Today sees the biggest trans-national election in history - during which almost 500 million Europeans will have the chance to elect the 736 members of the European Parliament who will go and represent them in the European Union.One tricky aspect of the European elections is that they're a TOTAL load of bunk.
The European Parliament is one of the most pathetic, powerless organizations in Democratic history. All major decisions - proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and generally running the EU - are made by the European Commission, the 'executive' of Europe itself, not the European Parliament.
The European Commission runs the EU. There are 27 European Commissioners, one for each country, and none of them are elected. They're selected by their nation's government (removing the voter from the equation entirely.)
The only body to whom the European Commission is accountable is the European Council - made up of the heads of state of all 27 member nations (effectively, the people who selected the European Commission in the first place.)
The European Commission can MAKE laws. They can EXECUTE laws. They can ENFORCE laws. In contrast, the European Parliament - the only body us Euro-plebs are permitted to elect, can do none of these things.
The European Parliament, in contrast to just about every Democratic parliament currently in existence, does not have the power of 'legislative initiative.' They can't make laws - only vote for laws proposed by the European Commission.
The EU Parliamentary Complex in Strasbourg (...and history has shown that only 15% of such laws failed to pass the Parliamentary process - effectively making them little more than a rubber stamp for the unelected, unaccountable European Commission.)
In fact, the European Parliament's only real power is in being what's described as a 'pan-European soapbox.' They have the ear of the European Union's journalists and that's about it.
As far as actual power goes, the European Parliament is limited to issuing non-binding resolutions and forming committees. They are the ultimate demonstration of bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake.
They don't even have any real power over the European budget: The (unelected, unaccountable) European Commission controls the 'compulsory spending' and the European Parliament is thrown the 'non compulsory spending' as scraps, which they can bicker over while the real powers in Europe go about their business.
So while it is important for people in Europe to go out and vote today, nobody should kid themselves that it's going to make any difference.
The European Union is run by an unaccountable elite, who make decisions affecting everybody in the EU with a sort of detached, disdainful attitude. They're not subject to the voter's whims because, well, the voters can't be trusted with making decisions of this magnitude!
Just look at Ireland's referendum in 2008; in which normal, everyday voters were allowed to decide on adopting the 'European Constitution.' What happened? The voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon.
The European Commissioners were quivering with anger. "Why couldn't the bloody Paddies just rubber stamp the damn Constitution like every other country in Europe had?"
The European Union is ridiculously undemocratic - which means, sadly, that just about every vote cast in the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections will be an entirely wasted one.
3 comments:
The world governments are run by the bankers, specifically, the bank of England and the Federal Reserve. There is just a handful of people running the show. If people would wake up to what's really going on, we could turn things around and put power back into the vote. It takes research. Infowars.com is a great place to start.
Every American President, including Obama, has blithely supported the "unification" of Europe, without realising how totally undemocratic is the "European Union". It bears no resemblance at all to the brilliant American Constitution.
So,how do they define democracy? Are they willing to impose and support any travesty that calls itself "Democratic"?
The EU is an economic union at heart, not a political one, so in its current form it will never be a "democracy". It cannot. That should change of course, but it would require a fundamentally different mindset from most European gov'ments - a unionistic mindset as opposed to the secluded, singular one they seem to have at the present (and past). I'm all for a united Europe. I don't think it's gonna happen in my lifetime though.
Post a Comment