thierry breton, ursula Vdl, and any of the commissionaires are not elected democratically, unless you consider the internal brussels lobbying some sort of democracy. at best it s a detached aristocracy
by that logic, elon's stock prices and tesla sales are an even more direct form of check for his power.
Ursula Von Der Leyen was appointed by the EU national leaders and elected by the EU parliament (which is elected by EU voters). It's as "democratically elected" as any minister in any democratic government: the people elect those that appoint the person. The same applies for EU commissioners.
Yes it becomes second- or third hand democracy (the EU parliamentarians are usually appointed by their domestic parties, the appointments for commissioners are appointed by other politicians and so on). But such is representative democracy. At the end of the day it's the elected members of the parliament that vote on all positions, and all laws.
It is tiresome how people promote this propaganda.
> Ursula Von Der Leyen was appointed by the EU national leaders and elected by the EU parliament
She was "elected" by the EP in a vote in which she was the only allowed candidate and still nearly lost because so many of the MEPs refused to vote in digust. Sorry, but an election in which there's only one option is not an election, that's an abuse of the word.
And the Parliament is itself not a real Parliament. It has no actual powers of any use, so the people who run for it can't have policies. They rubber stamp what the Commission wants to do, they cannot override or control it. Just like the "election" of von der Leyen, this is a sinister abuse of terminology: it is an abuse of the word Parliament.
Finally, we actually have no idea how von der Leyen got her job. She is the most powerful person in Europe and nobody can answer basic questions about how that happened. Yes, the leaders of the member states went into a room, and when they came out vdL was in charge. What was discussed in that room? Who were the other candidates? Were they any? If not, why not? Was there a vote? By which criteria was she judged? Did every country's leader even get a chance to speak at all? Were they threatened? (The EU threatens members routinely so it is not unthinkable).
The truth is nobody knows the answer to any of these things because despite the EU being supposedly democratic, the people who are theoretically in charge are all sworn to secrecy. (by whom?! that's also a secret!)
This is an absolute joke. Europeans should all be collectively ashamed of what a pathetically totalitarian system they have allowed their ruling classes to construct, and then they should work tirelessly towards its abolition.
> She was "elected" by the EP in a vote in which she was the only allowed candidate
That’s an approval, yes. Had she been rejected a new candidate would be presented, and so on. I agree it could have been better to have N candidates presented to begin with, but this procedure is how many top political positions are appointed.
Every commissioner is appointed* by the government of the member state they are from.
The president of the commission is chosen by the council (heads of state of the member states) and has to confirmed by the parliament.
So in theory only internal brussels lobbying would be who gets assigned which seat but in practice all of it as the EU citizens don't give a fuck who represents them in the EU so these kind of decisions are never talked about in local elections where they should be.
* (well proposed but if they don't accept they would just get another proposal from the same government)
The president of the Commission can reject candidates as often as they want (not in theory, but in practice they do), so the member state's power to appoint someone is largely meaningless. The EU gets the kind of person it wants, every time. There is no actual power by the member states here.
The Council is a joke that won't explain its decisions, it won't even explain if there was a vote on who got to be EU President or if Germany just announced the decision was made already and then they played with their phones for the rest of the meeting.
The entire thing is literally decided by lobbying, except we have no idea who is lobbying who, when, how or what they want. All we know is that the key processes are all secret - super democratic!
> The president of the Commission can reject candidates as often as they want (not in theory, but in practice they do), so the member state's power to appoint someone is largely meaningless.
The member states effectively decide who is the president of the commission. A candidate can't go for vote to the parliament without their approval first (72% majority required).
Who is which countries commissionaire and gets what seat is very much part of the whole process of deciding who is going to be the president.
And as the commissioners require the parliaments approval too that is where they usually get shot down instead of being rejected by the president of the commission (can't agree on these beforehand with the parliament)
> it won't even explain if there was a vote on who got to be EU President
EU does not have a president and will not get one without a new treaty to replace the Treaty of Lisbon and is not something the Commission would ever get to decide on (this is the kind of foundational EU treaties that has to be signed by all member states)
> The Council is a joke that won't explain its decisions
Just like any government it mainly explains itself to the people who voted it into power. In this case the governments of the member states / council and to some extent the parliament.
> by that logic, elon's stock prices and tesla sales are an even more direct form of check for his power
That's quite a stretch of the imagination. Elon can make X go up in stock price by firing half the team, or by outsourcing their work to Bangladesh or replacing them with badly made AI, or adding porn advertisers. None of these ways of bumping the stock price is a represention of how well they are upholding the law or their approval by the general public.
On the other hand, EU governments who elect their representatives in the EU parliament are all democratically elected.
If they misbehave, the public can throw them to the curb at the next election, like what happened in Poland where the government tried to behave like the nasty greedy man child that Elon is.
Let's put it like that, I don't fully trust my government, but I believe we as people have the ability to improve some things, while I think Elon is a deranged out of touch and control lunatic. Luckily, in the Nordics they showed this petulant little brat what happens when workers band together and boycott Tesla.
