commission forms the government (executive), not the parliament
the head of the commission is chosen by the parliament, and the head of the commission then appoints commissioners
commissioners have a tendency to be disgraced former national politicians who have become unelectable at home (e.g. Jean-Claude Juncker, Peter Mandelson)
The commissioners have to be nominated by member-state governments. The head of the commission doesn't really have much practical power to block them, although he gave give them more or less powerful portfolios.
The commission as a whole has to be approved by the directly elected parliament. It can also be dismissed by the parliament at any time (which has happened before).
The situation is quite similar to a number of member states (e.g Germany) where neither the prime minister nor cabinet ministers have to be members of parliament and the government itself is not elected by the people.
The MEP are not part of the government, they are part of the parliament, which is elected by the public. The EU comission (which is the government), is decided upon by the national governments. Only the head of the comission was elected (indirectly) by the people.
Edit: Btw, the head of the comission is more like what the US would think of an actual president. The president, OP talks about is more like a representing nation.
The whole Commission has to be approved by the European Parliament, not just their President. The European Parliament has forced the European Council to remove candidates before approving the Commission multiple time in the past. In that sense the Commission is more directly elected by the people than e.g. German ministers (who can be chosen at will by the Chancellor).
And of course the national governments are elected (indirectly) by the people as well which makes everyone who they elect also indirectly elected (albeit through more indirection).
The EU commission is also indirectly elected by the people in a (maybe tenuous) way. Member state populations elect their national governments, those governments put forward commissioners.
They're not that much different to civil servants in national government really.
We do not elect the national goverments. We elect political parties in the national parliament who then form a government or a coalition and appoint comissioners in the EC. There is in fact little representation.
The real power is and have always been with the council of ministers who is appointed by the member governments, and in practice only responsible to the member parliaments and not the EU parliament, who barely have authority to overrule the larger and more permanent commission, let alone propose any legislation.
Don't get me wrong I am pro EU but the current structure is pretty strange and mostly dysfunctional in trying to spread the pain evenly and prone to being dominated by large corporate interest groups.