layout: policy
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
There should be only one seat for the European Parliament in Brussels. The Strasbourg seat should be abolished.
Former Commissioners of the EU have first hand experience of how the institutions work, and how they could be improved. Unfortunately their pensions are dependent upon them not speaking out against the EU. They should be free to lobby for reform without fear of losing their pension.
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
I'd be very grateful if someone could point me to educational material on this :) #clueless
layout: policy
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
There should be only one seat for the European Parliament in Brussels. The Strasbourg seat should be abolished.
Former Commissioners of the EU have first hand experience of how the institutions work, and how they could be improved. Unfortunately their pensions are dependent upon them not speaking out against the EU. They should be free to lobby for reform without fear of losing their pension.
The Commission should lose the monopoly on legislative initiative with the European Parliament given than right also in a system equivalent to a private members bill at Westminster.
Each member state government should lose the power to appoint a single Commissioner - a system of crony appointments that is undemocratic and unaccountable. Instead each Commissioner should be drawn from the single largest party of the European Parliament, with each member state having at least one Commissioner where possible. In this way the EU would adopt a truly Parliamentary system where the Executive arm sits within the Legislature, rather than sitting outside it.
layout: policy
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
Whilst it's right that those nations that make the greatest contribution to UN troop deployments should retain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, no nation on the UN Security Council should have the right of veto. All UN Security Resolutions should be subject to majority vote.
There should be only one seat for the European Parliament in Brussels. The Strasbourg seat should be abolished.
Former Commissioners of the EU have first hand experience of how the institutions work, and how they could be improved. Unfortunately their pensions are dependent upon them not speaking out against the EU. They should be free to lobby for reform without fear of losing their pension.
The Commission should lose its monopoly on legislative initiative. The European Parliament should be able to initiate legislation in a system equivalent to a private members bill at Westminster.
Each member state government should lose the power to appoint a single Commissioner - a system of crony appointments that is undemocratic and unaccountable. Instead each Commissioner should be drawn from the single largest party of the European Parliament, with each member state having at least one Commissioner where possible. In this way the EU would adopt a truly Parliamentary system where the Executive arm sits within the Legislature, rather than sitting outside it.
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
S'ok, I've done some reading :)
Sounds good but just one clarification on that last paragraph - are you proposing that the commissioners be made up of MEPs, or just members of the same party as the largest group of MEPs?
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
Sorry, yes I think the Commissioners should actually be MEPs in the same way that members of HM Government are also MPs. This means that there would at the very least be some element of democratic mandate to the Commissioners and they could be thrown out if the public was so inclined. Essentially this would be formation of a formal Executive/Government branch of the EU. Indeed some commentators already take issue with the name 'European Commission' and think 'EU Government' or something similar would be more appropriate.
It may sound odd for a euro-skeptic to propose something which sounds like another step towards 'United States of Europe' but my main beef with EU isn't the slide towards a single state per se, but that if such a state was to exist under the current arrangements, there is such a lack of democratic accountability. Typical example I hate: The ability of the Commission to parachute a new member-state Government of bureaucrats into Italy and Greece during the Eurozone crisis without any democratic mandate or electoral vote was appalling. That behaviour typifies the way the Commission has an incredible amount of unaccountable power.
On 22 March 2014 15:43, philipjohn [email protected] wrote:
S'ok, I've done some reading :)
Sounds good but just one clarification on that last paragraph - are you proposing that the commissioners be made up of MEPs, or just members of the same party as the largest group of MEPs?
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openpolitics/manifesto/pull/128#issuecomment-38354811 .
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
See, I'm not a big fan of the executive also being members of the legislature in that way. It's why I added the limit on MPs-as-ministers in #79.
My view on this is that MEPs (and MPs in our own Parliament) can more effectively hold the executive to account if they are independent of the executive.
Look at charities for example. Often, the board of trustees is independent of the executive. This also happens in companies with executive and non-executive directors.
Providing a split (even if not 100%) means fewer of the pool of MEPs has a vested interest in supporting the Commission. MEPs can then be free to set the agenda, and scrutinise its implementation by the Commission.
I understand objections based on the "unelected" appointments to the Commission but I would counter that drawing only from MEPs both limits the pool of talent (we want talented people running the executive branch), and increases the likelihood of politically motivated (not evidence/need based) policy. Rather unelected professionals than political careerists. I'd further contend that while they are not directly elected, they do have to be approved by the elected representatives and thus are put through a democratic mechanism.
This is an interesting one, that's made me think about things a little. I can see that democratic accountability is a good thing, but @philipjohn's separation of legislature and executive is interesting to me.
One question on the last paragraph; should the executive be drawn from the single largest party, or could it be assigned proportionally? Having the single party form the executive seems a step in the direction of EU-wide party politics, which would be a regression as far as our vision of the future is concerned, I think.
Are there systems that propose democratically elected but separate executive and legislative branches? The US is all I can think of, but apart from the President, the executive is appointed, right?
Oh, that works by the President nominating the executive, but the legislature approving them, is that right?
This is maybe not the place for this conversation, but perhaps that could work for the EU. Could commissioners not be nominated by the member states, but need the EP to approve them? I couldn't quite work out if that was already the case from reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separationofpowers#European_Union
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
On the Commission, Wikipedia says the Commission President is "proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament" which I took to mean that the Council basically gets to decide, but the EP votes on it as a democratic check.
Following that, "The Council then appoints the other 27 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and then the 28 members as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament"
The Separation of Powers article suggests that process happens to prevent the EU looking too much like a country. I suppose electing a President as well as MEPs may make many people feel uncomfortable in that sense.
I'm a 👍 on this now. I thought one clause was inaccurate, but after reading, I see that the parliament still does not technically have the power to initiate legislation, though I'm sure I heard otherwise from somewhere.
@PaulJRobinson can you agree the contributor agreement please? https://www.clahub.com/agreements/openpolitics/manifesto
@PaulJRobinson - over 9 years ago
Sorry thought I already had
— Sent from Mailbox
On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 9:50 AM, James Smith [email protected] wrote:
@PaulJRobinson can you agree the contributor agreement please? https://www.clahub.com/agreements/openpolitics/manifesto
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/openpolitics/manifesto/pull/128#issuecomment-57989546
@philipjohn - over 9 years ago
I still think we need to keep the legislature and executive separate so that the Parliament remains an independent, democratic check on the power of the Commission.
Some of this has come in in separate PRs, and the rest will need resubmitting anyway as the documents have moved on. Closing, but open to things being re-added of course.
The OpenPolitics Manifesto
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
This pull request has been automatically generated by prose.io.