Comment by claudius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by claudius | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> EU Commissioners are not elected democratically.

Well, they are suggested by the democratically elected governments of the member states and either accepted or rejected by the democratically elected European Parliament.

> Furthermore, they are required to take an oath to put the interests of the EU first, and not take any instructions from the countries they are from.

As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably.

> In addition to all that, the Commission has very close ties to big business.

Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-a-mafia-expert-tell...

> "Well, they are suggested by the democratically elected governments of the member states and either accepted or rejected by the democratically elected European Parliament."

We're not talking about some inconsequential civil servants, we're talking about the leaders of the EU. If you want to call the EU a democratic entity, you should at least be able to vote for who runs it.

> "As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably."

The point I was making is that they aren't placed to represent the will of the people that put them in power. They represent whatever pushes the agenda of the EU forward, regardless of whether that serves the member states or not.

> "Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves."

Best of luck with that, with the lobbying machinery that exists in the EU you're going to need it. There are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, in terms of volume it's second only to Washington DC.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro...

> We're not talking about some inconsequential civil servants, we're talking about the leaders of the EU. If you want to call the EU a democratic entity, you should at least be able to vote for who runs it.

The UK and German cabinet (including prime minister/chancellor) are also not elected. Should we not call these democratic entities either?

> "The UK and German cabinet (including prime minister/chancellor) are also not elected. Should we not call these democratic entities either?"

I'm not aware of the situation in Germany, but I can tell you that in the UK they are elected.

First of all, the leader of each party is elected. There's due to be a Conservative leadership election soon due to the resignation of David Cameron, so you can follow the build up to this election if you're interested in how it works.

Secondly, whilst the positions in a cabinet are selected by the leader of the party, the available pool of people that can be part of that cabinet are all voted for democratically. Therefore, if they do a poor job, they can be voted out at the next election.

In contrast, you have no power to vote out Commissioners who do a poor job, and without that you basically have no power over the decisions they make.

On the other hand, the President of the European Commission is elected not by a popular vote, but by the popularly elected European Parliament. The members of the cabinet (the commissioners) are proposed by the democratic governments of the member states, and the cabinet as a whole is approved or disapproved by the popularly elected parliament. The same parliament can remove the commission.

In short, the Commission is not directly elected, but selected and approved or vetoed by elected officials, and can be removed if it loses the confidence of the democratically elected legislature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11974449

Reply on news.ycombinator.com