[emptysongglass]

Sometimes I think the HN contingent just willfully buries its head in the sand on issues of the EU, because they prefer to think of the EU as some idealist version of whatever they've lost as leftists in the US.

What this person is writing is correct. The reality of EU politics is anything but democratic. The EU is crowned by an unelected commission that does not serve the interests of the governed.

[roenxi]

It seems reasonable to theorise it is actually a timezone-dependent effect and there is probably a slightly weird sample of English-speaking tech-focused Europeans who spend a lot of their day checking social media. When the US is up and about the tone shifts.

[inglor_cz]

The EU is quite good at cultivating a benign, environment-friendly, happy family image. I think it is a deliberate contrast to the "gung-ho" American world presence.

The background is pretty machiavellistic, though. There is a lot of money and influence to be managed. It is no secret that Ursula von der Leyen got her first mandate basically from Merkel, a reward for being her loyal subordinate for years.

[saubeidl]

The EU commission is appointed by elected governments, with one level of indirection.

It is thus as democratically legitimized as any ministerial role in any government, or as the US presidency.

Please do not spread disinformation.

[thyristan]

The commission is appointed in back-room deals by "elected" governments which are in turn often only indirectly appointed by parliaments. From your nickname I do infer you are from Germany, where ministers are not elected and the chancellor is not elected by the voters. Instead the chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, which was elected by the voters, but only after the usual back-room deals of forming a coalition. So there is no actual voter control on who becomes chancellor, as evidenced by several "grand" coalitions that always had Merkel as chancellor. Ministers are then not even elected by parliament, they are simply appointed by the chancellor. So not elected in any sense of the word, not even indirectly.

The only elected body in the EU is the EU parliament which has practically no powers when compared to the commission. It can only vote on what the commission proposes, it cannot make its own proposals. It cannot overrule the commission. And the commission can make rules and regulations of its own, without involving the parliament. The most the parliament can do is hold up the process a little.

The EU is not democratic by any sensible measure. "But there is an election somewhere in the process" doesn't make a democracy. Many dictatorships, communist regimes and even monarchies do have an election somewhere in the process. The emperor has no clothes, and the EU isn't democratic. Any timid initiative to make it so has died ages ago. The last straw was the trumped up non-election of von-der-Leyen. Actually, the parliament should have filled her job with its candidate, as was promised before the election. After election day, that promise which was intended to introduce at least a whiff of democratic accountability, was instantly forgotten. von der Leyen was instated instead of the parliaments candidate by a back-room deal.

[andrepd]

Everything you say here is correct. Democracy is not a binary where if you have an election no matter how indirect then it's a "democracy™".

The EU is governed by backroom deals and is extremely opaque. Adding to everything you said: there is no accountability, there is little presence of EU matters in newspapers, EU leaders hardly even attempt to communicate with their people (practically only von der Leyen or António Costa make public speeches).

Just compare: you surely know the names of all or almost all ministers of your country. Do you know the names of even 2 out of the 27 commissioners? Scrutiny of their doings and the laws that are proposed appear in news regularly. Does such scrutiny exist of EU institutions?

It's not a democracy.

[saubeidl]

If you don't know about EU commissioners or EU matters, then that is purely up to you.

Matter of fact, you're commenting on a news article about EU happenings right now.

If one is only the slightest bit informed, one has probably heard of Kaja Kallas, the foreign affairs commissioner or Maroš Šefčovič, the trade comissioner.

These are not some big secret names, but public figures with well-articulated positions that regularly hold press conferences.

[saubeidl]

Is the US democratic by any sensible nature? Their president, too, is appointed by electors.

Is there any democratic power by your standards? You are moving the goal posts so far I don't think anything fits your narrow definition.

[geertj]

> Their president, too, is appointed by electors.

While there have been a tiny numbers of faithless electors in the past, they have never influenced the outcome of a presidential election. Furthermore, about 80% of electors are from states that have laws that require their electors to vote for the candidate who wins the state's popular vote.

[saubeidl]

Nonetheless, they are who are elected, not the president. The president is then appointed by said electors.

[andrepd]

That's just ridiculous. The US president is directly elected by the people, modulo the weirdness of state-level FPTP. Flawed as the electoral college is, there's no comparison whatsoever.

[saubeidl]

The electoral college is directly elected, the president is appointed. It is the same level of indirection.

[andrepd]

The electoral college is a rubber stamp of the popular vote (per state). The commission is selected by the member-states governments with no electoral input. You cannot be making this argument in good faith...

[thyristan]

Switzerland is certainly democratic, because voters can directly vote for laws. Some countries and states do have provisions to that effect, but with more restrictions and less often used.

The US is actually more democratic than e.g. Germany, because the president is elected by the people (though indirectly), not by parliament. Therefore a political oligarchy could be prevented, because the majority in parliament and the president can check on each other, and the president is more accountable to the voters than to parliament.

Generally there is a sliding scale of course, but the less directly officials are elected, the less democratic a country is. A common example would be a soviet (engl. "council") republic, which isn't considered democratic at all, even though it has tons of elections: Each factory/town/village elects a local workers's council, which in turn elects a county council, which elects a regional council, which elects a state council, which elects a national council, which elects the council of ministers, which elects the chairman. Tons of filters that make absolutely certain that the will of the party and state always supercedes the will of the people.

[josefx]

> The US is actually more democratic than e.g. Germany, because the president is elected by the people

The German president is mainly a figurehead with limited power. The office was stripped down after WWII.

The real power lies with the ministers, who can issue absolute orders that have to be obeyed without question. One of many results is that German prosecutors cannot be trusted with issuing EU wide arrest warrants and had the ability stripped from them the moment it was challenged in court.

[thyristan]

I was comparing the USian president to the German chancellor. Both head up the government made up of ministers they appoint. It's only the name that is different, and the order in protocol. The USian president is first and head of state in protocol order, the German chancellor is third after the German federal president and the president of the Bundestag (one chamber of parliament).

Sorry for my being imprecise here, Germans tend to skip their own president(s) because, as you correctly state, they are mostly unimportant figureheads.

[emptysongglass]

It is not disinformation. The Commission is unelected by the people. I specifically called out that the Commission does not serve the interests of the governed. That is a correct statement.

What's more the Commission is more than one person, unlike the US presidency.

[saubeidl]

Again, the commission is appointed by elected officials.

Do you call ministers in your country unelected? Would you call the US president unelected?

I agree the Comission doesn't serve the interests of the governed, but that's because the people keep voting against their own interests and vote in right-wing governments, which in turn appoints a right-wing commission, which then does the right-wing thing of selling out its people.

It is not a structural EU fault, it is the electorate that's to blame.

[vladvasiliu]

> Do you call ministers in your country unelected?

Don't know about emptysongglass's country, but in France, ministers are absolutely unelected. The president is directly elected, who then appoints the prime minister, who then "proposes" the other ministers of his government. There is no strict rule by which the prime minister is chosen, only a "habit" to choose from the "winning camp", which was not respected by Macron these last two times. There's also no rule for how the ministers are picked. As you can imagine, this is largely backroom deals.

The last two prime ministers have all been deemed unsatisfactory by the parties with the most votes in the last legislative elections and by those who voted for them (people voted directly for their representatives in the lower chamber of parliament). These prime ministers were from parties that scored lower in the elections.