6 ms·

Because it doesn't, people are just embarrassingly ignorant of how the EU legislative process works so when a vote to give first approval to a text is cancelled

• zelphirkalt 10mo ago
  This is of course a process, that does not lend itself to be democratic, because it is way longer than most people's attention span. People don't manage to remember things that happened in politics 4 years ago in their own country. Now they are required to follow up on dozens of shitty proposals, all probably illegal in their own country, and those don't even happen in their own country? That divides the number of people, who even start looking into this stuff by a factor of 1000 or so.
  • mejutoco 10mo ago
    Is there a website that tracks these? That would be a nice divulgation process.
    • rbehrends 10mo ago
      There is the Parliament's legislative train website [1]. However, it only tracks actual legislative steps, not the intra-Council negotiations, so the proposal's page appears to be have been largely inactive since 2024 [2]. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/ [2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new-era-for-european-defence-and-security/file-combating-child-sexual-abuse-online https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new...
  • basisword 10mo ago
    >> that does not lend itself to be democratic, because it is way longer than most people's attention span The attention span of the general public _shouldn't_ matter. That's why we elect politicians.
    • forgetfulness 10mo ago
      That could still be democratic in principle if it weren’t for lobbyists If legislative processes are so drawn out and complex that no more than a handful of ordinary citizens could keep track of them, the advantage that paid lobbyists have over the public is enormous
      • saubeidl 10mo ago
        That's where Unions and NGOs come in. Their job is to be lobbyists for the people, against corporate power.
    • graemep 10mo ago
      > The attention span of the general public _shouldn't_ matter. That's why we elect politicians. It would work if we could elect politicians who were both competent and trustworthy. Of course that would require successfully electing people who are competent about a broad range of issues, able to see through well funded and clever lobbying, unblinded by ideology, and able to resist pressure.
    • Xelbair 10mo ago
      Is the process democratic if citizen's opinions are irrelevant? No matter who's in charge, no matter the election results, no matter the protests - the same style of legislation is pushed. and once something's in it is almost impossible to remove.
      • iso1631 10mo ago
        That describes pretty much every democratic government in the world, from the USA to New Zealand
  • scrollaway 10mo ago
    People’s attention span has decreased to a matter of days now, if not hours. Have you seen how quickly front page news in the US is forgotten? The democratic process needs a revamp but it shouldn’t be driven by the general populations attention span.
    • ahsillyme 10mo ago
      I wouldn't be so sure of that assertion regarding attention span. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance granted, it's about opinion rather than capability but the same bias would explain such a reflexive judgment, and such a judgment will have negative consequences if it is false. (Consensus can be shaped, as can the perception of consensus be.)
  • squigz 10mo ago
    People on average are really not that stupid and are absolutely capable of looking back a few years for context.
    • DangitBobby 10mo ago
      We clearly live in different worlds.
      • squigz 10mo ago
        Maybe that says more about your biases than it does about the intelligence of 8 billion people though.
        • DangitBobby 10mo ago
          I'm not sure what factual basis you have for your optimism. I have plenty for my pessimism about human nature and our ability to competently govern ourselves as well as our general moral fortitude. We've gotten this far because we've been playing life on easy mode with a ridiculously nurturing planet and practically unlimited energy available under the ground, but we aren't smart enough or forward thinking enough to take on the minor pain necessary to avoid the catastrophe we are lumbering towards. We are short-sighted, selfish, self-important, and we haven't earned the regard in which we hold ourselves. Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis.
          • squigz 10mo ago
            > We've gotten this far because we've been playing life on easy mode with a ridiculously nurturing planet and practically unlimited energy available under the ground, but we aren't smart enough or forward thinking enough to take on the minor pain necessary to avoid the catastrophe we are lumbering towards. We are short-sighted, selfish, self-important, and we haven't earned the regard in which we hold ourselves. Where's your "factual basis" for such assertions? > Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis. 1) People regularly online are a rather specific group 2) People sharing their opinions online are a very specific group 3) Basing your views on society at large on opinions of those groups is a risky strategy, especially given how easy it has become to spread propaganda online Anyway as for my optimism, it's based on actually interacting with people directly. Having discussions with them. Talking to them about what they believe, and why. They're usually a lot more complex and intelligent than those various descriptors used above.
  • GeoAtreides 10mo ago
    what do you mean, a slow bureaucracy is a democratic bureaucracy. the last thing you want is a highly efficient bureaucracy enacting change quickly. This message brought to you by the Bureau of Sabotage
    • ekianjo 10mo ago
      There is nothing democratic about the process. It's all unelected politicians ruling for you
      • GeoAtreides 10mo ago
        I was making a joke (and referencing a book); that being said, you're wrong, no unelected politicians are ruling for me or any other european citizen.
        • Am4TIfIsER0ppos 10mo ago
          Which politicians ran on a platform of "we are going to spy on you"? I guess all of them do.
          • wongarsu 10mo ago
            "unelected politicians" and "politicians that do things outside their campaign promises" are very different claims
      • iso1631 10mo ago
        Which ones are unelected - the democratically elected heads of the member state governments? Or the democratically elected members of the EU parliament? Or the commissioners that are appointed by the democratically elected heads of the member state governments?
        • surgical_fire 10mo ago
          I tried the same questions on multiple different threads, to multiple different imbeciles posting the same bullshit. You will never get an answer from them. But we should keep asking it anyway. I always wondered if they live on the EU and are genuinely too stupid to understand how the bloc their country joined works or, most likely, live outside of it and the idea of the EU as a political entity offends their sensibilities or heighten their anxiety.
• andrepd 10mo ago
  > Because it doesn't, people are just embarrassingly ignorant of how the EU legislative process works Hmm, now whose fault is it that the EU institutions are so complicated and opaque? The citizens? The journalists? Or maybe...?
  • arlort 10mo ago
    They're not complicated for anyone with above room temperature IQ. And they're almost identical to how it works in the member countries anyway And in a democracy if you don't know how your own laws are made the fault is always yours as a voter
    • elenchev 10mo ago
      Why do people get so defensive about obviously flawed processes? This reply reads like a 4chan comment written by a frustrated teenager
      • input_sh 10mo ago
        Quite the contrary, you don't get to claim that the entire process is flawed while failing to demonstrate even the most basic understanding of it.
    • hn_throw2025 10mo ago
      Identical in every respect other than those with the power to initiate legislation are completely immune to voter displeasure. The Commission have no direct link to the electorate and the your country's (sorry, “state”) Council representatives can hide behind collective consensus.
      • arlort 10mo ago
        > the power to initiate legislation are completely immune to voter displeasure Completely immune is overstating it, and the power to initiate legislation is not that meaningful given that the EC initiates what the council tells it to initiate and can't actually turn it into law without parliament and council
• Xelbair 10mo ago
  The issue is not with the lack of understanding of "process". But sheer frustration because there's nothing you can do as just a citizen. An unelected council of !notAyatollah has decided, and this thing is being pushed at glacier slow pace. If EU is a trade union this is a severe overreach, if EU wants to be a federation, there's not enough checks and balances. This is the crux of the problem. The issue is that this is a legislation that only ones in power want(censorship on communications channel where they themselves are exempt from it), that has been pushed over and over again under different names(it goes so far back - it started with ACTA talks and extreme surveillance proposals to fight copyright violations) and details in implementation and/or excuse(this time we get classic "think of the children")
  • saubeidl 10mo ago
    The Council is a meeting of the heads of state, all of which are elected in their respective countries. Your problem is with the leadership of countries, not with the EU as an institution. I agree that it is a problem btw, but I think you got the wrong culprit. This isn't pushed on the states by the EU, this is the states using the EU to push it and launder the bad publicity.
    • anonymous908213 10mo ago
      The culprit is correct. If the EU exists for political laundering, then it is the organisation which is harmful to the people's interests. Nobody voted for any of these heads of states on a platform of enacting Chat Control. That was not on the ballot or the platform of any party in any individual EU country. If it was, they would not have voted for it. If an individual party tried to initiate a chat control bill in its own country, it would surely face a massive reckoning at the next election[1]. Therefore, an individual party would likely not undertake to enact chat control. It is the existence of the EU which is enabling politicians to force undesirable legislation on their populace. In that environment, it is entirely correct to call the EU an un-democratic process. If it exists to pass legislation nobody would vote for and take the blame, then it will in fact be rightfully at blame and provide a strong motivation for people to exit the EU. [1] In fact, we have helpfully seen this play out with our friendly early exiter. The remarkably self-destructive Labour party has passed their own absolute nonsense "online safety" bill, and are likely to be utterly destroyed in the next election with repealing the bill being part of the platform of the party that is polling at ~twice the share of the next largest party. With the EU providing blame-as-a-service, though, it is unlikely that anybody will be able to repeal Chat Control once rammed through, without exiting the EU entirely.