[efitz]

Do citizens in the EU actually want this?

If not, how are EU politicians so disconnected from their citizens? How did this state of affairs come to be? Is it reversible?

In the US, our politicians don’t diverge quite as much, but when they do, the reason is money, and when it gets bad, we throw the bums out and elect populists. It’s not pretty and it’s messy but it self corrects with the next election if it doesn’t work out how people wanted.

[amarcheschi]

Most of the people I know - and I live in eu - are not knowledgeable about these topics. Furthermore, I've never heard about this in one of the main news channels, so I guess that most people don't even know about it

[p0w3n3d]

There's this "I have nothing to hide" sentiment followed by blind trusts into officials, their intentions and their alleged protection. I.e. people are scares of terrorism and would like it to stop, so they hope the terrorists will be found by spying.

At least in countries where the terrorism emerged recently, I'd say...

[potato3732842]

Being "scared of terrorism" is perfectly legitimate even if not underpinned by statistics.

The conversion from that to "so therefore the .gov ought to have powers that amount turnkey ability to violate human rights on a whim" is the problem.

Any "well actually terrorists aren't that big a deal" discussion only serves to bog things down in the weeds and direct blame away from bad people who believe bad things.

Replace terrorism with whatever the cause of the day is, drugs, satanic cults, tax evasion, etc, etc all you want, doesn't change anything. There are people who believe (though they'll rarely admit it when you lay it so bare) that you can take something that is flagrantly bad in its base or default form (like for example letting the government just read everyone's personal communication by default) and think that the fact that because it can be applied toward noble ends then it is a power the .gov ought to have access to by default.

[hintklb]

You are right.

As a European that lived in the US for a long time, a big difference is that there is also a lot of "European Conformism". You don't want to be seen as the weird one protesting things if nobody else does it. It's just easier to go with the flow and accept things.

[hintklb]

EU citizens have way too much trust in their government and elected officials. A lot of people here just assume officials act in the interest of the population and most people don't really check or care to understand in detail those type of proposals.

And unlike the US, very few people are going to push back based on "freedom" and "my rights" which is unfortunate in my opinion. This lack of pushback is why those types of proposal even come to be.

[shafyy]

That's not true. The issue with EU is that it's not really representative, and this is being critised for a long time and I hope should change in the near future. The EU parliament (the only directly elected body of the EU) does currently not have enough power.

[hintklb]

I'm a European citizen and I disagree.

Compared to the US and a lot of places in the world, Europeans generally care less and have more trust in their government. There is a general sense that elected officials generally do what is best for the people. This leads to less scrutiny and push back in general. Definitely way less than in the US.

[shafyy]

This probably differs from country to country though. I have worked and lived in Switzerland (I know, not EU), Germany and US, and it does not feel like people don't care here in EU. In fact, in terms of people going out on the streets and demonstrating, it takes a lot less in countries like Germany and France to so compared to the US, in my experience.

For example in Switzerland, there's the instrument of a "Volksinitiative". If you can collect 100k signatures, the government must hold a national election on this issue. And these are quite common and popular in Switzerland. In Germany, those unfortunately only exist on a state-level, not federal level, but are also common.

So, in my experience, people are very much involved in government here. This might be different in different EU countries of course. Or maybe you have a vastly different bubble you live in than I do.

[hintklb]

I think you make good points.

The main difference that struck me between the EU and living in the US is that by default EU citizens will assume good intent. I see European protests as interest groups that need to show that they are still important once in a while.

In the US, people will assume bad intent by default for politicians. This will lead to a ton more push back and scrutiny

[shafyy]

> In the US, people will assume bad intent by default for politicians. This will lead to a ton more push back and scrutiny

Maybe... Again, this might differ from country to country. I currently live in Germany, and here scrutiny of the current federal government (and also the state government in my state) is pretty decent.

Also, some of the decisions that were made (mostly related to working with the far-right party AfD and on immigration law) led to nation-wide protests where over months and months millions of people went on the streets.

[wqaatwt]

> The issue with EU is that it's not really representative

Well yes, because most European citizens couldn’t care less about this fact.

[hedora]

The US government has almost completely diverged from the will of the people at this point.

Most actions taken by this administration have > 65% disapproval ratings, and according to historical norms, if the size of current protests double, the people will overthrow the government.

The last time I checked, the ongoing ICE raids against civilians were one of the more popular policies.

[johannes1234321]

A notable amount of people vote for parties suggesting such ideas.

Demonstrations against are small.

Only few people write to their government and their MEPs.

This is probably sourced in not understanding it and not having enough information, but for as long as those three factors remain those are the results of democracy.

(Democracy in the EU is complex topic in itself, as EU isn't a state, but a union of independent states where states are primarily represented by their government and the directly elected parliament plays a smaller role ... but given the little protest that's the smaller issue in this case)

[emptysongglass]

Danish journalists refuse to inform the public about this.

The moderators of r/denmark are also currently blocking any submissions of this story to the subreddit.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> The moderators of r/denmark are also currently blocking any submissions of this story to the subreddit.

Can you shed more light on situation in Denmark? Why is this happening?

[emptysongglass]

Danes are very proud of Denmark. It's a tiny country. There's a sense that we need to protect this tiny state from criticism because it's taken care of us. We've given the world Lego, Hans Christian Andersen, and we rank in the top two happiest countries in the world according to terrible measurements.

So now we're the baddies, what do we do? We don't mention it. Ignorance is bliss.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Okay, but what justification do they provide for such behavior?

[emptysongglass]

Various: rejection due to irrelevance and not provoking substantive debate.

[munksbeer]

My response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44824742

In short: fault of the nation states, not the EU. Most EU people won't even be aware of this, the same in other countries around the world. We here care, most people don't. Sadly.

[nickslaughter02]

There has not been a single article about this in my country which is "for" the proposal despite me writing to all major news outlets. My only conclusion is that they are complicit.

[wqaatwt]

Simple. The EU is hardly a democracy. It’s run almost entirely by appointed bureaucrats with delusions of grandeur. The European parliament is there but it’s very weak relative to actual national parliaments and most people unfortunately don’t really care that much about politics on the EU level..

[munksbeer]

I'm going to reply in the same way I did elsewhere. Nation states are the ones pushing this agenda, onto the commission, and the elected parliament votes on it.

People continue to misrepresent what the EU is and how it operates, which is actually harmful if you care about stuff like this. You're basically trying to send the message to everyone that they're powerless "because EU". The reality is that nation states are pushing this. If you want to signal your disapproval, write to your politicians, vote for different ones, both national and MEPs.

Unfortunately, this is simply a reflection of democracy. Most people are just not informed enough about this topic to care. We think it is a big deal here on reddit, but most of the population just ignore it.

[izacus]

Please stop spreding this bullshit.

[mirko22]

How is this BS? Where is democracy in Von der Leyen making deal with USA for example, who voted for that?

Most of the representatives there are local tokens that are there to pull EU money in the pockets of their parties.

EU is artificial state made only out of interest of political elites.

[izacus]

Provide proof for your claims please.

[mirko22]

Proof of what?

[wqaatwt]

In what way exactly is it bullshit?

For better or for worse the core institution or decision making processes were never designed to be democratic in any meaningful way.

[izacus]

Because it is bullshit without any basis and doesn't fit the reality which is modelled after most democracies on the planet. And no, I'm not going to play the game where you spew out whatever comes to mind and then I do work to debunk your claims. Do the legwork and prove your BS.

[wqaatwt]

> Do the legwork and prove your BS.

Seems like a bizarre waste of time considering that that you already made up your mind to such an extent that you ate not even willing to explain what are you even trying to say.

> and doesn't fit the reality which is modelled after most democracies on the planet

Well yes, because the EU is rather unique compared to pretty much any post 1800s democracy.

[deafpolygon]

no, many of the citizens are just like any other country: some of them aren’t aware this is happening.

[rc_mob]

The USA elected a fascist and will be lucky to have fair voting ever again. So we're not really qualified to comment on any other country doing anything.

[vixen99]

Maybe but I don't follow your 'So ...'. Just who decides the qualification?

I suspect that most here will agree with you. However in the interests of encouraging a sober analysis: https://www.villagenews.com/story/2025/06/20/opinion/is-trum...

[OldfieldFund]

two things can be bad at the same time. also US is not the end all be all of things