Do you think the EU is undemocratic?

[Draco]

You often hear that the EU is undemocratic, mainly because the European Commission is not directly elected but appointed. The European Commission is basically the EU's government and the President of the Commission (currently Barroso) the EU's prime minister.

Because the Commission is appointed by those who have been directly elected, so I suppose we could say it is indirectly elected. It is also not totally unaccountable, it can be sacked by a 2/3 majority vote in the European Parliament, but this procedure has never been used (it was threatened once in 1999 and the Commission then voluntarily resigned). It can be argued however, that the European Parliament, because of its huge size and the fact that most members have never heard of each other but just vote as their party leaders tell them, is not really representative of the people. I do think though that to some extent this is a problem with parliaments generally, but it is more acute in the European Parliament's case.

Other issues of concern are the fact that most EU citizens normally don't bother voting in European Parliament elections. I don't think though this reflects a problem with the EU's structure.

To help people decide, I have made a graph of how the EU operates today, but be warned: it's a heavy generalization and if the Lisbon Treaty does come into force, it'll change a lot.

Finally, could people please explain their votes.

[Paulos Melas]

History teaches us that in a city states we witness the doninance of its people-direct democracy, in strong national trading states we witness the dominion of the aristocracy usually headed by a monarch-duke,king etc- and in the case of multinational empires, there is the rule of one-the emperor, tsar etc.
EU is the new Roman Empire and as such to survive it desperately needs the power in the hands of one-like in the states who is a presidential republic with the president ruling under the control of the congress,the senate, the supreme court etc.
If Europe wants to endure it is a necessity to adopt either the US model either the model of the Holy Roman Empire and have either an elected powerful president or a Hapsburg ruler.

[Draco]

Originally Posted by Paulos Melas

History teaches us that in a city states we witness the doninance of its people-direct democracy, in strong national trading states we witness the dominion of the aristocracy usually headed by a monarch-duke,king etc- and in the case of multinational empires, there is the rule of one-the emperor, tsar etc.
EU is the new Roman Empire and as such to survive it desperately needs the power in the hands of one-like in the states who is a presidential republic with the president ruling under the control of the congress,the senate, the supreme court etc.
If Europe wants to endure it is a necessity to adopt either the US model either the model of the Holy Roman Empire and have either an elected powerful president or a Hapsburg ruler.

The EU is not a state, it's a bloc of states. EU countries would never trust each other enough to hand over any real power to the EU's institutions.

The only way the EU can become a force to be rekoned with would be to become the richest force in the world.