European Union
European UnionThe European Union is built on a unique institutional system.
The Member States delegate sovereignty for certain matters to independent institutions which represent the interests of the Union as a whole, its member countries, and its citizens. The Commission traditionally upholds the interests of the Union as a whole, while each national government is represented within the Council, and the European Parliament is directly elected by citizens. Democracy and the rule of law are therefore the cornerstones of the structure.
This "institutional triangle" is flanked by two other institutions: the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors.
The current European Union member states are
On May 1st, 2004, ten countries joined the EuropeanUnion, so it now has 25 countries.
FYI, the CouncilofEurope? is an international organization entirely separate from the European Union. The CouncilofEurope? is older, with a broader membership, and a narrower focus on human and civil rights.
A pedant might just be the right person to answer these questions:
Is Monaco a member of the EU through France the same way that Wales is through the UK?
I think that Monaco is not a member of the EU, but has adopted the Euro.
What about the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands - are they in the EU? Is Gibraltar?
There are up to 4 islands printed on TheEuro, that I cannot identify. Maybe it's them. Norway, Iceland and some other non-EU countries are not on EuroCoin? .. that's seem queer to me.
I think the issue of protectorates, colonies, etc. is largely left unresolved. In a lot of ways it doesn't matter, since there's no direct democracy in the EU, anyway; everything is done through the votes of the member country. So whether Gibraltar is represented through the UK or through Spain might not matter so much in the eyes of the EU. The UK votes how it votes, Spain votes how it votes, and somehow Gibraltar's influence gets in there somewhere. Maybe.
Does freedom of movement in the EU only apply to people born there or if someone is granted permission to live in an EU state can they then move to any others?
Freedom of movement applies only to EU Citizens.
EU citizenship, which is additional to citizenship of an individual Member State, was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. It specifically gives nationals of EU Member States the right:
If people want to migrate, there are many ways to do it nowadays. If they don't want to, they usually don't. In the IT industry, one can work distantly in a richer country and live where you like. I still have not seen a place in Europe where I'd like to live more than the one where I was born. I like landscape, weather, culture, people... money is not the only motivator. (MakeLoveNotMoney?)
In theory, normalization of business regulations, exchange rates, etc. should encourage more cross-European business. So theoretically two things should happen: As Eastern European workers increase their westward migration to where businesses are established, western European capital will flow more increasingly to Eastern European countries. Maybe it'll all meet in the middle.
Of course, in practice it's a million times more complicated than that. I'm not really a Euro-expert by any means, but the planned "Big Bang" expansion of the EU - which could conceivably double the number of member-nations overnight seems to me that it might be too much for the EU to handle. In particular, I'd be concerned about sharing a unified currency across such a broad range of countries, cultures, governments, and geographies.
Democracy and the rule of law are therefore the cornerstones of the structure.
In the UnitedKingdom, MPs are directly elected. The government is essentially decided by a vote of MPs (in that the party with the majority forms the government), and so it is indirectly elected. Let's call the authority of MPs zeroth-order democratic, and that of the government first-order democratic.
The EuropeanParliament? is directly elected; it is zeroth-order. The EuropeanCouncil? is composed of members of national governments; it is first-order. The EuropeanCommission? is composed of commissioners appointed by the EuropeanCouncil?; it is thus second-order.
The EuropeanParliament? has very little real power. The EuropeanCouncil? has a lot of power (ultimate power, actually, when it comes to the EuropeanUnion). The EuropeanCommission? is actually quite powerful itself; it is more than just a CivilService?. The EuropeanUnion is thus about first-and-a-halfth-order democratic; that's not as democratic as a proper country, and not as democratic as its citizens would like. It certainly does not represent the general will of the people.
I won't argue with the RuleOfLaw assertion, except to poke fun at the traditionally endless procession of regulations that the EuropeanCommission? emits, which is more of a RuleOfRules? situation.
-- TomAnderson
Okay, first of all, zero order is not when you elect someone, it's when you vote directly. Athenian democracy. Direct democracy. That is what zero-order means. Thus, the EU is 2 1/2 order democracy by Tom's count.
The EuropeanUnion is thus about first-and-a-halfth-order democratic; that's not as democratic as a proper country
Does that mean the USA is not a proper country? The USA is not at all democratic after all. And only technically second-and-a-half-order democratic.
Aren't representatives (as in members of the HouseOfRepresentatives? - is there a snappier name for that?) directly elected like UK MPs?
So's the European Parliament, but as is pointed out above, that's not where the power is. The power all lies in subcommittees. And as far as I know, the subcommittees are appointed by a cabal of representatives. So the subcommittees are probably 3rd order.
Congressional subcommittees and the US President are both nominally second order, but realistically at least 3rd order.
The president is technically first-order, being chosen by people who are, in effect, directly elected (the current ElectoralCollege system is equivalent to each state directly electing a single elector, who then casts a block of votes). Subcommittees are less democratic than the whole house, but it's not clear that that's important; if it is, we should worry about the lack of democracy in the selection of judges, policemen, teachers, etc (except in the UnitedStates, many of these people are elected).
Oh, it's important all right.
[Judges and sheriffs (not the beat patrolmen) are elected in many areas of the U.S., but not all. School boards, are often elected or political appointments, but the teachers are not. Then again the rules vary from state to state or county to county.]
Subcommittees in the US House and Senate may only be comprised of members of the whole house and Senate--in other words, the subcommittee members do face direct election by the people, but only to the House/Senate as a whole, not to the committees. Further, while much of the work gets done in committee; no laws can pass without approval by both (full) houses. And approval by the full House and/or Senate is decidedly not a rubber-stamp in the US; many bills come out of committee to be voted down by the full assembly.
Whether judges, bureaucrats, and the like should be elected by the people is an interesting issue. I'm not sure it would be productive at all for the citizenry to vote on who cleans the latrines at the county courthouse...
There is an important distinction to be made between different countries about the remit of the elected people. In GreatBritain we elect MembersOfParliament? to represent our interests. As I understand it, there is a distinction between this and the continental European countries which allow their citizens to choose the government. The result is that GreatBritain has laws based on telling people what they are not allowed to do, whereas most European nations tell people what they are allowed to do. Am interested in people's opinions, as I am clearly no expert... -- JackWasey
The French députés are all second-order; first they get voted on a list by the party then the citizens vote for parties.
French deputies are zeroth-order; they are no less directly elected than UK MPs. Whether the political selection is antidemocratic is an open issue!
Are you saying that citizens vote for deputies directly? That was not my impression.
French députés are directly elected from single member districts except for the elections of 1986 which were held under ProportionalRepresentation.
How is Europe categorized socio-politically?
Northern Europe seems to be a social democratic bloc. Western Europe is to the right of it. Southern Europe is screwed up and quasi-fascist. Central Europe is fucked up. Eastern Europe is extremely authoritarian. But I don't like to lump the UK with France and Germany. And I don't know if Greece can be lumped with Italy. So do these categories make any sense?
The Southern countries tend to be more corrupt; Italy is famously corrupt, Spain less famously but almost as seriously so, and France is actually a lot more corrupt than you'd think. See the CorruptionPerceptionsIndex?, from TransparencyInternational?:
http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2001/cpi2001.html
Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, TheNetherlands, Luxembourg and Norway are in the top 10 for low corruption, with the UK at 13. Spain is at 22, France at 23, Portugal at 25, Italy at 29 and Greece at 42. The USA is at 16, and Canada is at 7.
Updated link: http://www.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2004/2004.10.20.cpi.en.html
Please note that according to the website, "The surveys reflect the perceptions of business people, academics and country analysts." Think about it. -- PhilipBusch
The EU recently overtook the USA in economic purchasing power (GDP/PPP): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29.
See SightingsOfTheBeast?
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