The EU Commission draft law to restrict young people’s access to the internet that it presented last week will come at a high cost: it will put online services behind age gates, expand the use of intrusive age verification, and undermine the privacy of all users. The EU Kids Act aims to protect...
The EU Commission is nominated, not elected, with only confirmation votes in the EU Parliament for members other than its head.
Unsurprisingly, this executive organ whose members are chosen behind closed doors and not even by the democratically elected representatives of EU citizens has long been the most corrupt part of the EU, often pretty much selling the EU to large foreign companies known for giving non-executive board memberships and millionaire “consultancy” gigs to retired politicians.
Yes, the Comission is a problem, but sadly, it’s not the only problem.
The European Council is just as big of an issue. It’s mostly made up of member states’ heads of state/government, so technically it’s democratically elected, except the Comission’s president who also gets a seat there, for whatever reason.
However, members of the Council almost always push for their countries’ best interests, instead of the EU’s as a whole. And they’re an even bigger issue when they happen to be anti-EU, like about half of the current Council.
Which essentially means the only EU body that is fully democratically elected, and elected on an EU level is the Parliament. Which coincidentally has the least influence, and which isn’t free of its own issues either.
The Parliament’s current president - Roberta Metsola - appears to be friends with some American billionaires, and her husband is the head of an American lobby.
Does that sound like a conflict of interests? Well, that’s probably because it is. Usually, all MEPs are legally required to disclose such conflicts of interests, but for some reason she never had to.
In case you may be interested, she’s also anti-abortion, part of Malta’s nationalist party, and one of the main pushing forces behind Chat Control.
Read more here: https://www.politico.eu/article/roberta-metsola-lobbyist-husband-ukko-european-parliament-president-transparency/