European Commission Elections in Burning Kiev

[Yama]

On 2/6/2023 at 8:09 PM, RETAC21 said:

But do elections in the individual countries, which elect the executive and legislative bodies, which then elect the EU bureacrazy meet the democratic standards? -> representative democracy.

Problem with von der Leyen's nomination was that they didn't follow the rules which they claimed to have in place.

Selection process of the President has been usually very opaque, not at all different from choosing of the new Pope. Everything happened behind closed doors, with hoi polloi then informed they have a new God, all hail etc. This has been one of the reasons why people don't care all that much about EU elections. So they came up with 'lead candidate' concept, where leader of the most popular block becomes President, sort of like in most parliamentary elections.

So then the election results rolled out, and what happened? 'Lead candidates' were completely ignored and von der Leyen was chosen as the President, by a dark cabal behind closed doors, just as before. Even very pro-EU people saw it as a betrayal and flat out misleading the voterbase. 

[RETAC21]

15 hours ago, Yama said:

Problem with von der Leyen's nomination was that they didn't follow the rules which they claimed to have in place.

Selection process of the President has been usually very opaque, not at all different from choosing of the new Pope. Everything happened behind closed doors, with hoi polloi then informed they have a new God, all hail etc. This has been one of the reasons why people don't care all that much about EU elections. So they came up with 'lead candidate' concept, where leader of the most popular block becomes President, sort of like in most parliamentary elections.

So then the election results rolled out, and what happened? 'Lead candidates' were completely ignored and von der Leyen was chosen as the President, by a dark cabal behind closed doors, just as before. Even very pro-EU people saw it as a betrayal and flat out misleading the voterbase. 

Well, no, but never let reality spoil a good story: https://theconversation.com/ursula-von-der-leyen-why-controversial-choice-for-eu-top-job-may-actually-have-been-the-right-one-120511

"President Donald Tusk said that there was agreement among leaders that European Council couldn't guarantee in advance that it would propose one of the lead candidates for President of the European Commission.

There is no automaticity in this process. The Treaty is very clear that it is the autonomous competence of the European Council to nominate the candidate, while taking into account the European elections, and having held appropriate consultations.

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council"

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2018/02/23/

[Yama]

4 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Well, no, but never let reality spoil a good story: https://theconversation.com/ursula-von-der-leyen-why-controversial-choice-for-eu-top-job-may-actually-have-been-the-right-one-120511

"President Donald Tusk said that there was agreement among leaders that European Council couldn't guarantee in advance that it would propose one of the lead candidates for President of the European Commission.

There is no automaticity in this process. The Treaty is very clear that it is the autonomous competence of the European Council to nominate the candidate, while taking into account the European elections, and having held appropriate consultations.

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council"

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2018/02/23/

All of which is exactly what I said. What was your point here?

[Sardaukar]

6 minutes ago, Yama said:

All of which is exactly what I said. What was your point here?

I think your point is that selection of President of European Commission is undemocratic since it does not include direct input from voters?

In that case selection of Finnish Prime Minister is also un-democratic, since he/she is not selected by electorate?

 

[RETAC21]

10 minutes ago, Yama said:

All of which is exactly what I said. What was your point here?

To add to what your Sardaukar says, you wrote rules were broken to elect Ursula. As can be seen in the links, no, they weren't.

[Yama]

38 minutes ago, Sardaukar said:

I think your point is that selection of President of European Commission is undemocratic since it does not include direct input from voters?

In that case selection of Finnish Prime Minister is also un-democratic, since he/she is not selected by electorate?

That would be the case, if President nominated somebody else to PM, than the leader of the winning party of the elections. Which the President could do, but it would be a major faux pas against established custom.

 

[Yama]

42 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

To add to what your Sardaukar says, you wrote rules were broken to elect Ursula. As can be seen in the links, no, they weren't.

No, not nominal rules, but they did break the rules which where thought to be agreed upon before the election and by which people voted. Basically, it was sort of 'constitutional crisis', only difference was that the custom had been in place only for one election cycle. 

Again, you are here promoting the "lol you didn't read the fine print" EU approach to the decisionmaking, which was the subject of my criticism.

[RETAC21]

Just now, Yama said:

No, not nominal rules, but they did break the rules which where thought to be agreed upon before the election and by which people voted. Basically, it was sort of 'constitutional crisis', only difference was that the custom had been in place only for one election cycle. 

Again, you are here promoting the "lol you didn't read the fine print" EU approach to the decisionmaking, which was the subject of my criticism.

So, let me get this straight, if you don't read the not-so-fine print, it's not your fault, it's a cabal of conspirators wanting to screw you....

That's so... Russian

[Yama]

Just now, RETAC21 said:

So, let me get this straight, if you don't read the not-so-fine print, it's not your fault, it's a cabal of conspirators wanting to screw you....

That's so... Russian

You are quite correct: nominally democratic regimes use obscure technicalities or vague wordings to get their way to ensure 'correct' decisions being made if the people should vote 'wrong'.

[RETAC21]

1 minute ago, Yama said:

You are quite correct: nominally democratic regimes use obscure technicalities or vague wordings to get their way to ensure 'correct' decisions being made if the people should vote 'wrong'.

So if you disagree and you are factually correct, you go to a court, and you will carry the day, in a democracy. But no one has done that, so you know there wasn't anything illegal or incorrect about it. 

As for "custom", the same could be said, it's fine when it goes your way, not so much when it doesn't, innit?

But let's look at "custom" in another way:

"Starting with the latter: it would be wrong to fault the European Council for not sticking with one of the ‘lead candidates’. But the real reason the European Council did not select one of them was that there was no clear majority in the European Parliament for any of the declared Spitzenkandidaten. The EPP (narrowly) obtained the most votes, but the other parties did not agree to back Weber. The major political groups in the EP were (and remain) simply unwilling to rally behind one common candidate. In this situation, the European Council naturally chose to propose someone else who better reflected the political equilibrium among EU governments (which are also democratically legitimised)."

[Yama]

6 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

So if you disagree and you are factually correct, you go to a court, and you will carry the day, in a democracy. But no one has done that, so you know there wasn't anything illegal or incorrect about it. 

So kinda like the Russian elections, then? 

 

6 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

"Starting with the latter: it would be wrong to fault the European Council for not sticking with one of the ‘lead candidates’. But the real reason the European Council did not select one of them was that there was no clear majority in the European Parliament for any of the declared Spitzenkandidaten. The EPP (narrowly) obtained the most votes, but the other parties did not agree to back Weber. The major political groups in the EP were (and remain) simply unwilling to rally behind one common candidate. In this situation, the European Council naturally chose to propose someone else who better reflected the political equilibrium among EU governments (which are also democratically legitimised)."

This is completely bizarre argument, as in previous elections EPP actually LOST the popular vote and suffered a major defeat, yet got their lead candidate through as the largest party.

But you don't have to believe me, here's opinions from two Finnish MEPs, both extremely pro-EU:

"– I don't give good style points to a council that clings tightly to its own power, or even to my own group for striving for consensus. When a reasonable compromise could not be found, a compromise that can be lived with was created. The losers are the top candidate procedure, the political process and the Europeans." -Sirpa Pietikäinen, National Coalition

– First there is an election campaign, and we talk about transparency and the influence of voters. Then the end result is a decision behind closed doors where the leading members of the Council, Germany and France, actually decided on all the issues. The entire package was redone, with names that had not been mentioned before. It's a pretty bad system from the point of view of democracy, says an experienced MP. -Nils Torvalds, Swedish People's Party

 

[RETAC21]

2 minutes ago, Yama said:

So kinda like the Russian elections, then? 

 

This is completely bizarre argument, as in previous elections EPP actually LOST the popular vote and suffered a major defeat, yet got their lead candidate through as the largest party.

But you don't have to believe me, here's opinions from two Finnish MEPs, both extremely pro-EU:

"– I don't give good style points to a council that clings tightly to its own power, or even to my own group for striving for consensus. When a reasonable compromise could not be found, a compromise that can be lived with was created. The losers are the top candidate procedure, the political process and the Europeans." -Sirpa Pietikäinen, National Coalition

– First there is an election campaign, and we talk about transparency and the influence of voters. Then the end result is a decision behind closed doors where the leading members of the Council, Germany and France, actually decided on all the issues. The entire package was redone, with names that had not been mentioned before. It's a pretty bad system from the point of view of democracy, says an experienced MP. -Nils Torvalds, Swedish People's Party

 

Oh, I have to take opinions over the written rule because they are Finnish? 

In Russia you can't take the government to court, this seems to slip by you.

[Yama]

7 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Oh, I have to take opinions over the written rule because they are Finnish? 

Seems to me like a smart thing to do?? 

I think more noteworthy is that these are not some random conspiracy theorists covered in dust and cookie crumbles whacking away their keyboards in their mum's basement, these are MEPs and mainstream politicians from pro-EU parties. If even they find the process rotten, it kinda raises an eyebrow, no? And they were not exceptions but represented widespread views among the Finnish MEPs.

 

7 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

In Russia you can't take the government to court, this seems to slip by you.

There were legal challenges after latest Russian elections, see here for example. I haven't heard anything since (maybe Roman has?), so I assume the court found no fault and everything was kosher! 

[Angrybk]

5 minutes ago, Yama said:

Seems to me like a smart thing to do?? 

I think more noteworthy is that these are not some random conspiracy theorists covered in dust and cookie crumbles whacking away their keyboards in their mum's basement, these are MEPs and mainstream politicians from pro-EU parties. If even they find the process rotten, it kinda raises an eyebrow, no? And they were not exceptions but represented widespread views among the Finnish MEPs.

 

There were legal challenges after latest Russian elections, see here for example. I haven't heard anything since (maybe Roman has?), so I assume the court found no fault and everything was kosher! 

Would recommend new thread for this. 

[Sardaukar]

4 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Poor and/or backward countries have corruption, but democratic ones have lobbying ;)

I am glad that you are from former

[seahawk]

5 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Poor and/or backward countries have corruption, but democratic ones have lobbying ;)

It is all about the NWO.

[Sardaukar]

EU politics deserve other thread, aye.

And when it comes to Putler and his butt-brothers, they can go to feel defenestration too. 

Apparently Russian thing. 

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

22 minutes ago, Strannik said:

, but democratic ones have lobbying ;)

Lobbying is an important thing. Teachers, for example, need a strong lobby. So that teachers and schools get the attention they deserve. And many other areas, athletes, theater people,...  And yes, the industry also has its lobby. Basically, that's not wrong. And yes, you have to be careful to keep it within limits.

Russian teachers and schools do not have a strong lobby. This is a staff room in a school near Ekaterienburg. I prefer not to talk about the salaries of the teachers. But the condition of this room speaks a whole novel about the lack of lobbying for the teachers.

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