this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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They're such bullies. It also shows how awful democracy can be. They just change the legalese around until it goes trough. It has already been voted against, yet they want the control and do whatever they can to get it.
It somewhat works here (Switzerland) since the Volksentscheid is holy and pulling that stunt gets a lot of people really upset about not honoring that choice.
But yeah democracies need rules against repeated attempts, since this is an exploit violating the idea of a democracy. In Germany, this is already a problem, called Salamitaktik (Salami slicing tactic).
The EU is a democracy.
While it's not perfect (no system is), each of the bodies that make up the EU legislature are democratic:
Not every body is directly voted on, but each body comes forth from a democratic election
Edit: The message I responded to originally made the claim that the "EU is no democracy."
What you're describing is a republic not a democracy.
Republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive...
You are conveniently ignoring the facts that
Yeah okay. But what i have issues with; it is yet another step away from the people (something medium+ sized democracies already struggle with), leading politicians to make decisions in their own interest instead of for the imaginary numbers. On top of that, member states often move the unqualified but powerful/loved politicians there, because they "can do less damage there" (i know multiple cases from Germany).
So i have trouble calling it one, even though it formally is.
Yup, a democratic system should be judged on its outcomes, not its structure. If the decisions taken by a democratic organization do not strongly align with the wishes of the large majority of its members, then it isn't democratic. There are plenty such examples playing out today. Besides, in representative democracy voting at the various elections is not enough to achieve highly aligned outcomes. By the time you get to the ballot box a whole lot of the fundamental decisions have been made without your input. E.g. who the representatives candidates are and what their candidate platforms are. This is how you get to "all the choices suck" and "vote for the least bad option" scenarios. Meanwhile the prebaked decions that lead to these scenarios are going to benefit the interested groups that made them. The effect of voting at the ballot box in such scenarios then becomes providing consent to satisfy those interests.
E: And of course any leftist can explain why and how those interests arise and how they capture the representative democratic system. And how that produces loss of faith in the system.
If the economy is not democratic, it is not a democracy
They are theoretically, but coming from Eastern Europe all those levels of abstractions lead to "opportunities" for "managing democracy" and more importantly for alienation of the people because most people do not know what they are voting for or what each of their chosen representativea do when in office.
I am not saying it is a broken system, but I think it can be better and in particular direct participation can be greatly improved.
All I see is a bureaucratic nightmare. No democracy to be seen, starting from the fact all politicians in the EU are bourgeoisie.
Their servants are all unpaid interns who have a near zero chance of ever staying in Brussels. Those that don't come from well-off families that can support them will never enter a single EU institution.
It is a buerocratic nightmare, but filthy bolsheviks has zero rights to criticize it.
Uh?