This is to be my first post in what might turn into a series of attempts to show people that political science isn't a total waste of time , it does come to interesting conclusions occasionally even in areas that seem mostly academic like this one.
If my language is too technical at any time please let me know and I will clarify. I do not want to dissuade anyone due to not having studied the social sciences.
My name is Emmanuel Blondel, a politics undergraduate student at Keele University, United Kingdom. I'm involved quite heavily in local politics, particularly with the Green Party, but I also run and support many community schemes for local energy generation and food growing among others.
So i wrote an essay on the need for an election for the President of the EU recently, and it was quite well received, so i thought i'd share it here. If anyone is interested, do check out the Hix essay that is cited multiple times (2002a), because although I do disagree with his final conclusion, he lays out the different potential choices very well.
To anyone new to reading academic essays: Read the introduction and the conclusion (the first and last paragraph) first if you are new to the topic, then read the essay start to finish.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a president of the European Union selected on the basis of European Parliament elections?
There are two clear stages to this question, the first is more in line with political philosophy, a question of whether or not the chief executive of the EU should be elected by the citizens of the (supranational) state. The second part considers the how to the first part's why. What kind of chief executive do we want, and, crucially how should they be chosen. The election process will to a large extent determine the roles and responsibilities of this leader. This essay will mostly focus on the second question, but will begin by presenting the reasons that the first is taken more or less for granted. I take the position that at this stage, in terms of dealing with the large number of problems that EU is faced with, the need for a more visible, accountable president is evident. While Hix (2002a, 2002b) argues that the best system is one that does not use European Parliament results to choose the president, this essay will suggest that although he might be right in some respects, the image of the EU with a more directly elected president, and the effect of a more personalised EU might be more important than the practicalities.
Accountable government has been a keystone of political philosophy from Locke's Two Treatise (1963), to Schumpeter' Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943). This is based on a claim that consent is what legitimises authority, that only by consent of the demos does someone have the mandate to rule. It is for this reason that the president of the Commission is not considered a fully legitimate leader. She is chosen by the commission, and the public never has a chance to ratify the decision. It is important to note here that it is not strictly necessary for the public to directly elect the chief executive, but knowledge of who the leader will be in advance of assuming office is usually considered important. It is for this reason that Gordon Brown assuming government was considered controversial, leading to President Bush saying that Brown had “no mandate” (Jones, 2006) to govern. To clarify, if the leader is not directly elected, such as in parliamentary systems like Great Britain, the prime minister (or equivalent) is the leader of the party that forms the government, which is considered legitimate due to the fact that the public knew who this leader was before the election and as such, a vote for their party was a vote for them.
It should be clear then, what the primary advantage of having a president of the European Union selected on the basis of European Parliament elections is: as the European Union makes binding decisions on its member states, having the primary leader of the union without the mandate of the popular vote undermines the legitimacy of the entire union. It is one of factors that anti-parties, such as the National Front in France, or UKIP in Britain draw upon to criticise the Union, giving them grounds to claim that it subverts the national political system by reducing the power of those who do have a mandate to govern thereby creating a “democratic deficit” (Moravcsik, 2004, pp. 337). Strictly speaking, I should note that there is a third, underlying truism, which I have touched upon, that democracy in general is a normatively good concept. There are more reasons for this than simply legitimacy, such as the “role of expertise” (Moravcsik, 2004, pp. 344), but it suffices to note that as all the institutions that make up the European Union are democratic, it stands to reason that they in turn would want a democratic system at the supranational also.
It is where philosophy becomes reality at the supranational level that the first problem becomes visible. Robert Dahl highlights the inverse relationship where the “government gains more control over the problem, your capacity to influence that government is diminished” (Dahl, 1999, pp. 22). With a region as large of the EU, that, if the last decade is any judge, seems to be expanding, the idea that the individual has any practical ability to influence the government would be “a misleading fiction useful only to the rulers” (Dahl, 1999, pp. 22). Dahl justifies his acceptance of international organisations abandoning democratic methods by pointing out examples where the public does not seem to care about the decisions made at a supranational level. This might well be true when considering NAFTA in 1993, and the European Monetary Union in the same decade (Dahl, 1999, pp. 24), however today, the EU is daily news for its member states due to the monetary crisis, and the Euro is the dominant form of currency. As such, to say that it is okay to forgo democracy because it is over the heads of the demos, is simply a failure of the system itself to educate its electorate, not a justification for business as usual.
Assuming the EU was to adopt a presidential model, there would be many more hurdles to pass. The question of electing a president based on European Parliament elections is that it would shift the authoritative direction of the EU “from a separated-powers model of government to a fused-powers model” (Hix, 2002a, pp. 5). The reason this is a question and not necessarily a problem is that it might well be in the interest of the Union to do so, after all, by far the majority of countries in the EU use a fused-powers model (Kreppel, 2008, pp. 162-163). This model is likely to lead to stronger government that is more able to pass controversial legislation. Hix also claims that countries that have a fused-powers system tend towards more centralised, active government, proposing greater levels of regulation (Hix, 2002a). Hix's problem with this appears to be that with a European Parliament led method of choosing the executive, there would be more centralisation, which he implies would either lead to “more social regulation and redistribution, or through radical deregulation” (Hix, 2002a, pp. 6). I cannot help but feel this is a non-sequitur to some extent; it is true that it might lead to these policies, but to say that it is destined, and that more moderate policies are impossible, is far too great a simplification without the knowledge of how the political culture of a more active and scrutinised union would develop.
Here I realise that I too have made a jump, possibly naively, that having an elected leader would cause the population to have a greater interest in European elections and its government, which in turn would lead to greater scrutiny by the public and the media as a whole. Nevertheless, I do not think the jump is entirely unwarranted. EU elections are considered second-order elections (Marsh, 1998), despite the increasingly relevant effects that the EU has on national parliaments and the individual's life. On the other hand, elections that do not elect the primary executive are also considered second-order, causing their low turnout. It stands to reason that one of the causes for apathy towards European Parliament elections is due to this second justification of electoral ordering: the lack of a single candidate to vote for or against. These claims are purely theoretical, and should by no means be a justification on their own, I just wished to highlight that it seems inconsistent to argue not changing to a system that people would care more about because they do not care enough about the current system.
Another problem raised by Hix, is that “elections are mid-term contests in the national election cycles, and so are won by opposition parties”(Hix, 2002a, pp. 4). He uses this to argue against a dual executive: if the Commission chose the Council President, and the Parliament chose the Commission President, it seems likely that they would often come from different political positions, similar to how cohabitation in France occurred when the government was deeply unpopular and an election for president was held. I do not feel this justification is strong enough, as there is no real reason that this cannot happen regardless of the method chosen, unless it is chosen purely by national parliaments, which is no change at all. This is not necessarily a problem; cohabitation was lauded by some for producing more moderate governments and US presidents that pursue cross partisan policies are generally considered more democratic, and if a wish for moderate government is what Hix deems to be more applicable to the EU (as above), this would militate in favour of that. Furthermore, this is not an issue that is unique to the EU, mid term local elections suffer equal fate, without being a strong justification for their dismissal.
Soderlund, Wass and Blais (2011), show that interest in politics is strongly connected to turnout in European elections. Turnout is an indicator of fair democracy (Lijphart, 1997), and with a growing negative image and lack of trust of the EU (Eurobarometer, 2012, pp. 14-15), any methods that increase public interest in the European Union, and in turn increase turnout, should be given precedence. While the personalisation of politics does have draw backs from a party-systems point of view, potentially increasing executive dominance, for example, which is not likely to be popular in a supranational organisation like the EU, continuing with a model that does not give the voter the perception that her vote was relevant, is not in the interest of supporters of the EU in the long term. The benefit of using the European Parliament elections to elect the president is that it does not by necessity need either a particularly complicated system, nor an extra election, which could contribute to voter fatigue. That said, there is no real guarantee that a change in system will garner interest, but in light of the rejection of the EU Constitution by referendums in founding members states France and the Netherlands suggests that there is a gap between the leadership and the voter base, that needs to be rectified.
To conclude, the decision of whether or not to establish an elected president based on European Parliament, is one of trade-offs. Currently the system does not give the commission the mandate of the people, or any real accountability, as the electorate has no way of punishing the government, except through national elections which are usually fought on national issues. In regards of whether or not a President should be chosen on the back of European Parliament elections, there is no clear answer, I have presented a case built around solving some of the issues that the EU currently has from the perspective of the public, that of disenchantment and apathy. While I wholeheartedly believe that it would be better than no change, Hix provides several alternate positions, that might be more effective, but would not do much to help resolve the problem of lack of connection between electorate and elected.
Dahl, R. (1999) “Can international organisations be democratic? A skeptic's view” in ed. Shapiro, I. & Hacker-Cordon, C., Democracy's Edges, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hix, S. (2002a) Why the EU Should Have a Single President, and How She Should be Elected, London: Foreign Policy Center
Hix, S. (2002b) Linking National Politics to Europe, London: Foreign Policy Center
Kreppel, A. (2008) “Legislatures”, in ed. Caramani, D., Comparative Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lijphart, A. (1997). Unequal participation: Democracy's unresolved dilemma. The American Political Science Review, 91(1), 1-14.
Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy, Yale University Press
Locke, J. (1963) Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, London: Cambridge University Press.
Moravcsik, A. (2004) Is there a 'Democratic Deficit' in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis. Government and Opposition, 39(2), 336-363
Marsh, M. (1998) ‘Testing the Second-order Election Model after Four European Elections’, 28, 591–607.
Schumpeter, J. (1943) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London: Allen & Unwin
Söderlund, P., Wass, H., & Blais, A. (2011). The impact of motivational and contextual factors on turnout in first- and second-order elections. Electoral Studies, 30(4), 689-699.
Eurobarometer (2012), Standard Eurobarometer 78: Autumn 2012, available at: <http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb78/eb78_first_en.pdf> [Accessed 17 March 2013].
For fun:
Poll: The EU overall a positive force?
Agree and I live in the EU (19)
58%
Disagree and I live in the EU (8)
24%
Disagree and I live outside the EU (3)
9%
Agree and I live outside the EU (1)
3%
Neutral and I live in the EU (1)
3%
Neutral and I live outside the EU (1)
3%
33 total votes
Your vote: The EU overall a positive force?
(Vote): Agree and I live in the EU (Vote): Agree and I live outside the EU (Vote): Neutral and I live in the EU (Vote): Neutral and I live outside the EU (Vote): Disagree and I live in the EU (Vote): Disagree and I live outside the EU
Using materials from the UK to argue about government in the European Union is a bold move. Since you took the time to read some materials, I can only point you to the numerous reports the European bureaucracy pumps out every year. Some are legal lingua with no purpose, other are gold mine for thoughts.
On May 21 2013 00:35 Otolia wrote: Using materials from the UK to argue about government in the European Union is a bold move. Since you took the time to read some materials, I can only point you to the numerous reports the European bureaucracy pumps out every year. Some are legal lingua with no purpose, other are gold mine for thoughts.
Can you give examples for the statements you have made?
And why is it a bold move? I could write an essay 5 times as long as to why BRITAIN needs a directly elected head of state, instead of the semi-elected king (the prime minister, not the royal family) that we have at the moment.
edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
On May 21 2013 06:49 Race is Terran wrote: edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
I'm not sure where you are coming from in this regard.
There are many benefits to joining the EU if that is what you are referring to. Otherwise countries wouldn't be so eager to join.
Did you know the EU is the biggest, most advanced economy on earth? Bigger than the US and China.
The problem would be that national head of state will no longer run the dance, or you just put a Van Rompuy like puppet, basically a meaningless and powerless (even if he does a great job behind the scene in term of coordination/compromise/whatever). And it's not gonna happen before long since nationalism is pretty damn pragnant and nobody in charge have a decent vision of what the EU should be. If you elect (directly or not) a representant of the EU independant of the nations (since the commission is still pretty damn representative, not talking about the parliament) then it means two big things: a huge step toward federalism (which is like one of the hottest topic talking about the EU, and probably the most controversial one on a fundamental level) and the choice of a common vision of the EU embodied by someone, which is like, impossible atm. The trend toward a deeper integration for an inner circle (the eurozone atm) is quite the opposite of it.
Tho i'd personnaly be in favor of way more federalism in the EU (even if you can technically call it a federation atm depending on how you twist your definition, political science at its finest) it's something that isn't going to happen anytime soon (especially with the UK haha :p)
On May 21 2013 06:49 Race is Terran wrote: edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
I'm not sure where you are coming from in this regard.
There are many benefits to joining the EU if that is what you are referring to. Otherwise countries wouldn't be so eager to join.
Did you know the EU is the biggest, most advanced economy on earth? Bigger than the US and China.
I mean for members already apart of the EU, like what incentive is there for Angela Merkel to step down as perhaps one of the MOST powerful people within the EU because she is in charge of Germany and lose power just for the "general welfare of the citizens"?
On May 21 2013 06:49 Race is Terran wrote: edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
I'm not sure where you are coming from in this regard.
There are many benefits to joining the EU if that is what you are referring to. Otherwise countries wouldn't be so eager to join.
Did you know the EU is the biggest, most advanced economy on earth? Bigger than the US and China.
China was never big, they only get harped on in the news for being a developing market and huge growth potential.
Why would you consider the EU more advanced than the US? Sure, it's kinda funny how the ENTIRE GDP of EU is only a couple trillion larger than the USA (which is just one country), but being more advanced?
The ECB was established in 1998, the Federal Reserves is more than a century old. Why do you consider the European Union economy more advanced than the US?
I think results speak more than any exchange of words. The U.S. has a significantly larger amount of large corporations compared to the EU, which indirectly could be pointed at having a more effecient economy for creating successful business entirprises.
The Euro Crisis is mostly around the lack of rules and regulations for borrowing from whence the Euro was created. Everyone got Germany's perfect credit and was allowed to borrow at those rates, and now that economys are tanking due to shitty loans, the ECB is now implementing strict regulatory measures to insure that this doesn't happen again.
I am strongly against a unified Europe in any shape or form outside trade agreements. So no, I will never accept an EU-government, I rather dissolve it.
On May 21 2013 06:49 Race is Terran wrote: edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
I'm not sure where you are coming from in this regard.
There are many benefits to joining the EU if that is what you are referring to. Otherwise countries wouldn't be so eager to join.
Did you know the EU is the biggest, most advanced economy on earth? Bigger than the US and China.
I mean for members already apart of the EU, like what incentive is there for Angela Merkel to step down as perhaps one of the MOST powerful people within the EU because she is in charge of Germany and lose power just for the "general welfare of the citizens"?
What is the incentive? the "general welfare of the citizens" is the incentive. Believe it or not politicians often DO care about making their country a better place. But regardless i think you misunderstand. Having a directly elected president of the EU would have no real effect on the EU's power, only on its accountability.
The fact that the EU exists at all is testament to the fact that leaders see a need to some times give up the country's status as the ultimate authority, for the common good. This has been by and large a very successful experiment.
As for Angela Merkel. As someone who leads quite far to the left, i instinctively disagree with much of her politics. That said, she is arguably already the most powerful woman in the world. And she is committed to a stronger more unified European Union, in the face of the Global Whirlwind that is the free market of the globalised world.
On May 21 2013 06:49 Race is Terran wrote: edit: god ive edited this post like 5 times already >.<
There is no incentive for the already existing powerfully political people to submit and give up that portion of power in favor of some possible foreign country leadership
I'm not sure where you are coming from in this regard.
There are many benefits to joining the EU if that is what you are referring to. Otherwise countries wouldn't be so eager to join.
Did you know the EU is the biggest, most advanced economy on earth? Bigger than the US and China.
China was never big, they only get harped on in the news for being a developing market and huge growth potential.
Why would you consider the EU more advanced than the US? Sure, it's kinda funny how the ENTIRE GDP of EU is only a couple trillion larger than the USA (which is just one country), but being more advanced?
The ECB was established in 1998, the Federal Reserves is more than a century old. Why do you consider the European Union economy more advanced than the US?
I think results speak more than any exchange of words. The U.S. has a significantly larger amount of large corporations compared to the EU, which indirectly could be pointed at having a more effecient economy for creating successful business entirprises.
The Euro Crisis is mostly around the lack of rules and regulations for borrowing from whence the Euro was created. Everyone got Germany's perfect credit and was allowed to borrow at those rates, and now that economies are tanking due to shitty loans, the ECB is now implementing strict regulatory measures to insure that this doesn't happen again.
I consider it more advanced in terms of production, which is what advanced is usually taken to mean in economic or political science. The production capabilities of the EU are usually estimated to be greater than the US, although not massively so.
As for the 1 country comparison. I am talking about comparing like with like. Texas in land size is bigger than many EU countries combined, yet i wouldn't want to compare it to for example the UK economy because that would not be a fair comparison. Equally, comparing the entire USA with one EU country is also ludicrous. The population of the US dwarfs that of any single country of the EU by at least 250 million inhabitants. The way we are talking about the EU here is as a "united states of Europe", which would compare like with like.
As for having a "significantly larger amount of large corporations", i don't know where you got your figures, i suspect you made them up, but they might well be true, so let us pretend they are. Does that matter? Because you have more of your money concentrated in a few larger businesses we consider that more successful? I think not. Frankly i would consider that a less successful, less effective, less equitable, and ultimately a country with less liberty than the EU, who i guess you are implying has its money spread around more equally.
Not that i am saying that what you said is true, simply that having more large corporations is to my eyes the opposite of a successful country, with all other aspects being equal.
On May 21 2013 07:27 sAsImre wrote: The problem would be that national head of state will no longer run the dance, or you just put a Van Rompuy like puppet, basically a meaningless and powerless (even if he does a great job behind the scene in term of coordination/compromise/whatever). And it's not gonna happen before long since nationalism is pretty damn pragnant and nobody in charge have a decent vision of what the EU should be. If you elect (directly or not) a representant of the EU independant of the nations (since the commission is still pretty damn representative, not talking about the parliament) then it means two big things: a huge step toward federalism (which is like one of the hottest topic talking about the EU, and probably the most controversial one on a fundamental level) and the choice of a common vision of the EU embodied by someone, which is like, impossible atm. The trend toward a deeper integration for an inner circle (the eurozone atm) is quite the opposite of it.
Tho i'd personnaly be in favor of way more federalism in the EU (even if you can technically call it a federation atm depending on how you twist your definition, political science at its finest) it's something that isn't going to happen anytime soon (especially with the UK haha :p)
The essay that i wrote has no effect on the power of the EU commission president, with all else staying the same (which there is little reason to suggest that it wouldn't).
As it is, National leaders (chief executives) already do not run the show, as they have given up the some portion of their national sovereignty over to the EU, in exchange for many benefits. Foremost among those benefits is that they get to vote on what kind of regulation is enforced on products in the EU. A country like Norway who is outside the EU but inside the economic area still has to comply to most of the trading standards of the EU in order to sell here, but has no say on them whatsoever.
Also i think you may have confused the parliament and the commission, as the commission is in not really representative at all, as it is not elected, whereas the European Parliament is through MEP elections under a system of proportional representation.
As for nationalism being too (i'm not sure what word you mean, but i guess you mean) powerful or well entrenched, i agree with you to some extent, that that is how it is today. But at the end of every system of self identification there is a period of re entrenchment, where the ideology becomes defensive, but that is soon broken, and i hope desperately that that day will come soon.
This talk explains this process a little bit, a truly wonderful RSA animated video, that also has been a ted talk:
On May 21 2013 09:00 Aelonius wrote: I am strongly against a unified Europe in any shape or form outside trade agreements. So no, I will never accept an EU-government, I rather dissolve it.
The largest part of the EU is trade agreements, and the government is there for the most part to supplement and regulate that, so that all countries follow the same rules in order to make the system more efficient for trading across borders.
Why are you strongly against it? Have you got examples or reasons that we could discuss, as i am always interested.
China has the 2nd largest economy in the world and is set to easily overtake the US in the next decade = developing market with huge growth potential (what I said). Also, how is China the 2nd largest if it HASN't overtaken the US yet? You just said the EU is #1 economy, and if China was the 2nd largest they would be set up to overtake the EU's economy lol.
You're not really arguing anything, just saying my point in a different way, and yes the list of countries provided does prove your point, but that is what I was saying so really it proves mine.
Im just saying that to become a large corporation, you have to thrive in a successful capitalistic country, albeit for more than a generation as well. You think an energy company like gazprom is ever gonna be as big as enel or even exxon or bp? Probably not, not because of their services as a company are inferior but because they are in Russia, which has a VERY miswired economy.
On May 21 2013 23:12 Race is Terran wrote: China has the 2nd largest economy in the world and is set to easily overtake the US in the next decade = developing market with huge growth potential (what I said). Also, how is China the 2nd largest if it HASN't overtaken the US yet? You just said the EU is #1 economy, and if China was the 2nd largest they would be set up to overtake the EU's economy lol.
You're not really arguing anything, just saying my point in a different way, and yes the list of countries provided does prove your point, but that is what I was saying so really it proves mine.
Im just saying that to become a large corporation, you have to thrive in a successful capitalistic country, albeit for more than a generation as well. You think an energy company like gazprom is ever gonna be as big as enel or even exxon or bp? Probably not, not because of their services as a company are inferior but because they are in Russia, which has a VERY miswired economy.
You must be doing this on purpose. I specifically said "discounting the EU", as the EU is not officially a state.
I'm not arguing anything related to what you are saying. You said there was no incentive for people to give up power to a supranational organisation like the EU, i said there was, and provided examples.
I also said that saying there are bigger corporations in the US than the EU (which you still haven't provided any evidence for, and the burden of proof is on you if you want to make a claim) does not show the economy to be successful, if those large corporations come at the price of the economy as a whole.
Also Russia isn't in the EU, so i am not sure why you are referencing it either.
To become a large corporation, you usually have to act monopolistically or exploit resources or people unfairly, which i do not call successful either.
On May 21 2013 23:12 Race is Terran wrote: China has the 2nd largest economy in the world and is set to easily overtake the US in the next decade = developing market with huge growth potential (what I said). Also, how is China the 2nd largest if it HASN't overtaken the US yet? You just said the EU is #1 economy, and if China was the 2nd largest they would be set up to overtake the EU's economy lol.
You're not really arguing anything, just saying my point in a different way, and yes the list of countries provided does prove your point, but that is what I was saying so really it proves mine.
Im just saying that to become a large corporation, you have to thrive in a successful capitalistic country, albeit for more than a generation as well. You think an energy company like gazprom is ever gonna be as big as enel or even exxon or bp? Probably not, not because of their services as a company are inferior but because they are in Russia, which has a VERY miswired economy.
You must be doing this on purpose. I specifically said "discounting the EU", as the EU is not officially a state.
I'm not arguing anything related to what you are saying. You said there was no incentive for people to give up power to a supranational organisation like the EU, i said there was, and provided examples.
I also said that saying there are bigger corporations in the US than the EU (which you still haven't provided any evidence for, and the burden of proof is on you if you want to make a claim) does not show the economy to be successful, if those large corporations come at the price of the economy as a whole.
Also Russia isn't in the EU, so i am not sure why you are referencing it either.
To become a large corporation, you usually have to act monopolistically or exploit resources or people unfairly, which i do not call successful either.
oops, no I wasn't doing it on purpose, I just woke up and this was one of the first things I did after I woke up so I didn't see the "discounting the EU part"
Well, the U.S. is notorious for being a "consumer economy", consumers have to buy goods and services in order for our economy to function, and large corporations tend to offer larger amounts for less because of their size and scale that they can afford to do things. Actually come to think of it, that's how the EU economy works. It is pretty capitalistic as well. Capitalism breeds competition and as a result, creates competitive market prices FOR THE CONSUMERS BENEFIT. Consumers benefit from buying the good from the corporation, both of them benefit and business is done.
For apple to become one of the largest corporations in the world (market cap more than 400$ BILLION (larger than Banco Santander, Deutsche Bank, Telefonica, AND Vodafone combined), they simply were created in an economy in which consumers valued the goods that they created and as a result, were able to sell their products not because they forced anyone to buy them, but because people genuinely liked them better than the opposition Here is a link to 20 companies in the US by market capitalization here and here is another link to companies in europe by market capitalization here They are both converted to USD too.
Russia isn't in the EU, but Gazprom is a prominent company entertwined with many european union countries. I was just referencing Russia and Gazprom because Gazprom is an example of a company that could still be relatively large in market capitalization, but be a shitty company because it is essentially a puppet for the people in Moscow.
the commission is still kinda representative of the states because they decided to go up to 27 members (which is a total bullshit in practice but whatever) in order to enable each country to have its own commissioner (not sure about the word). It's just a giant clusterfuck of a bargain even if after Lisbon things are a little bit better since the parliament (which is the only real representative component on an EU lvl) has a right to look at the candidates. If we're talking about pure political science, sure the head of states don't lead the dance but reality says otherwise. Just look at the crisis and you'll realize that the commission just follow the mainstream opinion among the national politicians, austerity when it was popular (especially in the big countries) and now it's more a balanced approach. Meanwhile some states just ignore treaties (lol maastricht deficit clause, which is stupid because we're the only organization that includes administrations deficit in the state deficit but whatever, you gotta manage the germans sometimes ...) or refuse to apply parliament/commission decisions as long as it has to be enforced in national law (french gov is an expert about that kind of practice, and 10years later you pay fines and "fix" or not the case.) Superiority of EU treaties upon law is sthg national(ist) lawyer are really reluctant about so it's kinda fishy when every big state has a shady play in the background regarding what they say, what they sign and what they really apply.
EPT
