Take the recent happenings in Parliament.
Since the days of the three European Communities, the president of the European Parliament has descended to typify the great farce of Europe. It is also its great shame. The President or Speaker is supposed to speak for what should be the flagship democratic body of 27 democratic countries united in peace and justice. Instead it is the dishonour of Europe. It is the laughing stock of the world.
Don't just take it from me. Check what the MEPs say below on video about how the developing world calls the EU hyprocritical. See what is said abroad about EU's fake democracy, especially when it preaches democracy to Africa, Russia, Belarus and elsewhere.
The 'Council method' provides succour to all the world's dictators who want to have a model to control parliament. It shows how Europeans' counterfeit democracy works. The Council method stops any form of elections or controls the outcome regardless of the election results. It provides a curtain, a burqa, over all the power-broking deals that are made behind closed doors.
The president is not elected. He or she is chosen by fixers in the morally darkened corridors of the European Council. Who chooses him or her? Not the European electors. The cartel of politicians in the Council choose the name of the person who is supposed speak for European Democracy and its 500 million citizens. The Speaker speaks mainly for the Council oligarchy, not the public.
1. Let us start with the elections. In 2009 I was with a number of journalists at the European Council meeting BEFORE the last European Parliament elections. A spokesman of the Polish persuasion announced to us all that the tricky mix of negotiations had successfully been horse-traded. The Poles had gained what they wanted. The next president of the European Parliament would be Mr Buzek, a Pole.
Let me repeat, this was BEFORE the European elections had taken place. Notice the COUNCIL according to the Council Method decided
- the NATIONALITY ,
- the POLITICAL PARTY and
- even the NAME of the President of the European Parliament
- WITHOUT A SINGLE MEMBER OF THE PARLIAMENT BEING PRESENT!
Isn't it ironic that the peoples formerly subject to the Soviets are now full-time players in the corrupt Gaullist system? Why are they no longer the fearless defenders of democracy and people's solidarity? Power. Power tends to corrupt.
This remarkable announcement presumes that (a) the elections are a farce and do not play a role in what happens in Parliament. (b) that the Council oligarchs know exactly who will be elected because they control the EP candidates of the party; some of course are elected on a list system; and (c) the Council or government leaders control the MEPs when they enter Parliament and discuss the presidency. They know that no independent thinker will be allowed, or at best only a few to brighten the decor. The mass of MEPs will follow exactly what the politicians in the dark recesses of the European Council have decided.
This is an act of a political CARTEL. It decides who and what, how and where with no recourse to the consumer, in this case, the voter, representing 500 million citizens.
2. In order to get this EP presidential candidate through the EP system, a vote of two-thirds is necessary. Neither of the big parties has this proportion of the vote in the EP. But two such groups have -- the European People's Party, EPP, representing what they call rightwing parties. On the other side is the group of Socialists or Social Democrats. They agree to a collectivist solution that cuts any dissident voter or MEP out of the circuit.
These two groups hold more than two-thirds of the seats and have the potential, the possibility, and I might add the undemocratic temptation, to join forces and impose their will. That would not really be fair or just to minorities or even some majorities. But it is a big temptation.
And if there is a big temptation, you can bet your cotton socks that most politicians will seize it with both hands. The undemocratic solution is that the two big parties impose their will -- whatever the election results say. They split the five year term in two. Half goes to an EPP politician and remaining half to the Socialist choice. The European Council is the body that makes the choice of WHO -- without a TV camera or without the public being allowed to hear the arguments. The horse-trading would make great television. But such sordid dealings are hardly edifying for honest citizens in 27 democracies, especially in the small countries.
The MEPs vote in a most unusual way. They use paper votes. Normally an electronic voting system is used. It is quicker and efficient. But it also traces the names of voters. This 'secret vote' system was brought in during the Gaullist period because the open voting system then could subject the parliamentarians to unfair pressures. Nowadays it just makes sure that the public does not not how their MEP voted in the corrupt system. However some hundred or so MEPs probably voted for candidates contrary to their party's and the Council's insistence.
This is the system we have had for many years and many elections, the cartel system of the Council in Parliament. De Gaulle has passed away. Many little Napoleons support the system in Council because it suits them to have an oligarchy.
3. Smaller parties, even the Liberal group or the ecologists, not to mention the more vociferous democrats who denounce the system are cut out. They may have people who would show no favouritism and have the most neutrality in becoming the president of the Parliament but they do not have a snowball's chance of attaining the office.
What do they do? The EP has long arranged it that such candidates cannot even speak. The election takes place under 'procedure' that forbids it. So what happens? The week before we had the spectacle of private organisations including the European Voice, an Economist newspaper, organising a hustings. Thus a non-parliamentary private organisation held the only meeting of major importance to Europeans. The Parliament refused to do what democrats view as normal. The three 'candidates' were invited to attend. They did but few other MEPs came. They knew things were already cut and dried by their party chiefs.
It was rather like naughty schoolchildren having a debate when the prefects said they couldn't. One candidate said the role of parliament is to control the executive, by which I believe he meant the Council. (It isn't in a supranational democracy.)
How can the EP control the Council if the Council decides who will control Parliament BEFORE THERE IS AN ELECTION?
I sat next to an American and explained that this was how the largest trading power in the world, far greater than the USA, organized its democracy. It took a newspaper to get a meeting at all.
Mr Buzek is also reported to have congratulated 'President' Schulz several days BEFORE the election took place!
For those who want, they can check what Mr Nirj Deva and Ms Diana Wallis said about the deplorable anti-democratic Council system of Parliament.
The European Parliament has never in all its nearly sixty years ever held a proper Europe-wide election according the the requirements of the treaties of Rome and Paris.
The Council says NO. The Parliament can't even organise itself.
