Slashdot Mirror
Swedish Pirate Party Member To Be EU's Youngest MP
First time accepted submitter genjix writes "In a few weeks Amelia Andersdotter will be the second Pirate Party member to take a seat at the European Parliament in Brussels. The 24-year-old Swede was voted in more than two years ago, but due to bureaucratic quibbles her official appointment was delayed. TorrentFreak catches up with the soon-to-be youngest MEP to hear about her plans and expectations."
Why would the commission need be made up out of elected members when you can get better people that are not necessarily political connected? See the present Italian government.
In many European countries the democratic process means the parliament gets elected and they appoint and control the government.
In case of the EU commission it is appointed by the democratically controlled governments of the member states and since fairly recent the EU parliament can approve or even veto policies as proposed by the commission.
Of course it would be better when the EU parliament had full democratic rights like introducing their own proposals or amendments but the UK and France have always and are still opposing to such an idea.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I think this is the first time I've read an article on copyright/patent/trademark law, consisting mostly of the words of a particular politician, and thought to myself: Hey, this person knows more than I do about the subject. Like, a lot more.
This is how in was in the past, but in the last few years the EP has managed to grab most of the power. Now the Commission is elected by them, making them the most powerful.
Whether the "piracy" issue is irrelevant or not, just sitting by and letting your rights be taken away while you are distracted by a larger issue is NOT going to help us in the future. It's precisely at times like this that you need to be vigilant of things that are going on and not just the big issues.
While you were distracted, what is to stop a far-right corporate drone from passing some legislation that further restricts your rights as a citizen and gives more rights to corporations?
You might as well pretend to be an ostrich and bury your head in the sand...
Ok, two things:
One: When will be a good time? There's ALWAYS something "more important". If the euro crisis is resolved, then the issue will be immigration, if that's resolved it will be something else, etc. So IMO they should go ahead.
Two: From TFA, the Pirate Party has about 7% of the vote, which is hardly "grandstanding" the issue. Whether the issue is significant or not is another debate. I think it is. Perhaps not as urgent as the euro crisis, but important none the less.
The fact that she's young perhaps indicates that she shouldn't take charge, but if everything is done by the old people then once they retire / die / whatever, there'll be a big leadership gap, so it's essential that the younger generation is involved to maintain any sort of stability and continuity in the resolution of these issues.
My 2c.
It's not a secret that the commission has been ripe for lobbyists, particularly before the parliament got their veto right with the Lisbon treaty in 2009. But it really comes down to the EU being in a half-state between a trade alliance and a federation. Is it an alliance of nations or does it want a European parliament like Congress and a federal government, with federal law, federal taxes, and federal economic policy? Let me tell you there's a vast opposition to that, not just in the UK and France. Even though the EU is expanding to cover more and more areas, for the most part it has to work through the national governments. If there's a top level meeting on education, it's the 27 ministers of education not an EU Department of Education. Despite the talk of an EU military force, there are 27 national militaries. There are 27 ministers on foreign policy who each keep their own ties to other nations and so on. And that is also why the EU passes directives, while the 27 national assemblies passes laws.
I mean, yes they could do away with that and pretty much become the United States of Europe. One parliament that makes law directly from Brussels on their own. It'd be democratic, as the EU parliament is democratically chosen. Some say all the important things are already decided there, but there's a difference between keeping the appearance of national governance and openly admitting that the EU is running the whole show. That is why most directives have optional components, so the national governments can pretend to have a say even though all the essential parts are required. And I say this coming from Norway, a non-EU member that's passed every EU directive since 1994 and is now maybe considering veto'ing our first. And of all the crappy directives they could have picked they chose a poor one, but at this point I just want to know what happens if we don't just bend over and take it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings