Yes you are correct, but technically the parliament passes the laws, so they have the final say. It should be the commission that gets slapped in the face (or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic), but what can you do...
>>or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic)
I never understood this argument. The comission's job is to write the laws, the parliment's job is to make sure they acceptable to all member states and either pass them or send them back.
It's the same how say, UK government uses various comissions to write legislation which then goes in front of the parliment which then either passes it or don't - and I don't think we would call the British system undemocratic(well, other than the monarchy and the house of lords - but the way the parliment works is deeply democratic). I don't believe any EU member state directly elects their law writers and comissions that propose them - the democratic part is always at the top.
I think it's fairly common that individual members of parliament do directly draft and submit their own bills, certainly it is not uncommon that they have the right to propose their own bills.
But by volume most of these bills are shit and so just quietly die in a vote nobody noticed, and so most law that we actually have was indeed drafted by a special commission and put forward by the executive before it was approved by parliament.
In Denmark a similar system (NemID) gave you a piece of paper with long alphanumeric codes to be used instead of the app. Now it's replaced by another system (MitID) which I haven't verified that supports those, but it's highly unlikely that it stopped supporting physical codes.
It's actually quite a good idea to have this, even if you have a smartphone, in case that you lose access to it temporarily.
Reality is more complex then that. Qatar has been sending millions to Gaza (and transitively to Hamas) for years. Important point is that Israel was aware of it and even approved of it - more details here:
The parent really should be attacking the US (of which Qatar is "a major non-NATO ally") and Israel ("Netanyahu continued the cash flow to Hamas, despite concerns raised from within his own government"). I don't see any reason to be so aggressive towards Ireland of all the stakeholders.
There are neurodivergent people who have a low threshold for how long "normal" eye contact lasts. Using smartphones is also an excellent excuse to avoid eye contact.
I think this sums it up pretty nicely. It's a failed state with corrupt people at the top of the government.
The parliament, i.e. the majority, i.e. these people, are also the ones who appoint the judges of the top courts of the country, which all but ensures their immunity.
Their immunity is also enshrined in the consistution[4, article 86] - only the parliament can take an MP to the courts, but guess who controls the majority
Also, they are in the pockets of the local oligarchic mafia [1]: A few families that control the vast majority of the media AND the big construction companies AND the energy companies. They are also the ones that own big part of the shipping industry in Greece. For their sake, back in 2022 when the EU was considering to ban oil shipments from Russia, Greece vetoed that [2]
Oh, and just to be safe, the oligarch's tax exemptions are written in the constitution[4, article 107]
So, the people in the government have an almost complete immunity from everything, which makes them extremely arrogant.
If you add to that mix the total disregard of public services, even hospitals during the pandemic, you get a very beautiful-to-look-but-terrible-to-live-in failed state.
A state that even the EU can no longer turn a blind eye on[5]
I don’t think the voters are the problem. I think the established parties keep growing in all the worst ways, and I don’t think any decent candidate would be able to be successful in this setting.
Would happily work with voters to figure out a path forward.
I'd say barriers to entry - being an established party gives you more revenue, supporters to do campaigning, influence, etc.
One place that tries to do it better in my opinion is Switzerland. It has a lot of controls to reduce the ability of politicians to act poorly and limits the power of higher levels (if something can be resolved well locally, there's no need to have a higher-level regulation). A lot of process is thought through and in place to enable direct voting on issues. Additionally, it has many levels to get engaged, which lowers the barriers to entry, by being able to have an impact on a local level.
Truly frightening that these are the people who'll be contributing to the decisions made on the future of the internet for the entire rest of the world.
You are overestimating the real power of the EU parliament, everything is finally decided in the EU council. The parliament is more or less kind of a political theatre without the powers you would expect a parliament to have.
> The fact that corporations and billionaires are so anti-union and engage in regular conduct like this demonstrates that unions are pro-worker and ideal for the balance needed in the US and across the globe.
No, that's incorrect. The corporations could also be anti-nuclear war, this would not make it good for workers.
A better example is to look at countries with functional unions and functional capitalism, like the Netherlands, Denmark and others.
The quality of life won by union conflicts with capital owners is a measurable fact.
Unions can be implemented and be useless for the workers (an example for the most part is Greece), or maybe too demanding like France. It's up to the participants of the union to shape it as a net contributor to society. The point is that each individual member has a significant say in how a union operates, meanwhile in corporations, even middle management can be completely powerless.
