zlacker

A little context here since this website is highly misleading:

- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament

- EU Council is pushing this regulation

- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"

Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.

>>lucide+(OP)
Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works.

If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.

>>lucide+(OP)
Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.

>>lucide+(OP)
The whole site has that vibe-coded-website look. I wonder if a lot of the information on the site was essentially hallucinated too.

>>x775+i3
To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.

>>lucide+(OP)
You mean the Council of the EU. The EUCO is a separate body. SCNR.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...

>>lucide+(OP)
IMO this kind of pedantry detracts from the message. We know that the EC is pushing it, but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEPs. Thus a list of MEPs from countries, colour coded by whether or not the country is known to support the position. And optionally a marker for their personal opinion if known.

>>elric+WV
> but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEP

The European Council is the heads of each member state. They are literally the people elected by each nation state domestically. If they don't represent the people, then that means national democracy is broken (which I agree with in cases like the UK) but I'm making a more general point.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/

>>munksb+W11
I wasn't talking about the council, but the commission. The acronym confusion is unfortunate.

Point is that these people are very far removed from elections and political consequences. They also seem to be the types who have no idea what "normal" people are like.

>>x775+i3
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process

I think that's misleading. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1]. Meaning that the Parliament can neither change nor reverse course - it is completely decided by the Council. All the Parliament can do is limit how fast that course is followed.

Edit: Sorry, what I wrote about the "Council" should have been about the "EU Commission" instead. The Council may in fact have equal power, as you wrote.

[1] Which I think (but was unable to explicitly confirm) extends to removing old legislation. I.e. the Council only has to get its way once, and then we're stuck with a law, unless the Council proposes to remove it. A ratchet.

>>like_a+9a1
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1].

EU Council (Meeting of EU countries' head of states): Proposes what should be done

Council of the EU (Council of ministers of EU countries): Proposes what should be done

EU Commission: Proposes legislation

EU Parliament: Approves legislation

>>x775+i3
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process

The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject. Of course informally they can discuss with the Commission and let the Commission know what they would or would not pass.

> effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments

This is true. But you maybe forgot another body, the EU Commission.

EU Council, Council of the EU: Represent member states

EU Commission: Represents the EU

EU Parliament: Represents the citizens

I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".

>>sampo+ue1
> The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject.

Note that this means that, crucially, the Parliament also cannot repeal laws. Which means that they can just try and try and try again, and if it passes once, it cannot be withdrawn except by initiative of the commission.

It's like the IRA said to Thatcher, you have to be lucky every time, they only have to be lucky once.

>>elric+s41
It's a very sad state of affairs that when Trump and von der Leyen meet to represent two of the most powerful entities on Earth, one has been democratically legitimised less than a year ago, and the other has never ran in an election in her life.

>>elric+s41
Then you have understood even less. The commission act on instructions from the council. The steer for this has come from the member states, not the commission.

>>munksb+Uj1
Counterpoint: The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, sits both in the European Commission and in the European Council. And it's UvdL who is the primary driving force for chat control at this point.

>>munksb+Uj1
So what you're saying is: countries elect politicians in national elections, some of these politicians (typically the prime ministers) form the European Council, they propose a President of the Commission, the ruling government of each country then proposes one unelected Commissioner to join that Commission.

I still think it's fair to say that the Commission does not represent the people. It is many steps removed from the people. Nobody voted for any of them.

According to wikipedia, this point of view makes me a euroskeptic. Which is not something I consider myself to be, I'm a big proponent of cooperation between European countries. But I am certainly very skeptical of unelected government officials deciding on far reaching legislation that infringes upon fundamental liberties. With zero political repurcussions or liability.

>>sampo+ue1
> I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".

The Commission is the executive branch, so maybe an equivalent would be the Executive Departments?

>>elric+Pq1
It is easy to make any argument you want when this is unscientific. But it is easy to draw a line from the elected heads to state (the governments of the member countries) pushing for this, right through to the elected European Parliament (elected MEPS). The Commission is a civil service, doing the bidding of the Council, and then proposing laws to the elected Parliament.

I can't really picture what a better structure would be. The elected member state governments should always be the ones driving policy. They need a way to get that done outside of their usual national structures and civil servants, so they create the Commission. People also want to feel represented in the final votes so we create the Parliament.

What would your structure look like?

>>vaylia+Pl1
You're very naive to think UvdL is the driving force of chat control. If you truly believe that then there is no hope. This is coming from the member nation governments. If you want to oppose it, write to your politicians.

>>munksb+W11
The Dutch Prime Minister is not elected.

The Netherlands is a very complicated country.