Live data from Hacker News

EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

techdirt.com

41–50 of 122 posts

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#41
post #4

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

EU is not supposed to be democratic.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#42

Good news. Strengthens the case significantly for the EU to be abandoned.

No. It strengthens the case for changing the EU, it doesn't strengthen any particular argument for the future state. Abandoning the EU today would be an economic and social catastrophe, since it requires the re-erection of barriers at borders over which massive free flows of trade and labour currently exist. Germany's exports would be annihilated, the central European labour pool would be stranded, and several reintr…

Why would eliminating the EU require re-erecting trade and migration barriers? That doesn't make sense to me. Why not keep the good and throw out the bad?

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#43
post #21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah okay, so when he says "I would consider proposing some clarifications to ACTA" he's just blowing smoke - talking about making cosmetic statements about ACTA which would encourage parliament to ratify it, but wouldn't actually fix the abuse cases that come from the vague wording?

Whenever I hear a politician talk about "clarifications" alarm bells ring in my head. It basically means changing marketing not the facts.

Yeah, we remember how the constitution, which has been rejected by referendums, became the "simplified treaty": exactly the same text but with articles moved, rephrased, obfuscated. The polite way to describe the EU is as a very-indirect democracy.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#44
post #33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are these fascist parties in Europe? Seriously, I live in Europe and never seen any. In most EU countries propagating nazi ideology is criminal offense.

Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing. I know of openly fascist Golden Dawn party from Greece. And I think there are Tricolour Flame, New Force and National Social Front in Italy. There are also plenty of horrible evil parties with a similar agenda (but not identifying as right-wing or fascist) growing like mushrooms all over rest of the Europian continent.

To be specific "fascist" stuff is outlawed in italy, though this is barely enforced. This basically means you have fascist symbology and slogans on posters, fliers and speech, but you don't write "fascista" in the party name.

There are a few of them, but far right parties have very little consensus (e.g. maybe 2-3% total), protest voting seem to go in different directions.

By comparison, the hungarian far right is the third party in the parliament, and got a whopping 16%+ in the last elections.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#45
post #4

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

EU is not supposed to be democratic.

And yet it has a democratically elected parliament.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#46
post #4

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

EU is not supposed to be democratic.

Thats why the EU (in its current form) should never have existed.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#47
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It strengthens the case for changing the EU, it doesn't strengthen any particular argument for the future state. Abandoning the EU today would be an economic and social catastrophe, since it requires the re-erection of barriers at borders over which massive free flows of trade and labour currently exist. Germany's exports would be annihilated, the central European labour pool would be stranded, and several reintr…

Why would eliminating the EU require re-erecting trade and migration barriers? That doesn't make sense to me. Why not keep the good and throw out the bad?

Exactly the EU should be a free trade zone and the should unify in a way that makes it easier for goods, services and people to be sold everywhere.

The is almost no need for a waterhead burocracy in brussel.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#49
post #6
post #4

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

Sadly the parliament is essentially a powerless organ by design. The problem is that the european commission accumulates both executive power and most of the legislative power, where the later should lie with parliament. The end result is that the parliament is basically a farcical attempt to give the appearance of democratic legitimacy to the EU legislative process, but the farce is transparent enough that it just e…

The European Parliament has been getting more power with every treaty change.

So the EP is the one that's accumulating power (which is right, but hasn't gone far enough yet)

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#50
post #10

We clearly need to rebuild European Institutions from the ground up. I'm fully in favor of the European Union as a federal state but to achieve this it is mandatory for the European institutions to stop relying on country representatives or people who were just nominated and rely instead on elected people (and their representatives i.e. a prime minister for the European parliament for example), like in any proper dem…

Agreed. But the EP has been getting more and more stronger with each treaty change. Which is good. We'll just continue this progress.
Post reply on HN