alt Hacker News>They are not unelected.
After how many layers does the democratic part get watered down and is just members of the elite picking other elites?
Role | Chosen by | Direct citizen vote?
-----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------
Commission President | European Council proposes, European Parliament elects| No (indirect via EP)
European Council President | European Council (27 heads of state) | No
European Parliament President| MEPs elect from among themselves | No (indirect via EP)
ECB President | European Council, after consulting Parliament | NoReplies
surgical_fire • today at 5:05 PM
I live in a country where the prime minister is picked by the parliament. I don't directly vote for him.
By your own ridiculous standards, I don't live in a democracy. I fact, any paliamentarism would not be democratic based on that.
➕ show 2 replies
izacus • today at 5:30 PM
By this standard there are no democracies in the world. Stop being ridiculous and repeating dumb russian propaganda.
Those are primarily figureheads with limited power. The EU is not a presidential system. Which is good, because a single person can never well-represent an entire population, directly elected or not.
The council is more problematic, since a blocking majority might only represent 25% of the population (half of the EU member governments, each elected by majority vote), but in this case they voted in favor, so it's as if they didn't exist and the decision lies with parliament, whose composition is determined by proportional representation. Excellent!
The interesting thing here is that the EU is accused of being undemocratic not because special interests killed a law with wide support among the populace, but because all the different bodies might actually agree and pass a law that privacy activists don't like. Legislation by agreement of multiple cross-cutting majorities must clearly be undemocratic!