[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.