[frankjr]

> And who elects those politicians?

For the most part other politicians. A vote of a constituent every few years means very little, you don't even know for sure who gets to be a MEP, you give a "preference". For the remaining time EU politicians do whatever they want and you are just expected to take it. And if your country doesn't want to, they give you a penalty.

[RandomLensman]

And that differs how from some national systems? How can the Commission do whatever it takes when the Council is the senior part of the executive when it comes to outlining policies and countries enjoy veto rights on a variety of things there (and can even leave the EU)?

[Aerroon]

The way the EU differs from national systems in that the EU is compartmentalized. The different languages and cultures mean that ideas, information, and politics doesn't flow freely. If you care about a specific policy then not only do you have to convince all the voters in your country, but you'll have to convince people in a dozen other countries that speak entirely different languages too.

Compartmentalization like this also allows some influence to spread more than it would in a unified information space. It's possible for a larger country to convince a smaller one to side with them on an EU level issue, while "paying" for it on a national level.

I think that because of these barriers it makes sense that a lot of European voters feel entirely disconnected from EU level politics. It's preteen met with an attitude of "Brussels decided that we must jump, so we jump." It's reminiscent of the Soviet times with "Moscow decided". (Not in the decisions itself, but people's attitudes.)

[RandomLensman]

The EU is also not a nation but only a supranational organization, so it shares that with other such organizations. But that aside, is that actually true for policymaking that it needs a lot of countries or for a lot things other countries don't care, i.e., small, focused minorities can enact things (not unlike most democracies)?

[Aerroon]

The Council can have a qualified majority vote - for the vote to pass 55% of the member states representing at least 65% of the EU population has to vote in favor.

The EU has a population of 450 million. 35% of it is a little over 157 million. Germany + France have a population of 149 million.

In practice every qualified majority vote has to have either Germany or France supporting the measure to pass the Council.

There are also Council votes that require unanimity. This is the so-called 'veto' that every country has. In that case obviously any country could hold up the process.

So, there are definitely places where things can be held up by a minority of countries, but I don't know if they can push things through. I think it would be more likely that they would leverage national level power for that.