EU Democratic Deficit

Mick, Under your idea we'd be voting for commissioner without knowing what portfolio they were getting?
That doesn't seem great - given a list of plausible Irish names I'd probably consider some suitable for a financial portfolio, others for manufacturing or agricultural/production rolls. Not sure how it improves my democracy.

Also it's possible that every country would individually vote for a 70+ year-old male ex-farmer, despite presumably no voter in any country actually wanting the entire commission to be made up as such.

The current system isn't perfect, but the holes being picked in it seem a bit silly. It looks like a sensible compromise.

Commissioners are NOT appointed by each member state.

Rather, each member state has the right to make a nominee for a position of Commissioner.

It is then up to European Parliament whether that nominee is accepted or rejected. The EP holds full hearings on each nominee and the committee concerned decides whether to recommend approval or rejection of each of the nominees to the plenary session of the EP. At that point, if anyone is recommended for rejection, the member state concerned withdraws their nomination and replaces them with another candidate.

Once the committee has given positive recommendations for all nominees, the EP holds a plenary session and holds a vote of approval on the nominees as a whole. Should that vote be approved by the full EP, then and only then are the nominees formally appointed to the Commission by the European Council.


It should be noted that Ireland is in no position to lecture anyone on the democratic nature of the Commission since it was us falling for the “Save the Irish Commissioner” guff during the Lisbon referendum that upended the very small step to reform the Commission, after people had spent years trying to reach a consensus on a way forward from the current method.

mick087 wrote: »

Elections should be held by each state for its commissioner.
There should be no veto by other member states if a Commissioner is elected by its citizens.

Yes i would indeed argue for for much more accountability to its citizens be it the Garda Commissioneror or powerful civil servants.

Commissioners are there to act on behalf of the EU as a whole and are directly answerable to the European Parliament.

A Commissioner who is behoven to the electorate of a particular member state can not act independently on behalf of all member states. Were a Commissioner elected on an “anti-CAP policy”, there is no way that Ireland would want them in office, much less acting on our behalf. If you remember, during Lisbon, the IFA ran an anti-Peter Mandelson campaign on precisely those grounds.

We elect TDs - the people elect - then trust the resulting government to use those people as appropriate. It might be more relevant if you were arguing that the Taoiseach should be elected by the people. I am a good deal less than enthused that Mairead McGuinness is now Commissioner but the time for disputing that will be at the next election. If we were voting for a Commissioner would it be from a pool of basically anyone, or would it be an already elected TD?

This discussion is using the appointment of Commissioners as a basis for claiming there is an EU democratic deficit, it has already been well established in the thread that the EU is a democratic institution, certainly more so than the UK government. It is a minor detail whether the system of appointing Commissioners is democratic. The other members don't seem to have any problem with it and the practical issues of making it an electable position would be an expensive complication considering the person appointed has already been through an election process.

This discussion was triggered by an argument relating to the UK, it was never clarified what the UK's level of democracy had to do with the EU's level of democracy, and their (the UK) decision to leave. It seems to be a discussion that is going round in pointless circles so I am away back to the main discussion.

looksee wrote: »

We elect TDs - the people elect - then trust the resulting government to use those people as appropriate. It might be more relevant if you were arguing that the Taoiseach should be elected by the people. I am a good deal less than enthused that Mairead McGuinness is now Commissioner but the time for disputing that will be at the next election. If we were voting for a Commissioner would it be from a pool of basically anyone, or would it be an already elected TD?

This discussion is using the appointment of Commissioners as a basis for claiming there is an EU democratic deficit, it has already been well established in the thread that the EU is a democratic institution, certainly more so than the UK government.

Total whataboutery.

looksee wrote: »

We elect TDs - the people elect - then trust the resulting government to use those people as appropriate. It might be more relevant if you were arguing that the Taoiseach should be elected by the people. I am a good deal less than enthused that Mairead McGuinness is now Commissioner but the time for disputing that will be at the next election. If we were voting for a Commissioner would it be from a pool of basically anyone, or would it be an already elected TD?

It being democratic doesn't mean there isnt a democratic deficit.

looksee wrote: »

The other members don't seem to have any problem with it and the practical issues of making it an electable position would be an expensive complication considering the person appointed has already been through an election process.

There is no poll data to show that.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

The majority of Irish alive today never had a chance to to vote on whether we should be in the EU. That is undemocratic. I am pro EU but let's be honest here.

There have been ample opportunities to vote for parties/individuals who had a policy of immediately withdrawing from the EU via Article 50, or holding a referendum on continued membership.

I'd estimate around 40 candidates had a policy in line with that in the February general election. They gained very few votes.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

The general election isn't a plebiscite.

If anyone wants a plebiscite then vote for the parties/people who promise such, who in many cases made it their headline policy.
And vote against the parties who have definitely said no to such a referendum.

In the absence of such a vote, it doesn't seem to be an issue that bothers people.

looksee wrote: »

We elect TDs - the people elect - then trust the resulting government to use those people as appropriate. It might be more relevant if you were arguing that the Taoiseach should be elected by the people. I am a good deal less than enthused that Mairead McGuinness is now Commissioner but the time for disputing that will be at the next election. If we were voting for a Commissioner would it be from a pool of basically anyone, or would it be an already elected TD?

This discussion is using the appointment of Commissioners as a basis for claiming there is an EU democratic deficit, it has already been well established in the thread that the EU is a democratic institution, certainly more so than the UK government. It is a minor detail whether the system of appointing Commissioners is democratic. The other members don't seem to have any problem with it and the practical issues of making it an electable position would be an expensive complication considering the person appointed has already been through an election process.

This discussion was triggered by an argument relating to the UK, it was never clarified what the UK's level of democracy had to do with the EU's level of democracy, and their (the UK) decision to leave. It seems to be a discussion that is going round in pointless circles so I am away back to the main discussion.

It should be pointed out the whole “how to have a more democratic Commission issue” was raised during the Convention on the European Constitution, the U.K. definitely did not champion the idea that the Commission should be elected from the ranks of the MEPs (which is what the Benelux countries as led by J-C Juncker proposed). Rather they proposed a bizarre system where the Parliaments of each and every one of the member states would have individual votes on Commission President - in other words a person would need to approved by all the national Parliaments of the member states, an idea that would almost certainly require a campaign that promised mutually contradictory pledges in each Parliament!


(And for the record, while our proposal was better, it still was fairly bizarre)

mick087 wrote: »

Educational prejudice can be quite upsetting and demoralising but i don't actually buy into you thinking this is an issue. More than likely the real issue is i don't agree with some of the comments or maybe your ow personnel view point.

No i have never suggested the UK had to leave the EU because it was undemocratic you are deliberately exaggerating what i have said. I said this was one of many reasons that the UK voters decided to leave the EU not that they had to.

The UK like the EU lacks democracy in that the UK have a selected upper house and the EU have a selected commission.


Yes correct Johnson was elected and now he is accountable to his citizens in his constituency.


The EU did not change and the UK left.

How is Boris Johnson accountable to his citizens? His party won an overall majority with less than 43% of the vote and since there won't be another election for 4 years the only people he is now accountable to are his own party, as they are the only ones who can remove him from office. There is no way for the general public to remove a sitting PM from office. It is however technically possible for the Queen to remove him from office, very democratic right?

mick087 wrote: »

I would not be able to comment on the USA. But if the gentleman is in a unelected position of power and i lived in America id want to know how as a citizen i could get rid of him.

Yes why not why should we not be permitted to vote for our state commissioner?

If the commissioners were an elected MEP then yes you could compare this to a minister. A minister is first elected by its citizens as a TD. The citizens first vote for him to become a TD. A commissioner is not elected by citizens at any point.

So if the commissioner was selected from the elected MEPS then yes that would be more democratic and also answerable to its citizens.

This is not true. Senators can be appointed as government ministers in Ireland, and in the UK members of the HoL are also eligible to be appointed government ministers.

mick087 wrote: »

But we the citizens do not vote for the commissioners.They have great powers and are not accountable to it citizens. If we was to vote for our state commissioner he would then be answerable to its citizens.

I would disagree and say it is undemocratic to its citizens. Appointments as important as this should be made for and by it citizens

Again i disagree the selected are not accountable to it citizens

I don't see why it would be chaotic.

Why do you think they would be more or less accountable to their citizens? Surely the whole Golfgate fiasco shows the Phil hogan was still accountable to the public even though he wasn't elected.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, who was elected as a MP and is therefore accountable according to you, was photographed braking the social distancing rules his own government drew up and has yet to apologise.

So the recap on your argument the EU is undemocratic because there are important jobs that are unelected and that unelected officials are somehow unaccountable to anyone.

Every democracy on the planet has positions of importance that are not directly elected. This is not undemocratic. We elect governments to govern, and that includes appointing the right people to the right jobs. I doubt either of us know who would make a good Director of Public Prosecutions, or Garda Commissioner or head of the Central Bank and so we trust the people who we as a nation feel are suitable to run the country to make these decisions.

These people are not unaccountable in a functioning democracy. They answer to the people who appointed them, the government, who in turn answer to the public who voted for them.

fly_agaric wrote: »

I read some Science Fiction books once describing a future utopian society calling itself a "demarchy" where the citizens have implants which constantly poll them multiple times a day for their opinions on all kinds of things (presumably very large to very small issues). The sum of these collective decisions steer the course of the society.
The exercise of democracy almost becomes an autonomic response. Sounded very weird...

Until we have that, we are not going to get to vote on everything all the time.
We have never had a vote about rejoining the UK for example (edit: if they'd have us!) though I'm sure there's a small percentage (I don't know, maybe 10 % say??) in Ireland that would support it.

What we actually vote on here will depend on a complex combination of who we elect to the Dail, the pressure applied from below via public opinion or from powerful lobbies or the media.

As in the UK, where a few important politicians, a group of wealthy donors, and most of the print media made it their goal to obtain an "in-out" EU referendum and then it happened.

Wild conspiracy theory.

VinLieger wrote: »

It literally is, we dont need a referendum to take us out of the EU its up to the government of the day, if you want a government to do it, vote for a party or parties that support that decision. If there arent any start one yourself, thats democracy just because you dont like it it doesnt make it anything less.

Irish people vote in different patterns in locals, general, presidential elections and plebiscites.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Wild conspiracy theory.

Not sure what you meant by this. I didn't intend to imply anything nefarious.
Not to go to deep into it as it is just taking this off topic, but over the long term it is really no conspiracy.
In the UK, there is an anti EU Conservative (and later UKIP) crowd (+ large sections of the UK press) that have always attacked the EU, hated it & idea of the UK being a member.
They did it for 25 years or so before the referendum was a twinkle in anyone's eye.
They gathered support, got enough of the public to jump on their bandwagon, eventually got the EU referendum vote held and managed to win it narrowly.
These people (getting a bit long in the tooth now) or their political heirs now appear to control the Conservative party and the UK govt.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

The majority of Irish alive today never had a chance to to vote on whether we should be in the EU. That is undemocratic. I am pro EU but let's be honest here.

The majority of Irish today never got to vote on Irish independence, is that undemocratic?
Why would we require a vote on an issue that is patently a foregone conclusion and how often, every 10 years?

It would be an utter waste of time.