[johannes1234321]

Pressure your government to vote "no" on policies you don't like or pressure your government to initiate other legislation. They have the power and responsibility.

And yes, I personally would like to have a stronger EU Parliament relative to the Commission and Council. However there is no reason to let the national government escape with "it's EU law" after they approved it. (And yes, Council doesn't require unanimous vote for most items anymore since the Lisbon treaty, thus it is possible your government voted "no", but that then is democracy and they have to convince other governments ...)

(Just a side note: I like GDPR and think it is to large parts good and push my government to support it)

[Scarblac]

I think you misunderstand.

Almost all law coming out of the EU is really beneficial for the people, in my experience. Making a law like the GDPR and implementing it is hard work that doesn't grab headlines and first gives us a few years of annoying popups, but in the end it will actually improve privacy for EU citizens.

And national politicians can't do this anymore, because they have to be in the news each day and be in constant campaign mode because the next election may come sooner than expected. They need big words and shiny results.

If we make the EU more democratic, will it become less effective too?

[johannes1234321]

> If we make the EU more democratic, will it become less effective too?

This is probably the first time I'm hearing somebody claiming EU was effective ;)

However you are right - the fact that there is less attention on EU legislation enables different dynamics.

However I think it is quite different between countries how well they do. Here in Germany I am quite optimistic that the new government will do quite a few good things ... but maybe I'm too optimistic, but lots of good signals from my pov