Well, the plain truth is that, on that basis, democracy is undemocratic Its only a matter of the size of the electorate, isn't it. There are problems that need addressing such as the fact that we're spending god knows how much on subsidies for inefficient farmers while old, 'rust-belt' industries that need help for restructuring, are ignored. At some point it becomes so FAR against a nations interests as to make it not worth their while continuing as part of a organisation REGARDLESS of how 'democratic' it is. Frankly, that's the same for parts of a population inside a nation state as well.
You're confusing things...(no wonder in this mess called EU) There won't be a majority vote on the Commission, but on the EU Council. The EU Council is comparable to the Bundesrat in Germany, so it is democratic, although not directly elected, but indirectly. And my point was exactly that changing the Commission cannot be successful if all 27 countries have to agree on the EU Council. That's why we need the majority system there. The goal has to be that the Commission is elected by the Parliament. Only then will Europe be truly democratic.
You can't have people 'appointed' into positions that have any power and be democratic. That's the problem with our house of lords.
Well, that's what I'm trying to say. Don't have them appointed, but have them elected...sorry if that wasn't clear.
By EU Council, I mean of course European Council, that's where the heads of state meet...the EU Council is where the ministers meet...sheesh, they could at least choose more distinct names. It's as if they don't want people to understand Europe
You're making the mistake of establishing equivalence between the parliaments we are used to seeing, operating and being ruled by at national level and the talking shop the EU has in place. The only real parallel is the name. Whole tracts have been written about the nature of supra-national democracy. And whilst we have both a national and a supra-national track for "democracy", the national will and must always take precedence, not just in fact, but also in principle. So - what would be more democratic? Abolish national parliaments. Sometimes staying still is better than moving for the sake of it. Lisbon could be a great thing. The fact that it's not is testament to the failures of the EU as an institution (or set of institutions). You're still doing it - those two concepts are entirely unrelated. They still could. Remove national vetoes altogether and watch how quickly national legislation forcing national MEP blocks to vote with government policy "as an expression of democratic will" becomes the norm. End result? A less effective (if that's imaginable) EU parliament.
Why do they have to vote again just because they said no? Everybody should have to do the referandum over. They're just trying to put pressure on Ireland to get in line like everybody else. I bet if there's a no, then they'll just keep on holding referandums until Ireland caves.
You should make the parliament bicameral though if the comission were elected by the parliament. Make each vote in Europe count the same (ie a vote in Luxemburg is worth the same as one in Germany), and in the 2nd chamber each country gets to send 1 representative, with either a simple majority or a 2/3 majority required to get things through.
Actually it would be more like a council or a state government being able to resist legislation which is against the interests of a town. Bear in mind that the further away a legislative is from the voter, the less representation people have, and democracy is lessened. You really think that a law to suit Estonia will suit Portugal? Should land locked countries be ruling over fishing? Should 2/3s of Europe be able to pass repressive and damaging legislation over the other 1/3?
In the States, they have a very defined sense of Federal v State law. And yet they're still constantly arguing about it. And they had the advantage of starting small, 200-odd years ago. And from a common platform. With a common purpose. Still needed one of the bloodiest wars in modern history to sort some of the fundamentals out though. Not, as I'm guessing you've realised by now, the most apt comparison to our situation in the EU in 2009. Europeans need to face facts, as I've said all along: it's no longer credible to just bumble along in the wasteful, stupid, ineffectual way that has become the norm for the EU. We need to make choices. Hard, final choices. Let's get rid of all national government and have a Federal Europe. Let's realise the vision. Or let's stop pretending that's even possible in the present system, with the present idiots in charge, unravel all the expensive bullshit that the EU survives on and go back to being an economic community of nations with a common interest in trade, internally and globally. Piss, or get off the pot, in other words.
The US federal government constantly oversteps its constitutional bounds, using either force or funding to override local democracy and force its will upon the people. The EU already has plenty of bridges to nowhere.
yet in Germany it works well. they have pretty much the same federal setup. all the government instituions, from courts to parlaments exist in both the Bundes and Landes version, sometimes it goes even further down, with Kreis (county) instituions. federal vs. state law is clear cut, and if there is any argument about anything, it's about whether things can be improved by shifting power from the state to federal government, or the other way round. education for example is a state matter, yet many people think that it'd be better for all concerned if that'd be transfered to the federal level. but these are civilised discussions about the future of the country, nothing wrong with that at all.
I'm not sure Germany is an apt comparison either. For a start, the circumstances underlying the formation of the Bundesrepublik hardly need marking as unusual, do they? Goes without saying, basically, right? And also, the system was imposed by the US - the process they went through was a veritable case study of how to apply lessons learnt the hard way by 175 years of history, on to a unique "blank sheet of paper" formation state. Besides, Germany works because it's German. Europe ain't. We might like to pretend that there's a big difference between someone who's from Hamburg when compared to someone who's from Bavaria, or someone from Dusseldorf or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but there isn't. Not really. Not significantly. The only way to create a Federal Union of Europe is to develop an entirely new concept and structure of federalism. Which takes more innovative nous, vision and balls than the EU as an institution or as a disparate collection of individuals can muster. That's why we need to destroy the EU before we can achieve the European ideal.
Maybe it faded a bit over the last 60 years, but at the beginning there sure was. Even 'worse' if you compare the rural populations. Yet, the system worked the whole time. Europeans won't give up their nation states, at least not completely, but I am sure 'we' won't give up the EU, neither, no matter how feasable you think both options are and no matter how opposed to any other solution you are. The only time Germans really 'gave up' their traditional 'Länder' was in 1933 with the Gleichschaltung, and we all know under what circumstances that was. A Europe that is a federal republic (as opposed to the federation of Republics it started with) may very well work, probably more so than a centralized country like the British or French model. We won't know if we don't try it, and if you ask me, at the moment we are not trying.
Well, OK. It was more pronounced then than now. Like it was everywhere before the advent of mass media and the cultural homogenisation that brought with it. Given the fact that the history of what has only been referred to as "Germany" for little more than 140 years, is one of fragmentation, regionalism and feudal parochialism, I think the situation in 1945 was one of comparative alignment. It is, after all, the end point of a period of conscious, concerted nationalism that was, and remains, unparalleled in history (and goes back beyond 1933 all the way to 1871, frankly). No, they won't. But many would buy into an alternative future that contained a different alternative than "leave everything as it is then". Not whilst the prevailing mentality amongst Europeans is a sense of resignation (at best) or a sense of active naivety about the essential pointlessness of the EU apparatus, no. There's too much complacency, too ready a willingness to put up with senseless waste and stupidity. Indeed.
Since we agree on the main points (even though we disagree on nuances and voicing), a bit Off Topic: The German aggressive Nationalism of 1871 to 1918 was also there to fight the regionalism many Germans still wanted to. The only reason to have a unified Germany that was not founded on democratic-liberal-nationalistic priniciples to begin with was to be able to compete internationally, so keeping that competition alive was the tool that was used to further define a German identity. German society itself was not neccessairly extreme nationalistic, the (Prussian) leadership sure was, and so were certain conservative elements, but mainly due to topics of foreign affairs, not domestic ones.
I don't think you ARE saying this but that sounds a bit like a statement indicating that a drive to a federal Europe to 'compete in the world market' is the forerunner to excessive nationalism and expansionism.
For every person who would give up their nation state, a thousand would rather give up the EU. It's not just a British/Irish thing either. France and the Netherlands voted against the constitution, Sweden and Denmark won't be part of the Euro, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein won't join at all. And that's just countries where the people actually have a say. You'll find that the most effective governments are of relatively small countries. The EU can't even run a currency and farm subsidies without incredible bloat, inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Why give them any more power when they can't even handle the ones they already have? You know when you give power to a federal superstate, you very rarely get it back. A union of 27 states with god knows how many languages, cultures, laws, customs and needs, all forced to follow the same government, I can't imagine a bigger nightmare. We have enough problems with a national government, where for example whole regions are left to rot whilst other areas are enrichened based on who's in charge at the time. Now imagine this on a bigger scale with even more conflicting interests. When it comes to democracy, one size does not fit all.
Germany stabs Europe in the heart BTW, Germany stabs Europe in the heart...well, almost: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,633414,00.html
Just in short: the name Germany has been used for over 700 years. Prior to the late 18th century culturally it makes much more sense to speak of "a Germany" then of France for example (although France has existed as a single state (although not in the modern sense as well, as the modern state didn't exist then) for much longer - something that couldn't happen in Germany because of the Emperor's relatively weak position outside of his own territories since the late middle ages). Modern German nationalism didn't start that much later than anywhere else in Europe - the Napoleonic Wars, especially the War of the Sixth Coalition, and the end of the old German Empire were the starting point (by the time it was dissolved in 1806 the name German Empire was used in official documents). German nationalism wasn't really concerted - it was a popular (well, at least among the middle class) movement. Nationalism and the wish for a democratic Germany were pretty much one and the same, and actively fought by the state(s) (see: Revolution of 1848). German liberalism split in 1871, however - until then, as said, nationalism and democratic ideals had been seen as the same, but now as (through Prussian power politics) there was a German nation state in the modern sense some were content with it (as the nationalists' dream of a unified Germany, although withhout Austria, had been fullfilled), while others continued to press for more democratic reforms (in the end often going into exile - Switzerland, or the US). There was a lot of identity seeking going on in the early German Empire, true. But it's also true that German nationalism didn't came from above. Much of the German middle class (and parts of the working class), including left-wing liberals, was deeply nationalist. German imperialism wouldn't have happened without the German middle class pushing for it. Bismarck was orignially very much opposed to the idea of German colonies, so everywhere in Germany people founded societies, propagating the idea of a German colonial Empire, for the glory of the fatherland - finally buying land in Africa through rich Germans (almost all of Germany's colonies started out as privately owned colonies). Bismarck gave finally way to the public pressure in the 1880s, when the colonies were formally made part of the Empire, and the German Army was sent in to protect them. Nationalism simply was part of the self-identity of the (protestant) German middle class, especially in rural Northern Germany. The liberal, internationalist middle class was pretty much irrelevant as a political force. One big exception is the working class of course - as I said, working class nationalism did exist, but traditionally Socialists and later Communists had a strong internationalist bend of course. Which was all forgotten by the time of WWI, though, when the SPD supported the war effort. Ok, this was very rough and not systematically thought out, but just a quick comment here.
The worst part about the EU is that it has no real identity or culture - all I can think of is really shit modern architecture which looks like the Eastern Bloc. As bad as Napoleon was, atleast there was something there when he was going around usurping countries and putting his own family on thrones. There was some pomp, some glory, something which says "Higher Culture". Its funny how much the most ardent EUphiles, almost to a man, seem to despise the USA, yet they want to ruin our cultures to make us like a Nu-USA. Even down to the presidentialism and the ugly flag with stars on a blue field. In any case, I think this is due to the fact that Germany is the driving force; they seem to be all about "order" and then you have the social democracy, anti-competative levelling of their economies. But very short on a rich, Higher Culture. Its all so sickeningly dull. This is less ugly I suppose, if you got rid of the awful Soviet American stars, it also tells Albania, Bosnia, Turkey "no Muslims thanks";