Tuesday, July 1, 2014

It used to be that the Council of Europe (i.e. the heads of national governments) elected the President without consideration of the wants of MEPs. During the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 it was decided by all EU nations, including the UK, that that the President would instead be drawn from the party bloc with the most votes in the Euro elections, thus giving the President greater democratic legitimacy. This process came to be called the Spitzenkandidaat process and was implemented in 2009.
What the UK proposes is unilaterally vetoing a process they previously agreed to during the Treaty of Lisbon, essentially chucking their toys out of the pram because they don't like the candidates and ignoring the voting choice made by millions of continental Europeans.
Again I reiterate, the candidate, Junker, drawn from the party bloc who won the most votes in the Euro elections, the EPP. This is democracy, against which British politicians are acting against because they don't like the candidate.
Further, the UK Conservative party because they are part of an anti-EU party bloc have no spitzenkandidaat, they left the centre right bloc to join the Nazis and freaks on the fringe instead. A massive strategic error which they refuse to admit.
Just because the UK public did not understand the gravity of the Euro elections does not mean Junker is being voted in on an anti-democratic platform. Quite the opposite, the new system is more democratic than the old, where the Council of Europe simply decided who they wanted to become President with no influence from the EU Parliament, (the vehicle for direct public representation via MEPs).
Essentially the British government and British media have shot themselves in the foot: because the British public have not been given the information required to understand the new EU voting system the British public shunned the EU elections.
In doing so the British have reduced their voice in Europe and thus removed themselves from any real influence on the proceedings on electing a President, a blunder of quite epic proportions.
Nothing but a shambolic strategically inept joke, and yet the usual chorus of uninformed Brits will continue to rant about the EUSSR, socialists and Marxists when the real inhibitors of democracy are poncing about in Westminster and dining with right-wing media barons

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