Comments like this one are always funny to read, cause they obviously are from a person that couldn’t imagine any governments chief executive not being elected in some large media event that gives a large section of the population the believe the chief executive is solely their choice. Ironic, as it most frequently comes from US citizens who are both unwilling to engage in other political systems and ironically don’t even realize that the head of state isn’t elected by the people in the US either, thanks to the electoral college.
If the EU is fundamentally broken because the head of the Commission isn’t a direct vote, then so are the US, Austria, the UK, Germany, Canada, …
You clearly have no idea how the EU works; she is the head of the Commission, which is nominated by the Council (27 elected heads of state), and needs to be approved in by the Parliament (directly elected). So sure, yeah, she isn't directly elected, but she still needs a massive amount of multinational political support.
Even then, all the power is in the Commission; the Commission is split in areas (competition, energy, trade, etc.), and each country nominates a commissioner in each area, and the total Commission gets approved once again by democratically elected Parliament. The head of the Commission has only one single vote, and a majority vote decides if anything passes, and even the Parliament has to approve it. That said, I think we all want Parliament to have the ability to propose legislation.
So don't take this ignorant take in here and present it as some kind of dictatorship and a fundamental flaw of the EU that undermines it all; the EU has been a massive positive force for the continent, and people like you just like to shit on it.
What do you call a state with an unelected president? This role has come about with no citizens in the EU being asked to approve it or vote for it. Being selected by a handful of bureaucrats is a creepy technocracy with zero pretensions for being a functioning democracy. Foolishness to see it any other way.
It highly depends. Everything from "monarchy" to "indirect democracy".
Even the Americans don't elect their president directly, they have a special council inbetween to distribute more power to the sparsely populated states.
Russia is a direct democracy (the people do directly elect their leader) but also the example of why technicalities like that make no difference in how fair politics are.
Who, in Europe, even knew they were getting a de facto president who they could not choose? This is meant to be a rationalised organisation with lofty egalitarian ideals, and yet it has to struggle to compete against descents into chaos and corruption in USA and Russia.
In most European countries we don’t vote for prime minister/presidents.
The representatives from the parties are free to choose whoever they want, but generally it becomes a leader of the largest party in the governing party/coalition.
The problem is not really the power she has, the problem is that both the heads of state of all EU countries along with the entire EU Parliament approved her. Twice. They want her there to push what EPP wants to do, while taking all the bad press, somehow erasing the common knowledge that they've almost hijacked the EU as much as Republicans have the US. Put a clown on stage, let them take all the heat, then freely make all the shitty changes in the background.
