The European Commission

"Landep News"

The European Commission

The leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, CDU, the conservative party leading the coalition in power in Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, called this week for the direct election of the president of the European Commission, which is the European Union executive branch, that is the continental government, in a bid to make the leadership of the union more democratic.

In a resolution issued by the CDU it is said that the president of the European Commission should be elected by all citizens of the Union, motivating this move as a form of giving European Union a face.

The idea was embraced with praise and scorn, some believing that it would rally people at a time of crisis, and that would make it a more democratic society. However, the move would be more difficult than it appears as it would mean the changing of the treaties that are at the foundation of the EU and would have to have the consent of all the countries in the union.

The idea of electing the president of the continental government was not dismissed apriori by anybody, a French official was quick to say under conditions of anonymity.

One of the supporters of the idea is the incumbent European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said in October, in an interview, that he would be happy if the office he now holds were elected by a direct vote.

The current procedure is that the president of the European Commission is being nominated by the 27 heads of states and then is questioned by the European Parliament and must be approved by it by two thirds.

The president of the commission is responsible for appointing commissioners on different branches of economy after they had been appointed by the national governments. He supervises the legislative proposals the commission produces, and determines the commission’s agenda.

The European Union has at the moment three presidents, out of which only one is democratically elected by the country that proposes him or her. Except for the president of the European Commission, appointed by the heads of governments of the member states, there is a president of the European Council, which is the president of the European Union, and the president of the rotating presidency of the European Union, which is being held by every member state for six weeks.

The president of the European Council, an office held for the first time in the history of the union by Herman Van Rompuy, is also elected for a two-and-a-half-year term with the possibility of renewing it.

The eurosceptic members of the European Parliament say that although the proposition is worth examining, it would not change the fact that the European Union has no democratic features in it.

They charged that the fact that the European leaders are not voted in office democratically is motivated by the wish to prevent them from being accountable to the population for their policies.

There are those in Europe who think that the proposal to elect the president of the European Commission by direct vote would give the population the possibility to participate in the election process.

Some even consider that as the continent needs more unity and integration, the election of the president of the European Commission could be a factor that would bring more unity on a political level.

The election of the president of the European Commission could be seen as a first sign toward the democratization of the European Union. The CDU’s issuance, even though it could “put a face” on the EU bureaucratic system, would not be able to solve the major problem, that is the fact that the people have absolutely no saying in the policy of the continental body.

Comprising more than 400 million people, the European Union is the most undemocratic and non-transparent institution in the entire modern history. The disrespect for the will of the people has been proven over and over again during the last few years, as the Treaty of Lisbon was accepted at the end of the re-voting of a referendum in Ireland, which had rejected the plan in a first instance.

The latest scandal in Greece, when the mere proposal made by the former Prime Minister of this country to organize a referendum caused him to resign, shows that the leaders of the European Union have no intention of letting the population interfere with their projects, which are however financed from the taxes of this population.

The unaccountability of the EU officials is so complete that the EU exceeds even the most dictatorial country, because even the Soviet Union had a pretense of democracy. The Soviet leaders were organizing elections, referenda, rallies and all the other activities that were mimicking democratic life, although they were doing so by abiding by the principle laid down by Stalin, who said: “It is not important the vote itself but the counting of it.”

The only elected institution of the European Union is the parliament, which is composed by the lawmakers elected in their countries. Almost all the 27 EU member countries consider the EU elections of little importance, and the vote consequently suffers the lowest possible turnouts.

Even after they get into the parliament, the lawmakers find themselves in some sort of continental Hyde Park, where they are allowed to say whatever they want, as long as they don’t speak more than 2 minutes at a time. Their decisions hardly matter at all, since the bureaucrats decide in the end behind closed doors.

The lack of grasp of reality of these bureaucrats is seen in the field, when EU recommendation are more imbecile every day. From ascribing the plants how long or heavy to grow to how the people should bury their dead, the bureaucrats decide and expect the half billion Europeans to follow. And work. And pay taxes.

Thank's for link:

Tweet