The EU is NOT Democratic - is this true?

Is the European Union democratic? Does your vote count? The European Union is incredibly complex and it is hard to see how EU citizens participate in EU democracy. This video investigates how democratic the EU really is and whether there are democratic deficiencies in the parliament, commission or council. The Brexit leave campaign, including Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, often accuse the EU of being undemocratic and this video evaluates whether they are right.

Timestamps:
0:38 How are the institutions voted into power?
2:12 What do the EU institutions do?
2:56 What are the democratic deficiencies?

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Research & Sources
Source 1: European Union, EP Autumn 2021 Survey: Defending Democracy | Empowering Citizens

Source 2: Fordham Law School, Supranational? Federal? Intergovernmental? The Governmental Structure of the EUropean Union

Source 3: European Union, How the European Union Works

Source 4: The Conversation, Ursula Von der Leyen: why controversial choice for EU top job may actually have been the right one

Source 5: The Guardian, is the EU undemocratic

Source 6: European Parliament, 2019 European election results

Source 7: Politico, 2014 European Parliament election turnout was lowest ever, revised data shows

Source 8: European Parliament, Redistribution of seats in the European Parliament after Brexit

Source 9: EU-Lex, Democratic Deficit

Source 10: European Parliament, EP after the Lisbon treaty: Bigger role in shaping Europe

Source 11: Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, Political System

Source 12: Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, Is the EU democratic, does your vote matter?

Source 13: The Guardian, Boris Johnson refuses to rule out leaving EU on WTO terms

[michelangelobuonarroti]

Look up the round table of european industrialists. They're a very important lobbying institution that's part of the official EU institutions, and they have a big hand in the process of passing laws, since they often propose drafts to the commission.
There's the same thing with banks and the ECB as well. It's no wonder that people say the EU is undemocratic when a person like Draghi can go from Goldman Sachs to ECB president to Italian President all organized through backdoor deals...

[afcansf]

The fact most member states refused to ask theie citizens if you wanted to join, and the few who did ignored the outcome of the referendums till they got a positive result. The EU ignored 3 referendums that rejected the EU consitution and changed the legal definition from a "constitution" to an "treaty" so they coulg ignore the outcomes anf force it through as the Lisbon Treaty says enough. The EU is different theny other force from the past who tried to conquer Europe, the fact most of its founding fathers were hight ranked Nazi's & fascist also say enough. Not to mention that the parlement has no power, they dont have the "right of initiative (cant make their own proposals & agenda) and both the EU Commission and the European council can reject every voting outcome of the parlement till they are satisfied with the result. And the list goes on, but sadly there we have two generation of braindwashed people who werent their went everything went down.

[dennisengelen]

Democracy in Belgium: over 40% of the population voted for a far right winged and a center right winged party, so a center-right government yet we got a center-left coalition of 7 parties with the least votes and a prime minister from one of those parties.

[suddenly_radical]

Maybe they should do something about corruption... I mean lobbying

[thomashaidvogl]

In my opinion one of the most problematic things within the EU is the need to get unanimously decisions by all countries. I understand the idea (which isn't a bad one by itself), but it basically boils down to important decisions being blocked by the vetos of one or more countries (it's the same with the UN security council). If we find a way to improve this decision making process, the EU might be able to turn around the situation and become more prosperous again. If not I fear either a dragging degeneration into nothingness or a sudden implosion...

[peterslinger]

If course it is not democratic. The European Commisdion proves that point

[skymarchall]

The biggest problem for democratic legitimacy is the Council of the European Union. Why, you wonder? It's actually quite straight forward and simple: The Council is comprised of EU heads of state, which have an executive role on the national level. However, on the EU level - i.e. in the Council - they are hold legislative power, which which means they can _pass_ laws. A function, that should only be reserved for parliaments.

So you end up with the strange situation, that when a law is rather unpopular with national parliaments, they can bring the European Commission (which was appointed by the very same heads of state) to introduce a law on which they themselves then vote on. The only safety here is the EU parliament, which luckily got more and more power over the years. But it still is democratically problematic when the same people wield executive and legislative power at the same time albeit on two different levels.

Anyways, rant end. //

[bananik]

When we have hungry still in EU Union I think they wright.they just used our taxes and dance with EU Union enemy 🇩🇰💪❤

[maboelnreads]

You seem to have forgotten to add that the unelected European Commission can veto any law they don’t like.

[theretroman]

Dude, EU is fracking wasp nest, ruled by unelected tirants! RoExit!

[alrangele]

It's created ondememocratic! Nederland out!

[harmsy]

Thank you for this incredibly well made content, if you keep it up like this, your channel will blow up definitely.

[broti]

One pretty important thing to remember on the topic of the european parliament is also that, while the parliament does not have the power to propose most laws, it does not only have the power to refuse the appointment of the commission, but also to VOTE THE COMISSION (or even single commissars) OUT OF OFFICE.
As such, the comission has little ability to NOT propose legislation the parliament wants proposed, at least if it wants to stay where it is.

[istoppedcaring]

the EU is not anti democratic offcourse, neither is the comission allpowerfull but there are still very serious issues

the use of an informal French education system as a basis for employment in the EU is an issue, you can easily check the site of the Europacollege to find out that it is far from ideologically diverse, personal accounts from students even stating that they are to either accept a specific ideological view or get out. (which is ofcourse also the main complaint towards the neoliberal advocates regarding international relations in general)

the issue of the constitution, in essence the EU cheated in a defacto constitution due to the failure to get all members on board with a formal one, I am sure it is clear how this could be a problem given that most people are not even aware of this or in fact that whilst 85% of the national legislation is EU legislation most people have no idea at all. These are in fact twin issues.

When it comes to democracy itsself I would say that it is BARELY democratic, representative democracy is supposed to be us electing the people that represent us
not us representing the people who select the people who select the people that wil represent us. It is perfectly reasonable to expect the commission members (who defacto do constitute one per member state) to be elected trough national elections in every member state,
instead they are chosen by the counsil, proposed (as an undivisible package) to parliament who can only decide yay or nay and if nay they simply restructure it, negotiate on the side a bit and it comes for parliament again and again,
relatively speaking I would NOT call that democracy.
in fact the US at least hold semi formal referenda on certain key issues on the ballot, (they should essentially be binding but corruption and "interpretation" can and often do mess with that)



I am pro EU as an idea, but not this weird state in which it exists, Make it a proper confederacy, reduce it's authorities on the national scale of countries, similarly to how the US operates regarding states and federal government but give it quasi all and exclusive authority over external matters, (also includes matters between member states ofcourse, (foodsafety for instance))

I don't mind formally becoming a state, but it has to include proper democracy, we can base ourselves in large part on our American allies but in line with Riccardo's law we can actually escape some of the major issues with the US.

[genmontgomeree]

You know the amount of Belgian politicians that leave the national politics of Belgium to retire to the EU is a running joke. Guy Verhofstadt, Didier Reynders, Kris Peeters, Charles Michel etc are unable to get re-elected in their country of origin due to bad governance are PR fiasco’s.

[Wifyish]

The difference with other institutions is that the national leaders we send there represent our voice and almost nothing is legally binding if we do not agree.

In EU it is mostly large countries like Germany that decide regardless of what our local politicians say since they have so many votes.

[blueciffer]

it's funny hearing the UK talk about "democracy" as if they don't have an unelected head of state

[Krasipol]

I like that you always keep your videos short and crisp. Also really excited for the next one.

[jasonkingshott]

Wonder why the EU electorate is not allowed to elect a ruling party or a president, perhaps they might put their tick in the wrong box.

[davidjennings]

The arguments for Brexit were just designed to be parroted, not factual.