You say "approves" I say elects, the EU says elects, I doubt anyone will change their mind on which word to use. Herman van Rompuy, the former Prime Minister of Belgium, not exactly a nobody, and probably why the Council (made up of the heads of state of member countries) chose him.
You say "elects", I say "appoints", the EU says "appoints".
Here, Tusk and Juncker both "appointed by". It's all agreed behind closed doors, in secret, and then the Parliament gets the opportunity to rubber stamp it once all the actual power brokers have already agreed it.
You didn't answer my question about actually seeing a vote in the European Parliament, seriously you should check it out, Paxman in Europe covers it well. The House of Commons (and most other legislatures) debate, argue, things get heated, people get passionate, Governments get defeated. With MEP's it's literally a rubber stamping exercise, it's a joke.
And of course the President of the European Council is a different person to the President of the European Commission, they're two different bodies that do completely different things.
Of course! Would you be able to tell me the difference without looking it up? Of course I can't test that (you might look it up*
) but you can bet the vast majority of Europeans have no idea what the difference is, why there are two presidents, what their remit/roles are etc. As I say, it's designed to confuse.
*I've looked it up, and still have no idea what the actual difference is.
The European Parliament can request the Commission present proposals for legislation, and has oversight of the work programme of the Commission.
The Commission cannot pass any laws itself, it has no power to unilaterally enact legislation and it cannot force anything through, look at the Soil Framework Directive, Commission had presented it for years, Parliament and Council weren't interested, it got binned.
Are you reading this directly from an EU source? It sounds like it. "Request", "Oversight", these terms don't mean anything in reality.
Soil? Really? OK let's go with that.
Seems like that got binned after years of lobbying from the NFU, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, where they blocked its progress at a meeting of the EU Environment Council. Don't see any Parliament power here.
Parliament has real power, didn't Barroso have to rearrange his Commission because the Parliament wouldn't pass it?
Parliament does have the power to not approve the entire commission, yes. They can't reject individual commissioners though. Which means in reality they would never do it, apart from this one time. Why? Because Barroso was proposing commissioners who made discriminating statements about women and homosexuals, an energy commissioner who showed little interest in sustainable energy, others who had been involved in corrupt practices etc. It was clear they couldn't be appointed into the position.
it has power, it doesn't have all the same powers as a national parliament to avoid taking powers from national parliaments. Doesn't seem like it can win your eyes.
You're missing the point though - in every other democracy the legislature and the executive are separate (i.e. the separation of power). The EU is specifically not set up like this for a reason.
And don't worry - I'm sure those in for the long haul will slowly see the power of their national parliaments continued to be eroded and centralized at the EU level. I just hope Britain isn't in for the long haul.
Because the EU is used as a whipping boy by our media and politicians so that's all people see.
They sometimes get it right, they sometimes exaggerate. Either way, it doesn't explain why people are entirely disenfranchised from the EU.
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