My name was mentioned so i feel i should weigh in.

I do not believe the EU should be more democratic. Democracy is not the only system we can have use to organise ourselves and there are good reasons it is not used where it is not. Companies are more flexible and effecient essentialy because they are not democratic (though their customers vote with their money) i could mention militraries or schools but the strenghts of other systems are not the issue it is the weakness of democracy.

Accontability in a democracymis inversely proportional to the distance from their people - essentially the more peoppe the represent the more power they have and the less each person who they represent feep they have to change things or challenge them. Look at the power of the US president, as head of the armed forces it is considered a sin against the country to oppose him in wartime (and the US has been at war for more time since world war 2 than it has had peace time) Europe is currently In a better position; imho.

As such i am entirely in favour of the regionalised EU which red supports. It is the means by which we should achieve this where we differ.

Currently most european democracies do not directly elect their uead of governments. At least to my knowledge - in ireland and the UK the prime minsters are elected by as little as 20,000 people - who can vote against them if they wish, so some fraction of that may actually personally support a PM. And it is the PM who appoints his ministers/secretaries - those who actully hold responcibilities for their offices and the day-to-day operations of the governments.

I will further argue that this is a good thing. The 20,000 people all live in one area and can talk to each other. They can realstically know freinds and family of their elected rep and they can organise protests or meet (the UK is a bigger number than Ireland as they have a much bigger population, but wuen scotland get's it's independance that number will be reduced as westminster is on average closer to the population it rules - similar for belguim and spain which have movements to improve their democracies)

Second to that level of accountability there is the party - in both countries tue party can remain in government while replacing it's leader and thus the head of the government - this forces the prime minister to take their views into accont, acting as a further check on power (the irish junior health minister recently resigned her post and quit her party as a result ofngovernment policy and she is now in opposition... We have a good system where this knd of flexibility is possible.

BUT these individuals are not directly elected. Why should tye commmission be?

@invictis: the people will be happy with sovereignty continuong to be held by their nations. And even devoling to new nations (flanders, scotpand, catalonia, etc. )

The answer i think is NOT creating a single position which is directly elected and who has the power invested in him by 'the people' who would be seen as the most powerful man/woman in europe.

I'd rather see Merkel and Hollande competing witu other Leaders for what is best. Recall the competition between private companies is leveraged for the 'good' of the general public - why can the competition between states (when it is not via warfare) not also benefit all??

orathaic,

I believe it is more complex than that. I've found in this thread some mis-interpretation of what I propose, such as:

"BUT these individuals are not directly elected. Why should tye commmission be?"
-Since I never stated it should, I won't delve into it.

"Currently most european democracies do not directly elect their uead of governments. At least to my knowledge - in ireland and the UK the prime minsters are elected by as little as 20,000 people - who can vote against them if they wish, so some fraction of that may actually personally support a PM. And it is the PM who appoints his ministers/secretaries - those who actully hold responcibilities for their offices and the day-to-day operations of the governments."
-I think that's a tradition, but by no means a law right?

This is an important part:

"I'd rather see Merkel and Hollande competing witu other Leaders for what is best. Recall the competition between private companies is leveraged for the 'good' of the general public - why can the competition between states (when it is not via warfare) not also benefit all??"
-To me, and to most Dutch people, that is actually crystal clear: Merkel wins that race. There's not even any serious debate out that. The problem is; she's not a person, she's Germany. And for historic reasons, Germany can't be the leader of the European project. That's sad, because the Germans have many answers to our problems. So it falls to Hollande then, who can't be leader of Europe simply because in countries like Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the UK the man is a communist who tolerates some French automobile manufacturers.

The feeling I'm getting from the 25 last European summits that were *all* supposedly saving the Euro is that although there is some competition between the different ideas that the different countries represent, due to the complexities of these negotiations there is never one major strand of thought to gain enough momentum. What I believe an election would do is give some kind of an indicator of what general direction Europe wants to move in.

I'm guessing that the left-wing candidate (Schröder in my example) would go for a more closely bonded Europe, with Euro-bonds, a New Deal like scheme, etc. whereas the right-wing candidate would try to find a solution in austerity and getting as much money as possible directly into people's pockets and stimulate demand.

I'm not saying their taking such a stance will solve anything, but possibly it will present the European leaders with an idea to either side with, or fight against. I think that would be more refreshing than just jamming 27 heads together and see what comes out.

The question is, would Germany, Finland or Holland obey the results of the election if the left-wing, debt-sharing and wealth-distributing candidate won?

I don't think it is a good idea for 'what I believe an election would do is give some kind of an indicator of what general direction Europe wants to move in.'

i do not think that europeans want to be ruled by the decisions of one country, or by a flat majority (51%) of the population.

Europeans do not identify as such. They identify as people of individual nations.
They would not support a single leader who a majority of people from their nation disliked.

Hollanders would not support a german, you said it yourself. How do you think the English feel about the french or anyone else? that is the three biggest populations.

Spain, Poland and Italy are the next three?

Your scheme is a recipe for splitting the Union apart. or Civil war at worst.

@AlexNesta,
For me, ATM, leadership is more important than the particular direction that leadership wants to go in. If a coherent agenda of investing in Europe can be set by the left-wing candidate, then I'm very open to that, even though - as many on the forum probably know - I'd probably prefer a solution coming from the right.

@orathaic
Like I said, this elected President has no more powers than the combined power of Council and Commision chairman. So they wouldn't be "ruled by a single leader at all." Again, I don't know how to respond because this is not the scenario I advocate.
And Hollanders could support a German, they just don't want that German pushed down their throats by the Germans and their economy as happens at this moment, they want a free election to decide that, is my best guess.
And the candidate on the left is not necessarily a Germany, perhaps the President/Vice-President could be split, or Javier Solana could be one of the two.

"Your scheme is a recipe for splitting the Union apart. or Civil war at worst. "
Civil war, I don't think so, unless you expand the powers of such a President, which I would be very fervently against. The Union falling apart: well, if that happens maybe it was time for it to fall apart, better to control the conditions in which this is happening.

Technically, rh, we in the US do elect people who choose our President for us. =)

You imprison them if they don't do as you tell them, right? :-)

Not so!

(Well, some states do have laws making it illegal for an elector to vote for the wrong person. But the other 26 do not).

*some = 24

I'd be in favor of dividing up Europe in regions, probably with the smallest region being Luxembourg (500.000 residents) and then have a first past the post system for every region. The Netherlands would have 34 regions in such a scenario. And you'd probably have to skew it a bit toward smaller countries.

Hmm.

So exactly the electoral college.

It's very amusing if you make a list of the people who are currently "running" Europe:

1. Chairman of the European Commission: Barroso (Portugal)
2. Head of the European Central Bank: Draghi (Italy)
3. Chairman of the European Council: Van Rompuy (Belgium)
4. Chairman of the European Parliament: Schulz (Germany)
5. President of the Union Council: Christofias (Cyprus)

Am I the only one who has a problem with four of the five coming from states that are considered "problematic"? Also, am I the only one not surprised that they haven't yet reached a credible solution for the Euro-crisis? =)

bmp

The majority of Europeans are not ready for austerity, they cannot comprehend that they have to give up stuff that was promised to them for many many years and that they have grown accustomed to. A more democratic way of electing these officials would not change the fact that the people running Europe are not mostly from the more "successful" EU countries.

The objective is not to have people from successful EU countries though, the objective is to have successful officials. Van Rompuy has no history of being a successful official, neither do *any* of the other guys, except to some extent Draghi. (I probably should have specifically mentioned him when I criticized their home countries, apologies for that.)

They're simply not good enough. I need better people in these places and the only way they're going to get there, I believe, is if the European people is getting a say in it. The reason is that Merkel and Sarkozy deliberately pick weaklings: they're easier to control. It's really that Macchiavellian. :-(

You don't need better people for the positions. You simply need to remove the positions. Aside from Draghi none of these people do anything that is remotely necessary.

I still vote UKIP yes even over SNP, which I feel the SNP doesn't have the best interest of Scotland if they want to join the EU.

^Octavious, then you must like my proposal, because I propose merging two of these people's positions into just one =)
That should be a step in the right direction right?
@airborne: lol. Alright.