gallois wrote:
But isn’t the executive made up (in most European countries) from the majority elected legislative body?
While some countries (e.g. Belgium) draw up the government from members of the parliament, for example France does not. I think the former is more rare than the latter?
The top tier of the executive has to be “approved” by the legislative, which usually means they are from the same party. Which in turn means that when the executive wants a law to be passed, often the legislative majority will obey party discipline. True, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a (wholly or largely) separate set of people that act as filter, and can, if they feel outraged enough to maybe bypass party discipline, pass a law against, or at least with some modifications compared to, the wishes of the executive (in some countries needing a supermajority to do that).
In France the President (executive) is elected, He chooses his prime minister, usually a member of the largest party in the elected legislature. But to get laws passed it is by a majority vote of the legislature. Often but not always the President’s party is the largest party. But in France mayors have a major part to play in law making. And even then the voice of the people can change things massively. I would say our political system is perhaps a little bizarre, but then again we are in our fifth republic.
Which is why from a French point of view the EU law making apparatus is much easier for us to understand.
I don’t think the EU way is perfect, far from it. I think one of its main problems is that the EU parliament has not found its raison d’être yet.
IMO that is why in many countries the voter turnout tends to be low and totally anti EU parties eg parties who want to see the EU project destroyed, get elected as representatives of their country.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In multi party governments, most political decisions are taken by various alliances which can switch from issue to issue.
I actually have the impression that you are generalizing the experience from that small mountain country in the middle of Europe too much to other countries.
In most (if not all) multi party systems outside of Switzerland it takes actually very stable coalitions that work for the entire election cycle. I currently can’t think about any country (despite Switzerland but this is a very different system in a small country) where the parliament actually works based on “various alliances which can switch from issue to issue”.
Actually, looking at countries like Italy, Israel and others where parliamentary democracy has been struggling to be stable in the past, in such systems it is even more of a treason to vote over the aisle, because it always questions the existing coalition…
“I don’t care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating” — William M. Tweed
In 2019, the candidate for President of the Commission (i.e., head of the European Government) of the winning party was Manfred Weber.
The European Council then appointed Ursula von der Leyen.
Just imagine the uproar in any country if the head of state decided to appoint anybody but the candidate put forward by the winning party…
Yep there’s much that needs change.
Cobalt wrote:
In 2019, the candidate for President of the Commission (i.e., head of the European Government) of the winning party was Manfred Weber.
The European Council then appointed Ursula von der Leyen.Just imagine the uproar in any country if the head of state decided to appoint anybody but the candidate put forward by the winning party…
Many systems of government depend on conventions that could in theory be violated but almost never are.
For instance, in the UK the very concept of a government is an almost entirely artificial construct and I don’t believe we formally have an executive branch in the way that other countries do. Executive power lies with ministers of state appointed by the Queen, who in theory can appoint anyone she likes but in reality appoints whoever the Prime Minister asks her to, and they are (by convention) members of either the Lords or the Commons. Even the Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen – following an election (or resignation of a PM) she asks a member of parliament ‘who can command the confidence of the House of Commons’ to become Prime Minister and form a government. He or she is free to decline. Legislative power resides with both Houses of Parliament (though these days almost exclusively with the Commons) and in theory there is nothing to force the members of parliament to form themselves into a government. They could in theory distance themselves from any executive power (by all refusing any invitation to form a government) and concern themselves purely with legislating, and then to avoid a total lack of any executive the Queen would have to appoint random people as ministers of state.
The UK equivalent of Ursula von der Leyen being appointed would be for the Queen to ignore an election result and ask some random member of parliament to be Prime Minister, or perhaps ignoring the PM’s requests and appointing some random folks as a ministers of state. As @Cobalt says, there would be an uproar.
It is this sort of thing (the idea that the EU project will do what it’s gonna do, even if the member stakeholders don’t vote for it) is what has historically rankled with the Brits, even if most of them couldn’t articulate it.
gallois wrote:
Thankfully it might come to an end now as people won’t care what the Brit media thinks about Europe as it is nothing to do with them.
That’s a good point. The UK is getting irrelevant. The English language is not AFAICS. We can see that in the number of students studying abroad. The UK has always been number one choice, but after the Brexit election and all the complications and uncertainties that had with staying legally in that country over a longer periods of time, the number of students going to the UK has dropped dramatically. Today Australia is the number one choice, and USA, Denmark, Poland and Hungary are also popular. So, if Norwegian students studying abroad is an indication, the UK will become irrelevant, and it will happen “over night” so to speak. But then, the larger traditional EU countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy are also uninteresting and irrelevant for that particular group of students 
but that is how it always has been. The change has been that the “UK students” now go to Australia instead.
LeSving wrote:
The change has been that the “UK students” now go to Australia instead.
Not now they don’t – you simply cannot get in. One guy who works for me, an Irishman, lives in Australia and is on a 4 year working visa. If he were to leave now, he would not be allowed back in.
The Australians have control over their borders in a way that is a wet dream for the likes of Nigel Farage. This is why they refer to 8 Covid-19 cases in Sydney as an ‘outbreak’. :-)
lionel wrote:
OTOH, the fact that the executive of the member states form, ex officio, a legislative body of the EU is, in my opinion, a violation of the principle of separation of powers which I’m not too happy about.
Agree with this. I’d rather the EU parliament be given full legislative power, and elect the executive (= the Comission) themselves instead of just confirming/vetoing them as they do now.
Ironically, developing the EU parliament into a fully fleged parliament with full (and sole!) legislative power has long been opposed by the very same “Eurosceptics” who call the EU “undemocratic”, because it would represent a huge step towards a proper Federal European state, and reduce the power of the national parliaments (who indirectly send their representatives to the Comission through the national governments).
As a German, I am from a country which founding history reads pretty much like that of the EU itself. First, we had a customs union (Zollverein), then (and contemporarily) we had a Confederation, then a few states making up that Confederation united into a confederation with a unified currency and ultimately a single but still federal state .
I see no danger in the EU becoming a federal state, in fact I hope this will come to pass eventually. It would also represent the only feasible way to completely eliminate the “democratic deficit” the organisation may have (which is, in reality, much more democratic than it is often accused of being, already).
For us Germans, who are used to have different levels of government (Gemeinde, Kreis, Bezirk, Bundesland, Bund , roughly council, county, district, state, federation), the EU is simply another “level” of government on top, which can easily be organised along with the other levels of government. If this happens in a democratic fashion, it is no less “undemocratic” than any other of our levels of government.
Graham wrote:
Not now they don’t – you simply cannot get in
Nonsense (disregarding covid of course ) Today there are restrictions everywhere, not only Australia. What I’m talking about are things that happened before covid, but after brexit election. Covid will pass in 6-12 months, brexit will not.
Somehow I don’t think that the UK being rendered irrelevant (in relative terms) was part of the “brexit agenda”. But this is indeed what is happening. In any country, half of the population, roughly speaking, draws it self esteem, even the very reason to exist, simply by being a country member. They got nothing else, no spinal core of their own. This is what brexit was all about. Draw the UK out of EU and become a proud member of England, a sovereign great nation, 100% independent of “Bruxelles”. “Make America great again” is the exact same thing. As we see in the US, any conspiracy theory will do, as long as the goal is to “make the country great”.
But, as with the US, it’s “greatness” in the world is tied to it’s willingness and ability to take the right actions on the international scene. No one cares about your local conspiracies, except roughly half of the population in the UK. For the rest of us, they are nothing but mindless conspiracies, not worth one single thought. Right now, covid makes things very exceptional and overshadows everything else, but normality will set in sooner or later, at least within a year. How deep the UK will sink to “make it great again” remains to be seen, but already from day 1 since the brexit election, it became irrelevant for foreign students due to new regulations and uncertainties.
