as I understand it, euro-sceptic means wanting to leave the EU. I'm thinking that if you want someone to vote down unreasonable laws, then you should vote for who seems the most reasonable
When I wrote to the various U.K. MEPs in 2018 regarding the (awful) proposed EU Copyright Directive, the only ones that intended to vote against it were the Euro-skeptics and the Greens.
I was impressed at how the Euro-skeptic MEPs understood my concerns and took the time to write back to me in detail. They seemed by far the most democratically engaged of all the MEPs I communicated with
isn't it possible to pass a law on EU level or amend it's foundation in a way that prohibits any country to implement encryption control & will make any attempt to modify this law as bad as an attempt to kill a person?
They have the power to send a proposed law back to the commission, to be revised. The commission has the power to send it back to parliament unrevised.
I think the Council of Ministers also comes into the process. The Council consists of the national government ministers whose purview includes the matter at hand; it's membership changes for each meeting. It's really just all the member governments of the EU, one nation one council-member.
No, once a proposal is made the commission can withdraw it but not amend it anymore
After the proposal is made parliament and the council shuttle back and forth (between each other) proposed changes for up to 3 times (I might be wrong on the exact number)
If the proposal doesn't pass by then (or is withdrawn) it fails
and to be clear - the Council of Ministers has primacy, the actual power in the EU, whereas the Commission is just the secretariat or Civil Service of the EU, they have no power to decide policy.
The european parliament can vote the bill down. But that's the last line of defense. The danger is that a lot of politicians will think that it's for the benefit of children (which is nonsense) and will therefore vote in favor of the law.
Right now it is actually the council of the EU that is preventing the law from progressing.
The "nearly powerless" refers to blocking the bill being the only thing the parliament is able to do. The commission can just keep proposing this bill, it only needs to pass the parliament once. Once passed, future parliaments are unable to amend or repeal the bill. The commission only has to win once, while the parliament has to block the bill every single time.
The commission isn't an extraneous entity, if the parliament and member states want a law or amendment the commission will write a proposal. It doesn't "have to" strictly speaking but it would.
Framing it like you do is ignoring the fact that the only reason we're here in the first place is because a good chunk of member states and MEPs want this law
Which of course is why the country that did leave the EU has passed anti-E2EE legislation already while the attempt to do so in the EU is apparently floundering
The proposal comes from the Commission but it has to be voted for by the Member States in the European Parliament. They can (and will) demand changes to the text.
I've seen this process up close (for a Member State) and it is reliably slow with a reliable amount of ping-pong and battles between the various parties..
This is Chat Control 2.0, the first bill did not make it through so now they come back with this new iteration. If this one doesn't pass , they'll come back with Chat control 3.0 and so on by next year or the one after.
I'm afraid that your proposition is too extreme. I believe in the European project, and this position seems like we're trying to kill a fly with a bazooka.
I am sorry but why do you believe in the European project? Also what is the European project?
The EU was a good idea at the start. A bunch of countries wanting to preserve peace and increase trade? Sure sign me up.
That's what it was at the start.
But now, with the open borders between countries, laws that supersedes state laws, talks about having an army and a desire to turn European countries into the United States of Europe, what is the advantage here?
You could have pacts and treaties to foster cooperation and trade. You could share intelligence and help each other out just like any other country in the world does it currently without something like the EU to manage it all.
I think it's very easy to take the benefits of the EU and our resulting prosperity for granted. We need to actually have some power in the US-EU relationship, and the only way is to combine further.
I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
> I think it's very easy to take the benefits of the EU and our resulting prosperity for granted. We need to actually have some power in the US-EU relationship, and the only way is to combine further.
You opinion is that the EU is good because the EU is good. You want the United states of Europe. I don't.
France, Germany, the Northern European countries were wealthy before the EU became the EU as we know it today.
> I don't know what that will look like, but I'd like Europe to be able to chart its own course. We know what happens to nations that are at the mercy of countries more powerful.
Yes, Europe, not the EU. That's my point. You can have Europe without the EU. You can have cooperation, trade, security without an overarching apparatus like the EU.
> France, Germany, the Northern European countries were wealthy before the EU became the EU as we know it today.
When China was still suffering through the effects of Mao, when India was still a British colony, when Brazil was still under the influence of Portugal, sure.
So sure, Europe could have coasted on the spoils of the colonial era a bit longer, but if Europe wants a table in the 21st century with the US and the rise of India and China, then Europe needs to be a unified bloc out of pure demographic reality.
As a recent example, in a world without the EU, would the countries that are in the EU have been able to stand up to Russia last year in the gas supply? I certainly think Germany at least would have blinked.
Funny thing - I live in Europe, but I am not European. I think the EU is such a net positive for everyone involved that I am dumbfounded whenever I hear some European person speak against it.
The main problems I see on the EU is that it is not integrated enough. There's a lot of bureaucracy that could be optimized if some things were more centralized (e.g.: labor laws, defense spending, etc).