CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
Both are equally silly and dangerous and should be rejected by all right-thinking humans. IMO.Shane Costello said:
EU Constitution a joke
- Thread starter CBL4
- Start date
-
- Tags
- constitution joke
I wrote this fairly long response... And then the F****** electricity went AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
I truly do suck at names, so I'll avoid the naming of names. As for the institutions the European Parliament has to OK the EU budget, and have the power to either fire the commission with a 2/3 majority of the present members representing at least half the total members. They also have to OK each new Commission with a simple majority. Neither power has ever been formally used, though the prospect of them being used prompted the Santer Commision to resign, and caused Barrosso to change his commission.
There are several different procedures for the Parliaments influence on normal EU legislation. The most common (and increasingly used with each treaty) is, I believe, the co-decision procedure, which means that the EU parliament has to OK the legislation (with a majority of the total members I believe) for it to pass.
There's also a procedure which dictates that the parliament must simply be "heard", meaning that they can see the legislation and comment on it, but cannot block it.
The Parliament also has to OK expansion of the EU (like when Turkey, hopefully, becomes a member).
The Commissioning isn't as powerful as it used to be, having lost a lot of it's power to the Parliament, but they still have extensive powers on isolated areas such as competition and, I believe, trade policy. They also have the "right of initiative", meaning that EU-legislation has to be proposed by the Commission.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "The Council of the EU and the European Council". The European council is not AFAIK an EU institution, but an independent body monitoring human rights and such in Europe. I assume that what you mean is the council of ministers and the council of prime ministers and presidents.
The council of ministers consists of the ministers responsible for whatever area is relevant to the issue being discussed. It, IIRC, has to OK all EU legislation by either an unanimous vote, or a complicated procedure of qualified majority factoring the countries size, the number of countries and a system of weighted votes based on population, but favouring the small countries. Usually even decisions that only require a qualified majority are still passed unanimously.
The new Constitutional treaty simplifies this somewhat. so passing somewhat a qualified majority simply means that a certain fraction of countries of countries must approve. and these countries must represent a certain fraction of the EU's population.
These fractions was originally proposed by the convention to be 50% of the countries and 60% of the population, but I believe they changed it. Possibly to 65% of the population and 55% of the countries. I'm not entirely sure though.
The council of prime ministers and presidents (that isn't what it's called of course, but I can't remember the actual name right now) has, AFAIR, almost unlimited power, but requires unanimity to make any decision. They mainly concern themselves with the major issues like for example new treaties and the EU budget.
Another significant actor in the EU, which you forgot to mention, is the European court, which can if called on to make a decision declare EU legislation or decisions to be in violation of the treaties. It can also declare countries to be in violation of EU law. I might be confusing them with another European court, but it’s possible that it’s also them that EU citizens can appeal to, if they feel that their government has violated the European Human rights charter.
So how did I do?
Sure they probably want this, but they have to contend with the Council who are probably the most powerful actor in the EU, and who have no particular desire to strengthen the central elements of the EU. The EU has gotten more tasks with time, but there has been no significant expansion of it's budget, I believe that it started at 1% of GDP and was some time ago raised to 1,27% and has been constant since then. Most of this budget is incidentally pre-assigned to certain tasks, and cannot be used at the discretion of the commission or parliament let alone the Bureaucrats.CBL4 said:
That is unfortunately mostly true, though the turnout to elections for the European parliament is, I believe, only marginally lower than what you got for American elections, particularly the midway elections. I do not however think that we would necessarily have better control with these things without the EU. The EU mainly concerns itself with issues that have relatively low voter saliency, and that are often done behind closed doors in non-EU countries.
I truly do suck at names, so I'll avoid the naming of names. As for the institutions the European Parliament has to OK the EU budget, and have the power to either fire the commission with a 2/3 majority of the present members representing at least half the total members. They also have to OK each new Commission with a simple majority. Neither power has ever been formally used, though the prospect of them being used prompted the Santer Commision to resign, and caused Barrosso to change his commission.
There are several different procedures for the Parliaments influence on normal EU legislation. The most common (and increasingly used with each treaty) is, I believe, the co-decision procedure, which means that the EU parliament has to OK the legislation (with a majority of the total members I believe) for it to pass.
There's also a procedure which dictates that the parliament must simply be "heard", meaning that they can see the legislation and comment on it, but cannot block it.
The Parliament also has to OK expansion of the EU (like when Turkey, hopefully, becomes a member).
The Commissioning isn't as powerful as it used to be, having lost a lot of it's power to the Parliament, but they still have extensive powers on isolated areas such as competition and, I believe, trade policy. They also have the "right of initiative", meaning that EU-legislation has to be proposed by the Commission.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "The Council of the EU and the European Council". The European council is not AFAIK an EU institution, but an independent body monitoring human rights and such in Europe. I assume that what you mean is the council of ministers and the council of prime ministers and presidents.
The council of ministers consists of the ministers responsible for whatever area is relevant to the issue being discussed. It, IIRC, has to OK all EU legislation by either an unanimous vote, or a complicated procedure of qualified majority factoring the countries size, the number of countries and a system of weighted votes based on population, but favouring the small countries. Usually even decisions that only require a qualified majority are still passed unanimously.
The new Constitutional treaty simplifies this somewhat. so passing somewhat a qualified majority simply means that a certain fraction of countries of countries must approve. and these countries must represent a certain fraction of the EU's population.
These fractions was originally proposed by the convention to be 50% of the countries and 60% of the population, but I believe they changed it. Possibly to 65% of the population and 55% of the countries. I'm not entirely sure though.
The council of prime ministers and presidents (that isn't what it's called of course, but I can't remember the actual name right now) has, AFAIR, almost unlimited power, but requires unanimity to make any decision. They mainly concern themselves with the major issues like for example new treaties and the EU budget.
Another significant actor in the EU, which you forgot to mention, is the European court, which can if called on to make a decision declare EU legislation or decisions to be in violation of the treaties. It can also declare countries to be in violation of EU law. I might be confusing them with another European court, but it’s possible that it’s also them that EU citizens can appeal to, if they feel that their government has violated the European Human rights charter.
So how did I do?
Darat said:
Welcome to the club.
If I were a cynic, I might suppose that 99% of the constitution is there for the specific purpose that people don't realize that the "Flexibility clause" is a carte blanche for the EU bureaucrats to impose any EU-wide legislation they want.
However, I'm not a cynic. So I believe that the 99% is written by well-meaning fools who shouldn't be allowed to be near a word processor and the rest is slipped in by manipulative (rule 8) in the bureaucracy.
Doomdude said:
Why? (I mean why about leaving, as you can see above there is no way I'm voting for the proposed "EU Constipation".)
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 11,286
Doomdude said:
How can a country "leave" the EU?
By that, I mean is there a formal mechanism in place to do so, or would the country just have to thumb its' nose at the rest of Europe and go, despite the treaty? My (admittedly rudimentary) understanding was that there was no method of leaving once in, but I may be way off base.
NoZed Avenger said:
It is just a treaty so a country can just say "non" or "nein" whenever it wants.
The proposed EU Constipation does have a section that would put procedures in place for a country to "formally" exit the EU, but don’t ask me to find it because I'm going to try and avoid that document for the rest of my life.