On 09/03/2022 11:51, Java Jive wrote:
> On 09/03/2022 09:33, Indy Jess John wrote:
>> On 09/03/2022 03:07, Java Jive wrote:
>>> On 08/03/2022 22:38, Robin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 08/03/2022 21:59, Java Jive wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 08/03/2022 20:59, Indy Jess John wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The man in the street elects the MPs who form the Parliament from
>>>>>> which is drawn the UK Government. The UK Parliament can develop
>>>>>> policy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Man in the street elects MEPs who form the European Parliament.
>>>>>> The European Parliament cannot develop policy, it can only discuss
>>>>>> and vote on policies presented to them by the European Commission.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nonsense, reread the links given, which I note that you've snipped.
>>>>> The Commission is the EU's equivalent of our civil service, and as
>>>>> such it is responsible for drafting legislation requested by the
>>>>> democratically elected European Parliament, and by the European
>>>>> Council, which itself is composed of the democratically elected
>>>>> leaders of member nations. If this is somehow undemocratic, how come
>>>>> you're not complaining that our civil service is not democratically
>>>>> elected?
>>>>
>>>> The Commission is now like the CS /plus/ Ministers. And unlike
>>>> Ministers here, only the Commission can start the formal legislative
>>>> process.
>>>>
>>>> Your own link has it right:
>>>>
>>>> "The European Commission (EC) is the executive branch of the European
>>>> Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the
>>>> Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a
>>>> President.It includes an administrative body of about 32,000 European
>>>> civil servants....The governmental powers of the Commission have been
>>>> such that some, including former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt,
>>>> have suggested changing its name to the "European Government", calling
>>>> the present name of the Commission "ridiculous"."
>>>>
>>>> and
>>>>
>>>> "The Commission differs from the other institutions in that it alone has
>>>> legislative initiative in the EU. Only the commission can make formal
>>>> proposals for legislation: they cannot originate in the legislative
>>>> branches."
>>>
>>> Selective quoting, the next section reads [my caps]: "Under the Treaty
>>> of Lisbon, no legislative act is allowed in the field of the Common
>>> Foreign and Security Policy. In the other fields, the Council and
>>> Parliament are able to request legislation; IN MOST CASES THE COMMISSION
>>> INITIATES ON THE BASIS OF THESE PROPOSALS. This monopoly is designed to
>>> ensure coordinated and coherent drafting of EU law.[48][49]"
>>>
>>> So, although the Commission alone can initiate legislation, there would
>>> be little point in it doing so against the wishes of either the Council
>>> or the Parliament, because, just as in the UK, these democratically
>>> elected, one directly the other indirectly, bodies are required to
>>> ratify all law drafted by the Commission, so why would the Commission
>>> waste their own time and create a rod for their own backs by drafting
>>> unpopular laws that were never likely to get past the democratic process
>>> of ratification? Which was exactly the sort of crap being claimed up
>>> thread, and that I was debunking, let's look at it again: "the political
>>> construct that is the undemocratic, unelected, administered by
>>> patronage, unaccountable to its "subjects" European Union." Nowhere is
>>> that borne out by the documents linked. It's just another Europhobic
>>> lie.
>>>
>>> To see how the EU actually works in practice, take, for example, the
>>> proposed law to enforce USB-C charging cables for small electronic
>>> devices. This began as long ago as 2014 through a majority vote in the
>>> European Parliament ...
>>>
>>> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20140307IPR38122/meps-push-for-common-charger-for-all-mobile-phones
>>>
>>>
>>> ... and resulted in a voluntary Memorandum of Understanding. However,
>>> recently the MEPs decided that this voluntary arrangement was not moving
>>> things on completely and quickly enough, and requested the Commission to
>>> produce legislation ...
>>>
>>> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0024_EN.html
>>>
>>> ... so the Commission went and produced a report ...
>>>
>>> https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/90e9a07d-1054-11ec-9151-01aa75ed71a1
>>>
>>>
>>> ... and then a proposal for an appropriate amendment to an existing
>>> directive to cover the issue ...
>>>
>>> https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755
>>>
>>> ... which is about where we are at now, legislation is expected to come
>>> into force in 2024.
>>>
>>> And, remember, this arose from an initiative by democratically elected
>>> MEPs, not the Commission. You could argue that it's taken too long to
>>> get there, but that was mainly because it was decided to try a voluntary
>>> approach first, and the reluctance of one particular major brand to
>>> comply with the voluntary agreement.
>>>
>> Hoist by your own petard!
>
> Not.
>
>> In the UK the electorate vote for an MP. That MP goes to the House of
>> Commons which is an executive organisation which develops and issues
>> legislation.
>
> Although it can do so, by Private Members' Bills, but see below, it
> doesn't usually *draft* the legislation, rather its role is to ratify or
> not legislation produced by others who are more experienced at that
> particular job, our civil service. In this respect, there is very
> little difference between the EU modus operandi and that of the UK
> government. See the link already given:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
>
> "Therefore, while Parliament can amend and reject legislation, to make a
> proposal for legislation, it needs the Commission to draft a bill before
> anything can become law.[49] The value of such a power has been
> questioned by noting that in the national legislatures of the member
> states 85% of initiatives introduced without executive support fail to
> become law.[50] Yet it has been argued by former Parliament president
> Hans-Gert Pöttering that as the Parliament does have the right to ask
> the Commission to draft such legislation, and as the Commission is
> following Parliament's proposals more and more Parliament does have a de
> facto right of legislative initiative.[7]"
>
>> The electorate also vote for MEPs who take their place in the European
>> Parliament. From your example above the MEPs only suggest to the
>> Commission what should be done they do not issue legislation they have
>> developed. Thus the European Parliament is not an executive
>> organisation. The MEPs are elected, but those elected only form a
>> lobbying organisation, under a fancy name to fool gullible people like
>> you into believing they have more authority than they actually have.
>
> Nonsense, as demonstrated in the example I gave up thread, and the quote
> immediately above, which continues into the next section:
>
> "Legislative procedure
>
> With each new treaty, the powers of the Parliament, in terms of its role
> in the Union's legislative procedures, have expanded. The procedure
> which has slowly become dominant is the "ordinary legislative procedure"
> (previously named "codecision procedure"), which provides an equal
> footing between Parliament and Council. In particular, under the
> procedure, the Commission presents a proposal to Parliament and the
> Council which can only become law if both agree on a text, which they do
> (or not) through successive readings up to a maximum of three. In its
> first reading, Parliament may send amendments to the Council which can
> either adopt the text with those amendments or send back a "common
> position". That position may either be approved by Parliament, or it may
> reject the text by an absolute majority, causing it to fail, or it may
> adopt further amendments, also by an absolute majority. If the Council
> does not approve these, then a "Conciliation Committee" is formed. The
> Committee is composed of the Council members plus an equal number of
> MEPs who seek to agree a compromise. Once a position is agreed, it has
> to be approved by Parliament, by a simple majority.[6][53] This is also
> aided by Parliament's mandate as the only directly democratic
> institution, which has given it leeway to have greater control over
> legislation than other institutions, for example over its changes to the
> Bolkestein directive in 2006.[34]"
>
The fact still remains that the European parliament is not an executive
organisation. It only approves that the legislation can be issued, it
does not have the authority to make the laws.

Jim