[kergonath]

> It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again.

It’s not that it cannot happen again. It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.

[joe_mamba]

> It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary)

So to prevent individual EU nations ever becoming authoritarian, like Hungary, we have to cede sovereignty and authority to the EU & EC unelected bureaucrats like Ursula VDL who take over as the main executive leaders, ensuring we'll no longer have the danger of national-level authoritarianism.

Hell of a solution.

Surely the better solution to issues like Hungary is ensuring we get more democracy to Hungarian people, not giving authority over Hungary to someone else the Hungarian people can't elect.

[kergonath]

> So to prevent individual EU nations ever becoming authoritarian, like Hungary, we have to cede sovereignty and authority to the EU & EC unelected bureaucrats like Ursula VDL who take over as the main executive leaders, ensuring we'll no longer have the danger of national-level authoritarianism.

Not really, and the example of Hungary shows that it would not be that effective for that purpose.

The EU is a union of nations, not really of people. It was built so that nations play nice with each other. Each member state still does more or less what it wants within its borders, as long as it does not jeopardise the union.

In that way it’s not perfectly democratic, because there are layers of indirection between the citizens and the institutions.

Commissioners are nominated by member states and approved by parliament. So they are generally aligned with the politics dominant at the national level and palatable to MEPs. Von der Leyen is there because she had support from the German government and was from the dominant block in parliament. It’s not direct democracy, but it is not a faceless blob either.

[bigfudge]

US Supreme Court Judges are not elected. Although I hesitate to use this as an example currently, given how well the US separation of powers is (not) working, the point stands that all democratic systems need some kind of "damping" influence to survive. If successive national governments were hostile to EU bureaucrats there are options open to them to restore sovereignty — e.g. exit the EU, or force change in appointments by coordinating with other EU governments. The fact that senior positions in the EU are unelected does not in itself make the system un or anti democratic.

[chii]

> it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.

what's the difference? The EU relies on national gov't to enforce rules. Until the EU becomes a sovereign entity with standalone enforcement mechanisms, it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN.

[kergonath]

National governments are often at odds with the commission. France was regularly threatened and fined for its energy policy, for example, which was not pro-business enough. All EU regulations are the result of horse trading in the council of ministers and the commission, the member states are not helpless victims or perfect enforcement forces blindly applying what the president of the commission of the day wants.

[joe_mamba]

>it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN

It's not the same. EU will cut your funding if you don't follow their rules. UN is not finding any EU countries, but the opposite, we all pay to fund the UN.

[techpression]

Maybe in theory, but the idea that nations that trade doesn’t go to war is a naive one, it has happened plenty and will happen again. As for the structure of voting etc, it’s just a matter of pushing until people give up.

[kergonath]

Indeed, which is why entanglement goes deeper than simply trade. The emergence of pan-European companies like Airbus makes the cost for one country to go alone much steeper. Same for the establishment of EU-wide supply chains. There are also incentives to play nice in the form of the customs union and the single market. The moment you leave, you’re on the wrong side of a trade barrier.

[modo_mario]

How is the EU built against that and how does it matter?

[bigfudge]

The EU is built on rules that uphold liberal democratic principles, agreed to by national governments in a flush of post-WW2 clarity, and which tie successors to the same principles. There are exit mechanisms, but they impose large costs (i.e. Brexit).

[modo_mario]

You're saying nothing concrete in particular. What rules? How do they inhibit change? The only thing I can think of which is actually difficult to change is the echr and i see more than a dozen mostly liberal governments queueing up to change it (to little effect so far) over migration issues.

[bigfudge]

There are rules about election conduct and free operation of courts, to give two examples. Both of which Hungary skirts on occasion but the EU does apply some pressure.

[mrec]

The ECHR isn't actually an EU thing. (It's a Council of Europe thing, which is separate from and predates the ECSC/EEC/EU.)

[modo_mario]

I know and it's a requirement for being in the EU still.