Has the Commission become an untrustworthy clique of one "profession"?
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How do you tell the difference between a democrat and a tyrant who claims to be a benevolent democrat but follows other interests, such as spending tax money to suit the clique? The answer is open decision-making by authentic representatives of the people and an effective, fair Court of Justice.
How do people get redress if the EU institutions hide behind a ‘democratic’ facade of closed meetings? The people should be able to appeal to the Human Rights Court, but the EU does not recognize the Charter of the Community that would facilitate it. No individual, association or even nation can complain about the way institutions abuse their power, gang up on dissident views or are just plain unaccountable.
The Americans, in asserting their own independence in 1776, called King George of England a tyrant. Why? Because he wanted to tax them without giving them representation. He imposed a lot of other objectionable measures too, without their consent. The king put them under his governors. The Americans said: ‘Enough is enough! We want freedom to chose our own government.’
A constitutional republic is a State where the majority rules and where the minorities are protected. There must be representative bodies or mechanisms to protect the poor and the powerless.
The European Community created a supranational constitution for war-torn Europe. In the European Community five bodies were installed, all of which were to become completely representative or elected. … Until politicians thought to ‘improve’ the three Community treaties by blocking people’s rights in them and adding their own ill-thought out fabrications in the so-called European Union.
A democracy sets its own priority. Whatever a democracy is, it is not run by closed meetings. The people voice their requirements, they elect people to act, and sack them if they don’t. And what sort of democracy do they have at the European level?
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It would be farcical for a Commission President to have a closed door meeting with bosses of political parties and then announce to the press:
Together, we have defined core priorities. They are built around prosperity, security, DEMOCRACY.
It is an open admission that the EU is not democratic. It has a closed-door veneer.
The European Community was created to give the widest level of protection to three strata of society, and their majorities and minorities:
nations,
European civil associations and
individuals.
But the European Union with its many modifications of the original democracy has failed to live up to the task.
Should the EU Commission now be classified politically and scientifically as a tyranny?
What do its former Commissioners say? The 2024 European Commission is presently being assembled amid some controversy. One politician whose mandate as Commissioner did not get renewed accused the president of ‘questionable governance.’ This is palpable to the public.
Crisis of Lack of Trust
When asked to rate their trust out TEN, the European institutions can barely raise a shout to five from the public. That is pretty appalling. European bodies are supposed to outshine and be an example to national democracies. The figures come from EU’s own agency, Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
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Is the slightly better rating of the EU due to the funding it gives with great publicity to certain groups, like students?
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Trust can only be earned because the people have confidence that they have helped to chose their leaders and have the ability to sack them when they fail.
Who gets chosen to be members of the European Commission?
What voice do the people have?
Why are Commissioners nearly all ex-national, often unwanted politicians?
How can the public sack a duff Commissioner?
How was it done in the past and was it fairer?
The Purpose of the Commission
Let’s look at the Commission. What is its purpose? Who should be its members?
If an ex-Commissioner (a former businessman) publicly calls out that the Commission’s internal governance isn’t working, what does that say about how the Commission deals with the 4 or 5 hundred million people?
What has gone wrong? A lot! And a lot of shim-sham covers it up.
The European Community was designed like no other institution in the world. The EU is not a federal or centralised institution of European States, nor is it a confederal one, meaning part of an association of totally free and independent States.
The Commission alone has full federal powers but Member States are still free and democratically controlled by parliamentary systems.
Why is the Commission there? Its function is to preserve peace, increase prosperity and build the rule of law between States, after they have agreed to these measures democratically. It is an improvement on American democracy and far ahead of Athenian democracy which was little more in principle than mob rule.
The Commission was designed as an arbitrator, an honest broker, the guardian of the treaties jointly agreed. It is there to help European peoples come to common decision and to help maintain what they have agreed to.
This is how the Community process works. The Commission gets opinions from the other institutions as they deliberate on its draft law. Each layer of society: national, civil associations and individual can help refine a consensus in open debate and ensure their interests are protected. It may get multiple revisions. Then the Commission decides. Once it has published its own final draft in the Official Journal it becomes law. Appeals can only be made to the European Courts in Luxembourg or Strasbourg, or by agreeing a new law.
That is great power. The members of the Commission have to be totally IMPARTIAL if they are not to be accused of wasting money, crookedness or tyranny.
A Commission of all Men?
Should the European Commission be composed of all men? Many women would object to that because their voice would, at most, be only indirectly heard.
Should the European Commission be all women? That would be equally unacceptable. What about fifty-fifty? There is no legal basis for that fractioning.
Nor do the treaties say that a certain number should be old and others young. It does not say some should be married and others not. Nor is there a requirement for Commissioners to have children and understand the next generation. Population decline is one of Europe’s greatest problems. It is not addressed, however, as a priority for the future.
What is required? The treaties say that the members should be ‘chosen by reason of their general competence’ and ‘exercise their functions in full independence, in the general interest of the Community.’ They should not seek or accept instructions from anyone: governments or any organisation.
They should be
competent,
impartial and
seen to be impartial.
Can a Clique be impartial?
The Treaty of Lisbon says much the same as the earliest treaties:
Members of the Commission shall neither seek nor take instructions from any Government or other institution, body, office or entity. (Article 17.3)
The only exception is in article 18.2 where the High Representative for Security and Foreign Affairs is legally allowed to converse with the Council of Ministers and the national foreign ministers.
This is a sharp legal distinction and bar for other Commissioners. They do not have that exceptional privilege to seek out and converse with ministers. There is a good reason why not. They should not talk to ministers privately or any one else about matters under discussion. Other politicians might be a message carriers and influence their judgement.
Thus it is clear that:
Members of the Commission should not be members of political parties. At least they should renounce membership of political parties and not show ideological bias.
They should not get together with other party members of their forbidden, previous political parties before meetings of, for example, the European Council. It is a dereliction if the guardians of the treaties openly break the treaty articles aimed at them. No wonder trust is so low.
Why do the Commissioners convene private meetings with their political parties? Parties are essentially lobby groups. They exclude those that disagree with them. Not a place for an impartial, independent arbitrator to be.
It is exactly the opposite of a person would if he wants to be impartial and be seen to be impartial!
Impartial arbitrators?
The Commissioners give an oath before the judges of the European Court of Justice that they will respect the above treaty article. They have to be impartial like the judges before whom they make this solemn declaration.
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A judge may not have secret conversations with one party in a dispute. A judge listens to the case of both, openly. Everything has to be done in the open and on the record. Neither the judges nor the Commissioners are allowed to take instructions from political parties, industries, trade unions, or consumer organisations or ‘stake-holders’ whose stakes may be far from balanced for the public.
Political parties by their nature do not represent all the people. In the European parliamentary elections, they cannot raise enough popular support for a majority of voters to come out to vote for any of them, unless a State makes not voting subject to a fine. Vote or else!
In short most people vote with their feet for None of the Above on the ballot sheet.
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A non-partisan Commission must be non-party
Common sense. The original Commission was composed of personalities with a wide range of backgrounds: engineers, diplomats, law professors, former managers, skilled manual workers. The first president was an international cognac salesman! He was impartial when it came to coal and steel but he knew trade problems.
Contrary to criticism from some people, these professionals fiercely defended the rights of the people against governments, and cartels of financiers, bankers and industries that wanted to close down the Community peace experiment.
Yes, the broader the background and experience of Commissioners who defended the Community, the better it was for the average citizen. Politicians have a tendency to compromise or cave in.
Political Corruption
So why and how did the Commission become a collection of rejected and unpopular politicians? This is due to the secretive nature of the Councils, especially the European Council. which has little or no accountability. Heads of government do horse-trading where no one could see any dirty business going on. They positioned their own clique as presidents in the Commission, parliament and other institutions.
Unsurprisingly, all the people in this horse-trading business for the future of Europe were politicians. And guess what? Over time they made sure that all the Commissioners were fellow politicians, regardless of what the treaties say!
Not a good choice.
The Pew Research group concluded a survey:
Across the 14 European Union countries surveyed, few express positive views of political parties. Only six parties (of the 59 tested) are seen favorably by half or more of the population. Populist parties across Europe also receive largely poor reviews. Of the 21 populist parties asked about in the survey, only six receive positive reviews by four-in-ten or more of the population; all six were also part of the government in their respective countries when the survey was fielded.
A Fair Choice of Honest Commissioners
The original Commission had to be selected on a fair and just basis. That ensured that the Commissioners selected by States or governments had the support of all the European population.
How was it done? Each of the national ministers in the Council was allowed to suggest one or two candidates. They did not have to be nationals of their State. They had to be independent of party, lobbies and government. They had to be of known good character.
Then the public was allowed to make comments as to whether the candidate was honest and had a good reputation of being unscrupulous, fair and unbiased, without ideological bias.
Some of these first candidates were rejected by their own public or outcry from other publics. Thus Europeans had Commissioners who they could trust and were sure they were not partisan.
The Way Forward
When is Europe going to have a fair system of selecting Commissioners who are both independent and impartial?
The first step is to demand open governance and open Councils. Complete records of all discussions should be published.
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