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by rayiner
21 days ago
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It seems to me that the nationalism issue is orthogonal to the representation issue. In the current structure, the EU government is even more powerful than the U.S. federal government. The U.S. federal government can only legislate in certain areas, and cannot compel the states to enforce federal law. This restriction is strongly enforced by the judiciary. That's why, for example, U.S. states effectively legalized marijuana, even though it's illegal under federal law.[1] As I understand it, the EU can legislate in any area it wants. And member states are required to enforce EU law as if it were their own domestic law. The EU can even sue member states for failing to implement and enforce EU law. So it seems like the EU government is both extremely powerful (the nationalism issue), but also very insulated from European voters (the representation issue). [1] And I think most people would say that the federal government isn't even allowed to regulate individual use of marijuana. There's a 2005 Supreme Court case to the contrary, but I don't think it would turn out the same way under the current Supreme Court. |
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Here is a clear list of areas: https://commission.europa.eu/about/role/law/areas-eu-action_...
Also EU does not have a government. There are 3 powers lets say:
- EU Council which represents the countries governments
- The EU Commission representing EU interests
- The EU Parliament representing citizens
We go back to what I said: when introducing a new level of abstraction we got a new governing power. But lets never forget that except the EU Parliament all the others are formed by people proposed by countries governments.
Thus as EU citizen one:
- influences EU direct by voting the EU parliament
- influences EU indirect by voting who rules their countries which will then send people to EU Council and Commission
As you notice the countries governments have more power (2 out of 3) than the EU parliament even if they are different kind of powers.
Still in the end each citizen that goes to vote is deciding the direction of EU in three ways (one direct citizen to EU and two indirect citizen to country to EU). Want more federalization then vote parties that go that way. Want more nationalism then vote that way. But nobody (or few people) really think then consequences of what they vote in their own countries and how that affects everybody in EU.