No commissioner can be appointed without every member state approving them. They also need to be ratified by the EU Parliament which is made up of MEPs that the general public votes for in their respective countries. Even the President of the Commission can be blocked from taking the role by the Parliament failing to return a majority vote in support of their appointment. It’s just elected members of parliament, put there by Joe Bloggs, voting on motions. Pretty standard stuff.
It’s arguably more democratic than much of the British system. Especially when you consider the fact that the person in charge of Brexit, Lord Frost, was never elected by the British public in any capacity, as there is a technicality that allows Lords to serve as cabinet ministers. Which makes him an unelected bureaucrat in charge of Britain’s relationship with the EU, deliciously. This is also why we have “Lord” Goldsmith who couldn’t even successfully become London Mayor the other year “serving” as a minister. Our own cabinet of government contains multiple figures who have never been given any sort of mandate by the public and are not in office as a result of any election or vote, and who can never be voted out.
The House of Lords is arguably the most corrupt and undemocratic entity on the planet, so I assume anybody who hates the EU wants to see the Lords burned to the ground and any cabinet ministers who haven’t been voted for democratically to be sacked from their roles in government ASAP. Otherwise there is no consistency to the argument, regardless of the accuracy of the initial claims.
And if we want to take the approach of, “Well
the public voted for the politicians who decided to appoint those Lords, so technically they’ve been appointed by people who DO have a mandate” then we can just go back to the start and apply the same argument to the EU to begin with, because even if somebody WAS “unelected” then they were appointed and approved by somebody who WAS voted for. Etc etc.
But I don’t think there’s much need for that, because we’re all smart enough to know and understand all this regardless of our political standpoints or allegiances, and there’s a boat load of football on Amazon starting soon. Six games! Wow.
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