[netcan]

I'm not talking about the language. I mean that if you ask someone in Italy or Poland how reps get elected, what their job is, what sort of laws they can make, how they get enforced locally, how you can participate, etc., then they have no idea.

It feels more like the American IRS than the Congress.

[sgift]

> what sort of laws they can make

None. This is the reason the EU parliament is no real parliament. It lacks the option to make law and can only say "yes", "no" and "change this, then we may like it". In legal terms: The EU parliament lacks the right of initiative. Only the EU commission has this right.

[rmc]

But then ask the same to those people of their own national governments, or political structure. Many don't understand how their own country works.

Should we abolish or get rid of national governments? Why are you holding the EU to a different standard?

[the_watcher]

Much of the EU is unelected and unaccountable as compared to national governments. It's more a bureaucracy than a legislature. I don't want to pass too much judgement since I am far from an EU scholar, but tat unaccountability seems to remove an incentive to learn about the processes, since you will have less of an opportunity to change it.

[flexie]

All members of the European Parliament are directly elected. The entire Council consists of the member states' ministers, which are elected politicians in their home states or appointed by elected politicians. The Commission too consists solely of persons appointed by elected politicians.

I too would like more direct elections and more openness in the legislative process but that does not come from lobbyists paid by American companies.

[rmc]

Much of the EU is elected. The European Parliament is directly elected by the people, and the Commission is chosen by governments that are elected by the people, and the Council of Minister is the elected people themselves.

Any complaint about unelectedness of the EU could easily be applied to (say) the UK, or any other EU country. The UK civil service isn't elected by the people, but is instead sorta controlled by the directly elected people. David Cameron is current UK Prime Minister, but only the people of Witney could vote for/against him. Is that democratic? Actually commissioners change more often than members of the UK civil service, so the EU is probably more democratic.

Complaints about the unaccountability of EU by the people could just as easily apply to many other EU countries (like UK). How many people in the UK vote regularly? It shows that many people don't know/care about the process.

These arguments about 'the unelected and unaccountable EU' are really just misleading arguments, since those complaints aren't used against other unelected or unaccountable governments like the UK, but are only used against the EU. England alone used to be 7 different kingdoms (~1,500 years ago), why not split it back like that again if the UK government is so undemocratic?