Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

Glad we could delay it for now. It will come back again and again with that high of support though. Also the German Bundestag is already discussing a compromise: https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356. They are only unhappy with certain points like breaking encryption. They still want to destroy privacy and cut back our rights in the name of "safety", just a little less.

The bigger issue is that we need to make the EU actually democratic. Start by removing every branch but the European Parliament. That's the only solution.

What you are proposing would amount replacing the current bicameral legislature (with the European Parliament as the lower house and the Council of the EU as the upper house) with a unicameral legislature. That would actually make it easier for bad laws to be passed, especially as the supermajority required in the Council is currently the biggest obstacle for this kind of legislation.

I'll also note that nothing here is per se undemocratic. Both the Parliament and the Council are made up of elected members. The members of the Council (as members of the national governments) are indirectly elected, but elected all the same. Direct election is not a requirement for a democracy (see election of the US president or the US Senate prior to the 17th amendment or the Senate of Canada right now).

That does not mean that there isn't plenty of valid criticism of the EU's current structure, but claiming that it is not "actually democratic" falls far short of a meaningful critique.

The EU isn't undemocratic, but it feels undemocratic to many, and that's a legitimacy issue worth taking seriously

We did not elect EU leaders. They keep secrets (COVID vaccin deals), they exempt themselves from ChatControl, they are obliged to store their communications yet internally recommend Signal with disappearing messages. Whats democratic about it?

> We did not elect EU leaders

Did we not?

I voted for the EU parliament. I voted for my government, which forms the council and appoints the commission.

The council is composed of representatives of each state. That means you did not vote for 26 out of the 27 members, and most states don't have special elections for European Council members* -- which means that most of them have not been elected into their Council position.

* the Council of composed of ministers and heads of government. Ministerial posts are distributed among the winning party members in pretty much every country, and only presidential systems have a direct election for their head of government. In constitutional monarchies, the head of government is commonly assigned to the largest party leader, but it's not a directly electable position.

I mean sure. But that's how most democratic systems work?

A Californian did not vote for the Senator from North Carolina.

A Londoner did not vote for the MP from Edinburgh.

A Berliner did not vote for the Bavarian Bundesrat member.