[Longhanks]

This chat control topic is undemocratic, allegedly illegal in many jurisdictions (such as Germany), yet, keeps coming up ever and ever again, and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever.

Endeavour like these make people vote for extremists, distrust the EU and democracies, or just give up on politics for good. These EU politicians endangering freedom, justice and democracy must be held accountable, with the most powerful punishments available.

[outime]

>Endeavour like these make people vote for extremists

Maybe it's time to start considering the current individuals in power as extremists? Just because their speech is more 'peaceful' doesn't mean their actions aren't extremist in nature.

[fsflover]

> current individuals in power as extremists

Those who support and push anti-constitutional laws, maybe. All individuals in power, no.

[outime]

There's something called implicit context (this submission and the entire ongoing discussion), which clearly refers to the first group of people you mentioned. Why would I be talking about people who aren't involved in pushing this?

[fsflover]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[AlecSchueler]

> Maybe it's time to start considering the current individuals in power as extremists?

And what would this change?

[outime]

Usually, calling things by their proper name helps change perceptions, which often triggers other reactions. Language is very powerful.

[AlecSchueler]

I understand that but I'm asking what might be hoped to be triggered.

[Tadpole9181]

This forum has rules that would make this impossible to honestly answer, I imagine.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

People are allowed to talk about voting here.

[pclmulqdq]

The people in power.

[singulasar]

or maybe let's not?

their actions are clearly not extremist, absolutely not perfect and not always equally democratic, but not extremist or violent like the actual extremists...

[raxxorraxor]

I do think the ambition to spy on all private communication to be quite extremist.

Especially Germany should know better. If you build two autocratic dictatorships on average per century, maybe start to take care that state powers are restricted.

The US is fully correct in its criticism of Germany regarding freedom of speech and house searches. Sure, on surveillance their arguments would be very weak...

Absolutely nothing positive will be gained by this surveillance, so there isn't even the smallest security benefit. On the contrary.

[singulasar]

Again, I disagree, I wouldn't call it extremist. It's vile and wrong, but people all over the political spectrum are in favour of this. there's a difference between something being bad or self-serving, and something being extremist. Labelling everything as extremist does not help anyone, especially today when everyone is already highly divided.

No way I'm getting into the restrict state powers discussion as that is highly complex and not something that can properly be discussed on an internet forum.

[raxxorraxor]

I disagree, for me it is an extreme position that affects the lives of everyone because of diffuse security whims. At best, since the motivation could be entirely different.

We had that in Germany by extremist autocratic parties and these policies are quite a clear mirror.

"Scanning the communications of everyone" - Might want to let that go through your head again.

[singulasar]

Hmm, sure, I can agree that the position is extremist, I still don't agree that 1 (or some) extremist positions makes the current people in power extremist. Or at least, maybe they are, but I think most of the alternatives are more extremist.

It's definitely a disgusting horrible proposal.

[AAAAaccountAAAA]

Politics are an inherently violent affair. The government is simply a monopoly on legitimate violence. Politicians decide the laws, which result in people breaking them getting beaten up & dragged to a cell. Not to say this is always a bad thing: some people cannot be stopped from misbehaving just by talking, but it definitely is violent.

[spit2wind]

I see this a lot and am not convinced. It appears reductionist in a way that feels like it's pushing an agenda.

Democratic governments clearly are about addressing community needs and coordinating efforts that require pooled resources (at least). I'm not denying there may be a monopoly on violence. However, in a democratic system, such a monopoly would be voted on, giving the monopoly some legitimacy (not saying it's necessarily moral).

Yet in reality, the US, for example, has the Second Amendment, which grants citizens the right to bear arms and form militias. That doesn't sound like the government has a monopoly on violence.

I guess the weasel word is "legitimate"? But is that legal or moral legitimacy (or something else)? By whose definition and arrived at how?

It feels like such a pithy comment, "a monopoly on legitimate violence", like it's expressing something deep. Yet I get the sense that supporting it requires some contortion of logic and language. Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't seem self-evident to me at all.

[krapp]

I mean, the state's monopoly on violence is a legal philosophy that's been around for over a century. It isn't exactly radical or controversial.

You can start from the Wikipedia page if you're interested[0].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

[Gud]

Define "extremist". Many people would argue mass immigration is an extremist position but was the normal accepted position for the people in power within the European Union but was never a popular position with the populations of Europe.

So these so called <<right wing extremists>> represent the normal position.

[gadders]

It's the EU way - "We will keep holding the vote until we get the result that we want."

[yohannparis]

And who runs the EU? The MEPs and members of the countries government. It's not like it's a different country imposing their way onto us. Talk/contacts your ministers and MEPs if you want your voice to be represented.

[shiandow]

Right, because a commission that keeps bringing legislation to a vote until one of those two vote pools gets a majority, despite the law being against my government's constitution (in strong terms), and me having no way to stop it if all representatives of my country voted against, is totally not the EU imposing its way on my country.

[pixelpoet]

I did send hand-written mails to several German representatives, and this is how I was rewarded.

Obviously I'm not expecting that my actions alone are enough to get the outcome I want, but it's difficult not to feel the bite of "if voting changed anything, they would make it illegal." It's just going to be some other paid-for dickface in corporate pockets, every time.

[somenameforme]

You don't make it illegal, you simply ban who the people are voting for, even retroactively if necessary.

[like_any_other]

The problem is the indirection. Only the European Commission can propose legislation [1], so the legislative direction of the EU is entirely determined by them - MEPs can only slow it down.

And citizens don't vote for the Commission directly, meaning there's a lot of backroom dealing in its selection.

[1] Which also covers, I think, the act of repealing prior legislation.

[yohannparis]

True, but this is the same as with most EU countries government. In France, I can contact my Ministers... but to what avail!

[zx10rse]

You can't be serious.

There should't be a discussion at all.

This law proposal is explicitly against the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the allegedly institutions that are supposed to upheld the charter are CJEU, European Commission, FRA, NHRIs, where are they?

[yeahforsureman]

I'm pretty sure that if this passes, the EU Court of Justice will eventually find it more or less in violation with EU fundamental rights.

That will take time, though, so I guess they are either hoping that some impossibly secure, reliable and unerring technologies emerge in the meantime, or they are prepared for a forever battle with the Court, coming up with ever new adjustments as soon as previous schemes get struck down[1], meanwhile allowing European law enforcement agencies to keep testing, developing and iterating on whatever client-side scanning or other techno-legal approaches they may come up with. I think this was roughly what they — ie, basically a group of a dozen or two law enforcement reps from different member states agencies and ministries along with like one lonely independent information security expert — said themselves in some working group report as part of some kind of Commission roadmap thing presented by von der Leyen not too long ago.

[1] On the data protection side we've already seen this kind of perpetual movement through the years with respect to different “safeguarding” mechanisms made available to enable transfers of personal data to the US without too much hassle, from Safe Harbor through Privacy Shield to the current Data Privacy Framework.

[Aloisius]

I've looked at the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and don't see why this would violate it.

Both the right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data have exemptions for government. The right to private communications was modified by the ECHR to give an exemption for prevention of crime/protection of morals/etc.[1] and the right to protection of personal data exempts any legitimate basis laid down by law[2].

[1] https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat...

[2] https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/8-protection-per...

[zx10rse]

If you don't see it, it doesn't mean that it is not braking it.

They themselves even wrote it in the proposal - "Whilst different in nature and generally speaking less intrusive, the newly created power to issue removal orders in respect of known child sexual abuse material certainly also affects fundamental rights, most notably those of the users concerned relating to freedom of expression and information."

This proposal is de facto a mass communication surveillance of EU citizens.

Exactly as you mentioned every single member state and EU have laws that can for example issues a court order and seize your communication devices if you are braking a law for an investigation, there is no need for EU to have a law that first goes against the very essence of EU, second it also brakes I am pretty sure every single constitution of each different member states.

If this law passes you live in a totalitarian state and there is no excuse for that.

[kelnos]

What's the point, then? The purpose of a document defining people's rights is to help ensure that governments don't trample those rights. If the government has explicit carve-outs to violate those rights, then the Charter isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

[yohannparis]

I'm totally opposed to this law. My comment was about the fact that the EU is imposing their view on EU countries, like we have no say on the matter. I emailed all my MEPs to oppose this proposal.

[FpUser]

>"Talk/contacts your ministers and MEPs if you want your voice to be represented."

And be told to sod off.

From Wikipedia: [0]-"Currently, there is one member per member state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state."

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

> And who runs the EU?

How difficult is it to run? How much money do you need? What are the barriers to success? Is it set up so that only the already rich and powerful can run and win (and therefore they are just pushing their own interests), and if not do you need considerable financial support (and therefore are beholden to the already rich and powerful who funded your campaign)?

[Jensson]

There are people with no backing, not even existing parties, that get elected as EU representatives. So its not that difficult to run if you have a platform some people care about.

It is much easier to break into EU than the local governments, since EU has so much less power, so you have more weird people there.

[Flatterer3544]

While the EU foundation was laid out in a time much different to our modern times and the faults that rise with it, especially that the majority of the EU doesn't have the sway as a union should and that a single state can block all others.

But at least when it comes to Chat Control, it is not EU level, it's member states pushing for it and at least for now EU blocking it, so at least for once it is a good thing and the minority of ~8 states can still block it for the majority, block it for all 27 states..

[justinclift]

That approach has spectacularly backfired for the UK, as they used to do the same thing too. ;)

[cynicalsecurity]

UK is much worse than EU in terms of privacy and encryption.

[graemep]

It will not be if chat control passes, and I am not sure it was true most of the time before (there was no significant change between Brexit and the Online Safety Act)

There were similar problems in areas other than privacy and encryption, or indeed technology.

[nickslaughter02]

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45274678

[graemep]

Key disclosure was law at least a decade before Brexit, so was compatible with EU law, and the other change (the chat control like one) was in the Online Safety Act (and has not been enforced so far because its not technically feasible), so that does not contradict my claim (if that was your intention).

[Xelbair]

It is, but i would rather take toothless UK's one over EU's Orwellian nightmare.

UK's one is easily avoided.

But reality is that NONE of those options should be even considered.

[fluxusars]

It might be easily avoided now, but it's easy for them to tighten the reins in the future.

[hardlianotion]

how so?

[FirmwareBurner]

What do you mean by backfire?

[anticensor]

A massive unrest and protests.

[tonyhart7]

as another comment suggest "A massive unrest and protests."

but not for chat control but another things, they have going much worse

[aleph_minus_one]

> It's the EU way - "We will keep holding the vote until we get the result that we want."

Exactly. There is a reason why more and more EU-skeptical movements gain traction in various EU countries.

[delusional]

EU skepticism is at a 15 year low, and general approval hasnt been higher since 2007.

Europeans in general like or is indifferent towards the EU.

[Hamuko]

My EU skepticism is gonna skyrocket if Chat Control goes through and I will start voting for the anti-EU party. Whatever benefits the EU has is not worth losing our freedoms.

[aleph_minus_one]

> EU skepticism is at a 15 year low, and general approval hasnt been higher since 2007.

My observations are different.

[danieljacksonno]

Your clique might be more skeptical. Statistics show the population at large is not.

[cianmm]

Here’s some data. Skepticism is pretty low and approval is pretty high

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1360333/euroscepticism-e...

[graemep]

Do those numbers include the UK when it was in the EU? Obviously removing a large pool of sceptics would shift the numbers.

The "positive" number has recovered from a low in the wake of the Eurozone crisis but is still fallen significantly from the pre-crisis level of around 50%.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown by country - The EU's own report suggests very big variations between countries: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/905...

[Insanity]

Sure, and to add more anecdata, my observations are different from yours.

It's easy / tempting to extrapolate from our limited bubble / point of view, but it doesn't tell you anything about a population at large.

[barrenko]

If public opinion and vote was honored there never would have been an EU, just ask the French.

[qnpnp]

This is wrong though.

France held a referendum on the creation of the EU in 1992, and approved it.

You're thinking of the 2005 referendum, which was about the TCE. The EU already existed before that.

[moffkalast]

Yeah the Commission really needs to go, MEPs need to be able to propose laws. That's really all there is to it to fix the entire situation.

[jonp888]

Every country in the world has a "Commission". It's no different to the UK Civil Service or the various US Federal Governments. If it didn't exist then the EU would be unable to implement any of it's policies.

Can you explain how MEP's directly proposing laws would affect this? I really don't get it. In parliamentary systems it's normal that virtually all legislation originates in the executive. In the British parliament at least, that a law is privately proposed and then becomes law is rare and normally restricted to very simple legislation on specific issues.

[moffkalast]

The EU doesn't implement any of its policies by itself, ergo it should not require an executive branch of its own. There is no EU army, no EU police. We already have an instance of that in each member state which is required to implement EU laws on its territory, the Council of Ministers coordinates on that afaik.

The general process is a bit like this, simplified:

- the Council of heads of state appoints the Commission

- the Commission proposes laws

- the Parliament approves laws

- the Council of ministers implements them

- the Court blocks any unconstitutional laws

The problem has been for the longest time that the Commission appointments are not elected, somewhat mired in cronyism, and they keep proposing nonsense laws while the elected parliament can just stand there and vote no while not being able to suggest any legislation we actually need.

[bluecalm]

Don't forget "if we let people vote by some misfortune and their vote is opposite of what we wanted we will overrule it anyway".

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Not exclusive to the EU, the US does the same, as does the UK.

[munksbeer]

> It's the EU way - "We will keep holding the vote until we get the result that we want."

Please inform yourself or you're in danger of letting things happen through your ignorance. The commission is not pushing this. They're acting on instructions from a certain number of elected politicians.

And, you're misleading others when you post stuff like this.

None of us posting in these topics wants this proposal to pass. And in order to fight it, you've got to be correctly informed.

[p0w3n3d]

   It's Not Who Votes That Counts, It's Who Counts The Votes

- J.Stalin

[Y_Y]

> In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes.

- Mogens Jallberg

Regarding your Stalin "quote", please see https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stalin-vote-count-quote/ .

[ookdatnog]

It's not undemocratic. The behavior of the parliament reflects the reality that only a tiny minority of the population care at all about this issue.

One might be tempted to blame a lack of media attention, but I don't think that's it. For example in the US, the Snowden revelations attracted tons and tons of media attention, yet it never became a major topic in elections, as far as I'm aware. No politician's career was ended over it, and neither did new politicians rise based on a platform of privacy-awareness. No one talks about mass surveillance today. No one cares. There is no reason to believe that the situation is different in Europe.

[bondarchuk]

Parliamentary democracy just fundamentally has a weakness when it comes to single-issue voting. After picking a party to vote on based on housing, economic policy, crime, ..., how much voting power so to say is left for.. which guy the party says they'll send to the european commission? And what that guy's stance on chat-control is? If they're even publicizing that...

[account42]

Not to mention that once voted in they are not bound by their campaign promises.

[tracker1]

It can sometimes happen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America

[ookdatnog]

I think the primary positive feature of democracy is simply that we have regular peaceful transitions of power. I'm not sure that the fact that the people choose their own leaders by itself leads to higher quality leadership, or even leadership that cares more about said people. But the fact that the baton passes every couple of years is absolutely invaluable.

[Ntrails]

> how much voting power so to say is left for.. which guy the party says they'll send to the european commission?

Short of a direct (referendum based) democracy how do you resolve that?

[gpm]

In principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy is an interesting idea to address this sort of issue.

[recursivecaveat]

More expressive voting systems help. If your vote has meaning when cast for something other than 1 of 2 platforms it can encode more of your preferences. Referendums are also not the only variety of direct democracy, you can have sortition.

[tracker1]

How many people participate in party candidate selection at all... it's a mixed bag to "primary" out an incumbent... sometimes it's easy as they don't see it coming or a threat... others the entrenchment goes deep.

[robertlagrant]

> The behavior of the parliament reflects the reality that only a tiny minority of the population care at all about this issue

Then it's not very democratic to change it.

[oaiey]

Politician can not face consequences when they discuss something illegal. Politicians in parlaments literal job is to define legal and illegal. That they repeat that until success and against the perceived will of the general population is maybe a procedural problem (as in: do not disturb the legal body with stupid stuff) but it is still their job.

I 100% agree with your position. Chat control is basically an attack on every conversation everywhere because modern social habits are using it like my chat with my neighbors over the fence. It is not the same as mail interception it is much worse.

[scythe]

>Politician can not face consequences when they discuss something illegal.

Politicians can't face consequences from the legal system when they discuss something illegal. They can, and should, face consequences from the voters.

[burnte]

> and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever.

And who is going to hold them accountable? They make the laws, they're the ones who should know best this is illegal, so if they don't care no one else will. Voters? I live in America so I've lost a lot of faith in people voting for politicians who will protect their rights.

I legitimately have no idea how to fix this type of problem. We spent the better part of the 20th century setting up systems to enable people to thrive and have expanded rights. And now the generations that benefited from all of that want to tear it down and take us back to feudal times with unelected, unaccountable, all-powerful leaders and a nobility class that owns everything and leaving 95% of people live in poverty and sickness. It's like we forgot how to raise strong people with good morals.

[p0w3n3d]

European Commission is not a democratic body. No EU citizen voted for them.

[munksbeer]

The European Commission is a civil service drafting these proposals on instructions from elected politicians.

I am going to keep banging this drum because there is too much ignorance on this topic and it harms the fight against it more than helps.

[qnpnp]

By this logic, most of EU governments are not democratic bodies either.

[bondarchuk]

In my country I vote for a person and that person gets a seat in parliament. That is democratic according to this definition.

[jonp888]

The EU Commission is a group of permanent employees who sit in an office and write reports, administer projects and draft legislation. They have no voting rights. They are organised into departments, each headed by a politically appointed Commissioner.

Your country has an identical group of people with a similar role who you also do not vote for, organised in just the same way.

For some reason it's only "undemocratic" when the EU does it, even though literally every country in the world has some kind of permanent establishment of administrators and no country could function without them.

[izacus]

Good thing that elected parliament needs to vote for this. So what's your point?

[izacus]

I think the result of a referendum that would pose a question

"Do you want law enforcement to be allowed access to your private messages when investigating child molesters or would you like to listen to folks who put furry teen girls in front of their websites?"

would have results that you certanly wouldn't like. And they'd be democratic.

So perhaps before calling something undemocratic, first make sure that the majority of voters actually agree with you.

[rollcat]

Phrasing the question is half the battle.

"Do you want to be spied on by your government?"

Yes is yes, no is no, anything more comes from evil.

[izacus]

Yes, that's exactly my point - it's important to understand the issue and the messaging about it.

Government "spies" on you for many many things and I think HN "all government is evil" panic isn't really reflected in outlook of EU citizens and won't be looked upon positively by public at large. So again, be careful what you're calling "undemocratic" because that's not the same as "different from my opinion".

[rollcat]

Is it still democratic if the elected representatives are trying to subvert democracy?

[izacus]

What are you talking about here exactly?

[tracker1]

Since being on the wrong side of supporting The Patriot Act in the US... I'm pretty firmly on the side of, if the government has a power that can be abused, it's only a matter of time until it is abused and in creative ways you never expected.

I'm generally against all reactionist legislation as an instance "no" stance as well.

[moltopoco]

The results of this past survey are not quite as gloomy:

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/poll-72-of-citizens-oppose-...

[that_guy_iain]

> This chat control topic is undemocratic, allegedly illegal in many jurisdictions (such as Germany), yet, keeps coming up ever and ever again, and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever.

How is it undemocratic? Arresting terrorists, drug dealers, child abusers, etc have no impact on democracy. And it's legal for the government to intercept your communications and has been for decades and in fact your communications have been mass monitored for decades and we still have democracy.

> allegedly illegal in many jurisdictions (such as Germany)

Germany is one of the leaders in data requests in the world. They're right on it.

> keeps coming up ever and ever again, and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever.

That's because we have a democracy and people vote on who they want. And if they do what people want they get another few more yeears. So these politicans just following the will of the people.

> Endeavour like these make people vote for extremists, distrust the EU and democracies, or just give up on politics for good.

Those people we can just ignore, they were always going to be on the fringe.

> These EU politicians endangering freedom, justice and democracy must be held accountable, with the most powerful punishments available.

They are not. You've just been blissfully unaware of the world you've been living in, and think this is something new. Nah, the only thing new is that everyone's messages are encrypted. That's the only new thing.

[tjpnz]

They need to be named. Shouldn't be able to go anywhere in Brussels (or any city in any member state) without seeing their photo and name on a giant bus shelter poster. I would throw some € in the direction of that.

[nickslaughter02]

Start with these:

Ylva Johansson from Social Democrats

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson#Surveillance_of...

Peter Hummelgaard from Social Democrats

https://mastodon.social/@chatcontrol/115204439983078498

[stateofinquiry]

When the government is monolithic (which it tends to become) and holds a lot of power it is just a matter of time before "some animals are more equal than others". The best safeguards I know about are 1) limiting the power of government and 2) checks and balances on what powers they do have.

Nothing is perfect, and even having the two pillars above does not guarantee eternal justice (or even that the pillars will remain in place). But we can try to keep remembering and demand better. Sincerely: Good luck, EU.

[zosima]

Maybe those you call extremists are now the only sane people.

[potato3732842]

>This chat control topic is undemocratic, allegedly illegal in many jurisdictions (such as Germany), yet, keeps coming up ever and ever again, and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever.

Politicians are basically whores that only use their mouths. They'll say whatever gets them in office and keeps them there. Whether that's simping for extremists, special interests, the teacher's union, etc, etc.

The state(s) wants to snoop on the peasants' messaging and the state itself is an interest that politicians can get ahead by pandering to, no different than any other interest (from their perspective as politicians and more equal animals generally, not our perspective as less equal animals under the boot). When you're talking about elections like the EU's big interest groups, like the state, tend to dominate.

[Quarrel]

I'm not a fan, but in what was is this, or any other topic, undemocratic to have debates and votes on?

The sanctions politicians should face for bringing up unpopular topics should be that they don't get voted for.

> These EU politicians endangering freedom, justice and democracy must be held accountable, with the most powerful punishments available.

Yes. Vote them out. Keep raising it.

[LikesPwsh]

This topic is undemocratic because it's part of the constant attempts to rephrase and resubmit the same unpopular proposal.

It's p-hacking democracy. If a proposal has 5% chance of passing just resubmit it twenty times under different names with minor variations.

It wastes time that lawmakers could spend on proposals that the public actually want.

[Arnt]

It hasn't been resubmitted yet, has it? The proponents keep it alive without putting it to an actual vote, AIUI. They try to wait until they think they have a majority, and keep their proposal ready for a vote on short order before their majority dissipates.

Which is many things, I' might call it cynical, but it doesn't seem undemocratic.

[Xelbair]

This is at least 3rd time similar measure has been tried in EU parliament, form my memory.

[izacus]

And the fact that it didn't pass tells you something didn't it?

[Xelbair]

yeah, for now - it was always close. And they need to succeed only once.

the issue is that they try to push it despite citizen protests, and each time they try people just grow more fatigued.

[rollulus]

> Yes. Vote them out. Keep raising it.

How do I vote out hostile countries? I’m Dutch, what can I do with my vote to have effects on Denmark, which seems to be the biggest proponent of this BS?

[munksbeer]

> How do I vote out hostile countries? I’m Dutch, what can I do with my vote to have effects on Denmark, which seems to be the biggest proponent of this BS?

The same way you can vote out other politicians in your own country - you can't. Assuming you live in (say) Amsterdam, you have no right or control of who people from other regions of the Netherlands vote for.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Yes. Vote them out. Keep raising it.

OK. How do I vote out Ursula vd Leyen?

[nickslaughter02]

She's facing two more no confidence votes in October. You just need to convince all 720 members of European Parliament from 27 countries to get rid of her and her commission. Easy.

[FirmwareBurner]

You mean the exact people that put her there in the first place despite her unanimous lack of popularity in Europe and especially in her home country of Germany where she failed upwards?

Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good about this type of democracy.

[nickslaughter02]

Yes. The same fractions which put her there (EPP and friends) will also pick another puppet who will do their bidding.

[eqvinox]

Next European Parliament election will be in 2029.

Edit: there was a copypaste of voting requirements here, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/voting-ri.... This is apparently wrong; you can also vote if you're not residing in the EU, only EU citizen. (I thought this was the case, and that link not saying that made me suspicious.) How it is possible that they've put up incorrect information on voting rights, I have no clue.

Actual reference, this time legal text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

Any person who, on the reference date:

(a) is a citizen of the Union within the meaning of the second subparagraph of Article 8 (1) of the Treaty;

(b) is not a national of the Member State of residence, but satisfies the same conditions in respect of the right to vote and to stand as a candidate as that State imposes by law on its own nationals,

shall have the right to vote […]

So either citizenship or residency is sufficient.

[FirmwareBurner]

I was talking about voting for the position held by Ursula, the president of EU commission, not the EU parliamentary elections.

[aleph_minus_one]

> How do I vote out Ursula [von der] Leyen?

This can only be done indirectly.

Under https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/11/27/which-meps-bac... you can at least find a chart ("Von der Leyen 2 Commission: How political groups voted") how the political groups in the European parliament voted regarding Ursula von der Leyen's second mandate as European Commission President.

[FirmwareBurner]

>This can only be done indirectly.

So the short answer is "YOU can't".

[fhd2]

She was elected by the European parliament. As an EU citizen, you elect that one.

[nickslaughter02]

You vote for a few people from your country to become MEPs. Anything beyond that is out of your control.

[munksbeer]

> You vote for a few people from your country to become MEPs. Anything beyond that is out of your control.

Just like in your country's own elections.

[jokethrowaway]

after how many layers of voting does democracy just becomes plain oligarchy?

[fhd2]

Fair question. I'm personally a big fan of what I believe is called direct democracy - getting the populace to vote on a more fine-grained level and individual issues. Not just generic representatives with a bucket list of stuff they say they do and what you suspect they'll actually do. I admit that the EU level feels quite indirect, but I would still carefully call it democratic.

[Xelbair]

How do i vote out representatives not from my country? In this case my country is vehemently opposed to this.

How do i vote out representatives if all of them support the measure despite it being unpopular in my country, no matter the faction? That was the case with centralized copyright checking.

EU parliament, and especially EC, are so far removed from any form of accountability, that frankly votes are almost irrelevant - same factions form no matter who's there, and EC runs on rotation.

Lobbying takes prime spot over votes.

EU is sitting in the middle ground between federation and trade union... and we get downsides of both systems.

[jokethrowaway]

Democracy is incompatible with freedom by definition, it's the dictatorship of the majority over the minority.

Especially in a time where controlling public opinion is just a matter of running targeted ad campaigns on social medias and buying newspapers and tv stations.

If we like freedom we need to get rid of power centralisation, as much as possible, and give back the power to the individual by removing as many laws as possible and relying on privatisation and decentralisation.

But there is no one left to fight in the western world, everybody is glued to their smartphone and we're doomed to become the next China.

[the_gipsy]

> it's the dictatorship of the majority over the minority.

That's very naïve.

[uncircle]

Yeah; it's even worse than that.

[torben-friis]

The people doing the public opinion control you mention are powerful private interests.

What makes you think those people would be any less dangerous to your freedom when unbounded by law?