Economist Article: An unloved Parliment

nesf

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13610228

Their question is this, why do people simply not care about the upcoming European elections and why is turnout so dismal? I'd tend to agree with how the structure of the Parliament being so different to that of Britain's, Ireland's or France's is a problem (i.e. here it's winner takes all elections, in the EU it doesn't work like that).


It contains the best single line put-down of the Parliament that I've read so far:

Like a student union, only with better expenses, it spends an inordinate amount of time on subjects way outside its mandate, such as foreign policy and defence.

Scofflaw

nesf wrote: »

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13610228

Their question is this, why do people simply not care about the upcoming European elections and why is turnout so dismal? I'd tend to agree with how the structure of the Parliament being so different to that of Britain's, Ireland's or France's is a problem (i.e. here it's winner takes all elections, in the EU it doesn't work like that).


It contains the best single line put-down of the Parliament that I've read so far:

I think people badly misunderstand both the capabilities of the Parliament (it has recently taken quite a long step towards making internet access a basic right, for example) and its role.

We're used to the idea that Parliament contains both the government (that is, the governing party as Cabinet and backbenchers) and the opposition, and so we look to see a similar oppositional dynamic in the Parliament, which, when we don't find it, leads us to believe it's a rubber-stamp body.

In fact, it's our own Oireachtas that is a rubber-stamp body. All the verbal dynamics are irrelevant, because the government party wins every vote. The European Parliament, on the other hand, is the opposition to the Council and Commission, and regularly derails their legislation.

It's an older model, and more similar to how the British Parliament was in the great days of parliamentarianism- the Parliament exists to counter the Court, to investigate abuses, to scrutinise the budget, to amend and reject opprobrious legislation. Similar, again, to the 18th and 19th century parliaments, but much more swiftly, the Parliament's powers have evolved to take in ever greater jurisdiction - Lisbon would remove all but the traditional last bastion of executive privilege, defence and foreign affairs. Even there, although the Parliament cannot legislate, it can investigate and publicise, as it did in the case of Shannon - again, that's a proper Parliamentary role.

For the student of history, the European Parliament is both familiar and consequential - those ignorant of history are, I suppose, less likely to be aware that the parliamentary history is being repeated.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

The European Parliament, on the other hand, is the opposition to the Council and Commission, and regularly derails their legislation.

I think thats the most important line, the parliment is the forum for the people who are not represented *per say* by their government, it works on the assumption that while groups that are a bit too much to the left or right do not often get enough support in individual states they do have a current of support across all states and that they should be represented in the system. Saying that I know the biggest political group in the EU is a christian democrat movement and that extremists dont run amok in control of the European Parliament.

But I am sort of scratching my head at why I should even consider voting for fianna fail candidate for Parliament when all it will do is give the government free reign with EU policies and issues, seeing as both the European Council will be Fianna Fail and they also get to choose their own into the commission.

Thats not an endorsement to elect the nutjobs by me, while labour and Fine Gael may side with Fianna Fail on alot of EU issues I do expect them not to let fianna fail go unchecked and rather have them there as a check.