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.
