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> Now that the European Council has passed the directive against their own rules
> [ffii.org], the opinions of the european governments no longer have any real
> power.

You've been tricked! I'm the first to admit that my understanding of the situation is not 100% correct, however I think it's more or less on target....

The European Council (of Ministers) is made up of members of the various European governments. You don't realise this because when your government addresses you at home, it always talks about the EU Council as a separate body that hands down laws that your government is forced to implement.

They never mention that they are the EU Council.

The British council members are democratically elected (though they are still in favour of the CIID because Labour is shite). I don't know about other countries, but I understand that some have very strange arrangements, like Denmark for instance, where the (elected) parliament have no control over the (unelected) ministers, who sit on the council, making the rules.

The problem is that the idea of the European Parliament seems to be a charade designed to trick the masses into thinking they have direct control over the pan-EU government. The EU Parliament is really very weak. Some say the EU Constitution may fix this, and others say it will make the problem worse. I don't know myself--I tried to read the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution of Europe, but I only got to page 25 out of 400 or so before giving up...

In practice, the unelected EU Commission (liberally greased by Big Business, and featuring crooks like Peter Mandelson) makes up shitty laws, and the partially-elected, but unaccountable, European Council of Ministers nods them through.

When the public complain about said shitty laws, the government ministers then turn around and place the blame upon the very same council which they sit on, that passed the laws in question.

Meanwhile the Parliament flaps around, unable to do anything, because to overrule or alter the adoption of a directive by the Council, they need an overwhelmingly large absolute majority (something like 70% I think) at the Second Reading of a directive. Oh, and absentees and abstentions count in favour of the council. So it's even money if enough MEPs will even turn up to make a difference on the second reading of the CIID in about a month's time.

Basically, the EU's a Banana Republic. :(

Wouter suggests those who oppose this sort of political move create a link for the phrase banana republic and point it at the ue.eu.int website.

Not sure this will make much difference, but it sounds a fun experiment in search engine confusion if nothing else. Just no one do it with more Google rank than me as I'm using it as an experiment in page rank.

Banana Republic will be mine, all mine, just as soon as I can prise rank #1 from bananarepublic.com. At least until it belongs to the EU.

Wouter suggests those who oppose this sort of political move create a link for the phrase banana republic and point it at the ue.eu.int website.

Not sure this will make much difference, but it sounds a fun experiment in search engine confusion if nothing else. Just no one do it with more Google rank than me as I'm using it as an experiment in page rank.

Banana Republic will be mine, all mine, just as soon as I can prise rank #1 from bananarepublic.com. At least until it belongs to the EU.

Hi, I need a lot of people that help me googlebomb the european council - set a link to ue.eu.int: Banana Republic Europe to get it into google.
Thanks. ;-)

And as someone else already said: the Council has adopted its "common position" (although it was far from common in this case). It still has to get into the European Parliament, through its second reading (where it can be amended or even rejected, after which the whole game is immediately over).

Anyway, as far as I am concerned, the big news is not what they adopted (a directive text which codifies the European Patent Office's US practice), but how they adopted it. Three countries with the support of several others asked to reopen discussions, and the Luxembourg presidency simply denied that even though they have to let the Council as a whole decide about that according to their own rules of procedure (point 3.8).

It's a complicated matter. The EU parliament is a directly elected body where the number of representatives for every country is according to the size of that country. The council is a group of ministers where each country has a pre-defined voting weight, also roughly based on size.
The council also appoints the commission, which tends to make the executive decisions, rather than the legislative, but doesn't seem to have a clearly defined job, and so gets its hands into a lot of stuff.

Only parliament is directly elected. The council represents the national voting results in each country, but few people take EU policy into account when they cast a vote, so I have my doubts on how democratic the council is. The commission, being appointed by the council for 5 years, could hardly be called anything close to democratic. Anyway, it's apparent the EU has a long slog towards real democratic representation ahead.

And no, the system never was and never will be that every country has one vote.

1. persons reported 2. objects referred to in Article 100 and vehicles referred to in Article 99. 3. The items included in respect of persons, shall be no more than the following: 1. name and forename, any aliases possibly registered separately; 2. any particular objective and permanent physical features; 3. first letter of second forename; 4. date and place of birth; 5. sex; 6. nationality; 7. whether the persons concerned are armed; 8. whether the persons concerned are violent; 9. reason for the report; 10. action to be taken.

Actually, you're wrong there: every five years, there are EU wide elections for the European Parliament. Together with the Council, which is nothing other than the combined elected governments from each member state with a more fancy name, they are the ones with the power to pass legislation. The EU does have its problems, but it's not nearly as undemocratic as a lot of people (including people in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and the UK) believe.

BTW, the previous poster was a little wrong on the population size -- the EU is nearly 380 million people now, and around 100 million more (if I'm not mistaken) next year following the accession of the new member states.

The fact that both use the same flag, that their courts have similar names (CoE: European Court of Human Rights; EU: Europen Court of Justice), and that the EU Parliament uses the CoE Parliament Building in Strasbourg for most of its plenary meetings, all helps add to the confusion. The CoE has 45 members while the EU has 15.

No, I am european. :)

Actually, me too :-)

I think freedom of speech fares better in EU than in US right now, constitutional rights or not.

Have a read of the EU's charter of fundamental rights. Article 11, paragraph 2 notes that the freedom of expression must be subject to the interest of national security and territorial integrity, or "morals". The US Constitution contains no such provisos.

The European Commission isn't actually very large and does not actually have a very large budget. Finding 250000 euros isn't necessarily that easy.

Nice story. I guess I spoke too soon... I should probably learn the difference between the "European Commission" and the "European Council" at some point. Especially as I'm about to marry in to EU citizenship... :-) (Czesc Kohanie!)

Laws in the EU must be passed by the Council (governments of the member states), and sometimes the European Parliament, in order to come into effect.

In this case, the EUCP was already passed on European level last year, and member states are required to implement it in their own legislation.

The EU equivalent of the US constitution are the treaties that formed it, and other treaties that have been approved. There are a handful of them. Member state laws and EU laws can be challenged in the European Court of Justice (the EU equivalent of the US Supreme Court) on the grounds that they conflict with the treaties. For example, a far-reaching EU ban on tobacco advertising was challenged and thrown out on the grounds that the Commision did not have the juristiction to pass such a law.

The treaties are long and complex. No normal human being reads through them so I am not aware to what extent the EUCP may conflict with the treaties. Even if the EU as such can not pass it, there is nothing preventing the heads of state of the individual governments from coming together outside the EU and deciding to collective (try) to get this directive passed in each and every state (assuming the national legislatures agree).

The European Court of Justice, comprising judges from each member state, is traditionally used by member states or institutions to sue other states or institutions. It is rare that individuals challenge laws, but to the best of my knowledge this is possible -- I think recent case law confirms that.

There is also another possibility: some 40-50 countries of Europe are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has its own court. If the EUCP happens to violate any of the freedom of speech and freedom of expression guarantees found there, I imagine a motivated individual with the proper legal assistance may be able to try this as well.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime

The US (along with the UK govt) was actually instrumental in developing this policy with the European and other states in the Council of Europe . The Convention is developed from an idea the FBI were punting around in the early nineties.

It should be noted that the Council of Europe is not part of the EU and should not be confused with the European Council. Don't believe anyone who tells you this came from Brussels - This is a case of the nation states going oustide the EU (with the US, Canada and South Africa and Japan) to make an agreement, then propose it as legislation via the Commission (EU governmental heads together) for the European Parliament to approve. I'm actually glad there are some MEPs with some wits about them and a conscience to try to oppose this.

News just in: G8 Justice and Interior Ministers are pushing for this too. Surprise!

I essentially agree with you. As a Swede and European, I would not want Hague to trample all over my rights either. The UK lacks a constitution but many of the other European countries have constitutions that while different from the US, are fully comparable in democratic strength. These constitutions surpass the US constitution in some regards, while in other regards the US constitution surpasses them.

The claim that the EU leadership answers to no one is a common misconception, though. While improvements can certainly be made, the EU consists of several internally balancing institutions. Proposals are made by the European Commision, which (like national cabinet members) are appointed as opposed to elected -- in this case by the Council (which consists of the directly elected national leaders) and then approved by the directly elected European Parliament. Proposals made by the commision must be approved by the Council and in many cases also the European Parliament. So EU leaders answer to both the elected MEPs as well as the elected member state governments. It may be perceived as an odd system but works better than most people think, and is reasonable given the history of the EU's development.

I essentially agree with you. As a Swede and European, I would not want Hague to trample all over my rights either. The UK lacks a constitution but many of the other European countries have constitutions that while different from the US, are fully comparable in democratic strength. These constitutions surpass the US constitution in some regards, while in other regards the US constitution surpasses them.

The claim that the EU leadership answers to no one is a common misconception, though. While improvements can certainly be made, the EU consists of several internally balancing institutions. Proposals are made by the European Commision, which (like national cabinet members) are appointed as opposed to elected -- in this case by the Council (which consists of the directly elected national leaders) and then approved by the directly elected European Parliament. Proposals made by the commision must be approved by the Council and in many cases also the European Parliament. So EU leaders answer to both the elected MEPs as well as the elected member state governments. It may be perceived as an odd system but works better than most people think, and is reasonable given the history of the EU's development.