[ProxCoques]

I think this may be a misunderstanding of the word "president". The role you're talking about is more like that of the Speaker of the House in the US or the UK. Both are elected by members of the chamber, not a popular vote.

https://the-president.europarl.europa.eu/en/the-presidency/f...

There is no "President" of the EU in the US sense of the word.

BTW parliaments were not democratically elected historically, that's true (eg women didn't get the vote until recently) but not relevant today.

[wwtrv]

> The role you're talking about is more like that of the Speaker of the House in the US or the UK. Both are elected by members of the chamber, not a popular vote.

Not really. The commission president is certainly (not even remotely) the equivalent of the Speaker in the British parliament (maybe a slightly closer in the US).

Not even Prime Minister would be a real equivalent since the commission isn't appointed by the parliament and it has relative very little say in what the commission does. In certain ways it's not fundamentally that different from some of the pseudo-democratic European states in the 1800s where the job of parliament was only to rubber stamp the laws written by the appointed government (of course there is no equivalent of the King/Emperor).

[ProxCoques]

I'm confused. We started off talking about how the President of the European Parliament is elected, but now you're talking about the European Commission. Those are separate bodies, the latter drafts laws. There's no country that elects the head of its civil service, is there?

[carlosjobim]

No, I'm not referring to the speaker of the EU parliament, I am referring to the president of the European Commission, which is right now Ursula von der Leyen. She was appointed by the EU parliament and not democratically elected.

The EU leaders makes things as confusing as they are able to, in order to be able to do what they please without the population understanding much, but she (von der Leyen) is very much promoted as being a "real president", acts like a "real president" in foreign affairs. It is only when pointed out that they are not democratically elected that people start making excuses that the EU president is not a "real president".

Which way is it? I think the rulers of Europe want to have it both ways, so that they can smoothly direct their subjects as they please.

[wwtrv]

> She was appointed by the EU parliament

IMHO that would be perfectly fine on its own (or do you think that any parliamentary state is not a "real democracy"?).

But the problem is that she was appointed by the Council/National governments and the parliament just rubber-stamped their pick. If the relationship between the Parliament and Commission were the same as between the parliaments and governments of other countries it would be perfectly fine.

> "real president"

You clearly don't speak French? What's a "real president" anyway?

Also if we go that route you do know that the e.g. German, Italian, Greek etc. "presidents" are also not elected directly?

[carlosjobim]

Nominated by the Council and appointed by the Parliament. No, it is not real democracy. It is "representative democracy", at best. And I believe Europeans are defending this system just out of the human habit of defending status quo. If it was arranged anyway else, they would argue that was the best. If the EU had presidential elections by popular vote, do you think anybody here would argue that those should be scrapped for parliamentary appointment?

Europe doesn't have the strong traditions of freedom and individualism. The tradition is collectivism and people accepting that they are to be ruled over, without that bothering them too much.

"There is no "President" of the EU in the US sense of the word." <- This statement by a previous commenter is what I'm referring to when writing "real president". No, I don't speak French, and this conversation hasn't been in French.