[lbo-talk] Europe versus America (Was NYT hires a new hack)

Wendy Lyon wendy.lyon at gmail.com
Wed Jan 2 07:58:12 PST 2008


On 02/01/2008, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 2. An effective mechanism of recalling unpopular
> governments - EU does have it through a parliamentary
> system and no-confidence vote, US does not.

There is no mechanism to recall an unpopular EU government, only unpopular governments of individual member states.


> 3. Political representation of minority interests -
> EU has it (it is called parliamentary democracy or
> proportional representation),

Parliamentary democracy and proportional representation are not the same thing. Britain is an example of a country that has the former and not the latter.


> 4. Political representation of labor interests - EU
> has it, the US does not.

If you mean the various Labour parties, it's questionable to what degree some of them still really represent the interest of workers (again, particularly in Britain).

And you didn't actually answer Doug's questions:


> What democratic control is there over the Eurocrats
> in Brussels? What
> real power does the European Parliament have? What
> share of the
> European pop thinks of itself as European before
> they think of
> themselves as French or Polish?

(The answer to all the above, incidentally, is "not much").



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