As far as I knew we vote in European MP's and the system is more or less based on parliamentary democracy, no? How is the EU not democratic? EU citizens no more have a say in voting in the 'eurocrats' any more than we have voting in our civil service.

About the same way that the UK is not democratic, but that's the short answer.

Consider the EC*, the ECB and the roles of the "5 Presidents", especially the "Eurogroup" of financial ministers, as subsidiary replies.


* For clarity, the EC is identifed in here: https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e...munities_e.htm
(i.e. the Commission)

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Dave

From earlier in this thread...

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Well... going on our past and present UK political leaders we may as well have a meercat to run our country.



But saying that he will probably use his 2 for 1 best friend cinema ticket to dump his front bench and invite Obama instead

Sorry.. a bit off topic but couldn't resist it

Can you point to what EU legislation accommodates this and how this has given Merkel undue influence? Otherwise it's just hyperbolic - And as far as
I knew the UK has only taken in 20,000 from Syria?

You should read the Daily Mail.

Millions of them are here illegally already. Millions more are just waiting to get there. They're all heavily armed rapists and most of them are also carrying machine guns, selling drugs to children and raping old women.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

You've totally missed the reasoning. If there was EU legislation giving her the power it would be democratic. But there isn't, therefore it is undemocratic. Nein?

Merkel has undue influence due to Germany's role as paymaster of euroland. This is not democracy. Read Germany's power polarises Europe.


Nowt to do with democratic processes.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

The link requires a login to read the full article; in any case, the ref is to Greece and there are plenty of other sources for information about that case study.
As recently as last night on UK TV there ran a 1 hour doc about the islands and mainland of Greece (with a second episode to run next Sunday).
The island of Crete was a particularly striking report.
Even allowing for an amount of stage management of such TV reporting it was striking.

Greece has overall unemployment rates of 25% and 50% for minors: this in a country which has a recent history of government by the "Junta" of generals, never mind the turn toward communism immediately after WW2.

The contrast between the northern Europe countries and Greece is stark.
Even geographically, Greece is out on a limb with no contiguous boundary to the Shengen zone.

Regarding how the EU goes about it's business, see the economic crisis thread for what happened in Cyprus* as an indication of how the ECB does business with the nation states that adopted the Euro.

*Ps
It's on page 8:-
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...crisis-59853-8

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Dave

I've just noticed that the documentary about Greece is repeated on BBC2 this very night - at 2315.

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Dave

I think this sums it up

Portugal wrinkles its nose at UK's EU deal - BBC News

The Portuguese economy is in the toilet. They view coming to the UK as easier than learning a language other than English and like our modern society over their own traditional one. Their government doesn't give a damn about the UK but will sell the commission their vote if they get something they do want.

The result is that
Londoners cant afford the rent in their own city and every green space will be built on. We don't train nurses because we can just hire Portuguese ones. It's like working hard to buy a nice house then finding every tramp in the city can just move in.

The Portuguese need to sort their own country not move here or their economy will remain stuffed. Britain needs to be forced to use its own resources first.

Andy

Portugal is one of the PIGS, and the financial commentators have provided a lot of input to where those countries are heading.
All of the PIGS economies have gone down the pan; currently, many commentaries forecast that Italy will be next to go the way of Greece.

The BBC article reminds me of the 50 States of the USA, wherein the populations are relatively mobile and go to where ever the employment opportunities are best for their personal circumstances - levels of education, training, knowledge of the local language and their "get up and go" approach to life in general (a bit like a motorcycle traveller).

We in the UK are hoisted on our own petard; having given the English language to the world, more or less by accident, it is no surprise that it is an attraction to use fluency in that language for individuals to better themselves.
"Fluency" though; there is a big difference between a basic conversational skill and dealing with, say, technical "speak" - some years ago I attended a meeting with a german construction company based in Cologne and my conversational german lasted no more than a couple of minutes once the topics moved on to talk about bridging over the river Rhine.

Of course, we export our pensioners to the PIGS countries, for their own better personal lives, lower cost of living, better weather in the winter, improvement in their arthritic symptoms, a better diet etc etc.
Thereby, we export our £ denominated pensions, convert them to Euro and spend cash into those economies.

Portugal gives us, in return, better football managers.

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Dave