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by mike_hearn 767 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament

In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government.

The purpose of a parliament is to make decisions about what the law says. Something that cannot decide what the law is, is therefore not a parliament. The EU Parliament isn't really a parliament.
2 comments
yau8edq12i 767 days ago
At first it was "making decisions", then it was "initiate legislation", and now it's "decide what the law is". It's tiring to argue against moving goal posts and bad faith. Besides, the first sentence of a Wikipedia article is not the ultimate, complete and exhaustive definition of what something is.

> Something that cannot decide what the law is

Good thing the EU parliament decides what the law is, then.

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mike_hearn 766 days ago
That's not a moving goal post. In the context of a parliament all three phrases mean (are supposed to mean) the same thing. "Initiating legislation" for example, is just another way to say "decide what the law is". The EU Parliament cannot make that decision, that's the point that keeps getting repeated. It can only acquiesce to or slow down the Commission's decisions.
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yau8edq12i 766 days ago
> "Initiating legislation" for example, is just another way to say "decide what the law is".

It's not.

> It can only acquiesce to or slow down the Commission's decisions.

That's not all it can do.

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pjerem 767 days ago
The thing is, European Union isn’t a country. It’s an union of countries. The Union itself doesn’t have legislative powers. The Union dictates rules the countries must follow the laws are still written by national parliaments.

To be clear, I’m absolutely not against the European Parliament having legislative powers but that would require the UE to become a federation and we are still far from this.

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jimbobthrowawy 767 days ago
> The Union dictates rules the countries must follow the laws are still written by national parliaments.

You're thinking of EU Directives, which have to be transposed into national law by some deadline. EU Regulations (e.g. GDPR) are considered legally enforceable all on their own, though still have a delay.

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