The European Council, supposedly in charge of giving political direction and impetus to the EU, is bankrupt in political capital.
There is no sense in Ireland that the Presidency of the Council confers some kind of democratic legitimacy on Sarkozy to comment on Irish affairs as anything other than a visiting head of Govt./State. At best the 6 Month Presidency provides a good excuse for a visit to foreign capitals. I think this latent nationalism is also behind the opposition to us losing "our" Commissioner, even though the Office is independent of Ireland.
I know I have railed against the conflation of Democracy with direct democracy by plebiscite and see it as ironic that that agenda is pushed by Neo-cons when there is no provision for plebiscites on specific issues in the USA. However I think that there may also another factor at work here: In the era of internet access and instant media coverage/comment, people are less and less happy with "politicians" acting as middlemen on their behalf by making such decisions through parliamentary vote. People want more and more of a direct say - even when they complain that texts like the Lisbon Treaty are far to complex for them.
Sooner or later the EU is going to have to grasp the nettle and implement more direct democracy within the EU - perhaps though a directly elected Presidency, or through the Commission being appointed by Parliament. Either way the Council will lose some of its power base. The fact that all its members are elected heads of their national Governments does not seem to confer much democratic legitimacy on their collective actions as far as many people are concerned.
I personally don't like the idea of a directly elected President. The thought of a US style election fills me with horror, and smaller countries will probably never succeed in electing a President on a direct vote count basis. But perhaps it may be the only way to increase popular participation and legitimacy in the EU Government process. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
There is no sense in Ireland that the Presidency of the Council confers some kind of democratic legitimacy on Sarkozy to comment on Irish affairs as anything other than a visiting head of Govt./State.
Anyway, already in the consolidated treaty of Nice:
Article 4 ... The European Council shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political guidelines thereof. ...
...
The European Council shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political guidelines thereof.
horrible thought, i agree. that's what spurred the anti-blair petition for me, he was tailor made for that kind of truman show.
the us election is a triumph of empty bombast, prolonged almost to tantric proportions...
odin forbid we take that road too, national elections are traumatic enough. how do they have time to do anything useful when they're campaigning to the lcd?
having said that, i find barrack a whole new ball game, and i'd love to see a leader that elegantly astute rise up here in yurp too. only someone of that calibre might convince me.
signed, a bit jealous. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Correction: We do not have direct elections for President. We have the Electoral College. If we did have direct elections, Gore, having won the popular vote, would have been elected! Which is why I'm all in favor of direct elections!
Russia has direct elections for President. I think it's rather enlightened of them. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
In practice "direct" election for an EU President would also have to be via an electoral college - perhaps based on EU Parliamentary representation - so as to give smaller countries some incentive to agree to the proposal. All of which raises the question of why not have the EU Parliament "elect" the President and be done with it - most EU heads of Government are indirectly elected to their office by their Parliament.
Part of me feels the problem of the "democratic deficit" in the EU is almost impossible to resolve - especially as the EU expands. The fact is that a polity of 500M people can never be as close to the voters as a polity of 4M. People just have to get used to the fact that we now live in a globalising world and many decisions must of necessity be made at a much more global level. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
As for civility, it's not an issue. There's plenty of controversy. What we don't have is 100 of Millions of Euros of private money being used to fund campaigns and lobby groups which are so influential because of their access to money/media.
Also the registration, voting and vote counting processes tend not to be controlled by partisan/commercial interests so their is more confidence in the process. So if not having an electoral system which is quite as corrupted as the US system is to be defeatist, I'm quite happy to be a regarded as a loser! "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
What we don't have is 100 of Millions of Euros of private money ...
I mentioned it in a Salon de News Thread, but I thought it might be appropriate to mention it here again:
Irish 'No' vote architect plans Europe-wide 'referendum' on Lisbon Treaty
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Ganley disclosed that he was starting to raise £75 million from online donations to run candidates in all 12 of Britain's European Parliament constituencies, and in seats throughout the EU.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
