[HN Gopher] EU Commission says it cannot find messages with Pfiz...
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EU Commission says it cannot find messages with Pfizer CEO
Author : Markoff
Score : 224 points
Date : 2022-06-29 14:49 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (euobserver.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (euobserver.com)
| seydor wrote:
| I m sure some hacker has them
| drno123 wrote:
| Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens, and she
| makes decisions that many governemts of smaller EU countries
| simply copy/implement. Even before deals with Pfizer there were
| many accusations of corruption, but I am not aware of any
| investigation. And I am not aware that many journalists are doing
| any research here. This is a huge problem.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Right, this accusation is serious enough that we must get to
| the bottom of it.
|
| For starters, we could examine the logs of all messages between
| Pfizer and the Commission. These logs are held by independent
| ISPs on both sides of the Atlantic and thus ought to be
| resistant to tampering.
| an9n wrote:
| There is not a snowball's chance in hell that these texts are
| not archived on a server somewhere. So if we do not see them,
| it's because 'they' do not want us to see them.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Right, you're spot on! :-)
| [deleted]
| synotna wrote:
| She was proposed by the European Council (made up of more or
| less democratically elected heads of state/government) and
| approved by the European Parliament (democratically elected
| representatives)
|
| That is as "elected" as many heads of government i.e. any prime
| minister system
|
| Directly electing presidents doesn't necessarily lead to better
| outcomes
| jansan wrote:
| There were candidates nominated for the election and she
| wasn't of of them. Actually Manfred Weber was the elected
| candidate, but Merkel made sure that he did not get the job.
| The whole election was a farce and calling this democratic is
| quite a bold claim.
| malermeister wrote:
| Merkel was elected though, was she not?
|
| How is that not indirectly democratic then?
| blibble wrote:
| > Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens
|
| it's even worse than that
|
| prior to the election there was the usual stuff you'd expect:
| potential candidates begin interviewed by the press, television
| debates, where they would explain what they planned to do if
| they won, why their policy was the right one, etc
|
| then after the election all of those candidates were discarded
| and von der Leyen was appointed as commission president
|
| despite not being named prior or participating in the process
| of democratic scrutiny at all
|
| total farce
| [deleted]
| pif wrote:
| hardlianotion wrote:
| That is a big guess from very sparse information.
| drno123 wrote:
| Nope. Live in Croatia and on referendum, I voted for my
| country to join EU.
| johnnymorgan wrote:
| Let me guess: you had a brexiter strawman to throw out?
|
| EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin with
| as it was dishonest from the start.
|
| Also European cultures are not unified in anyway from what I
| can tell, I seriously doubt the EU, as it stands today, will
| survive past 2030
| baisq wrote:
| >EU is going to fail, it was never a good idea to begin
| with as it was dishonest from the start.
|
| That's like saying that chemotherapy is not necessary
| because cancer is not a good idea to begin with. We need
| active action to end the EU. It's made of a clump of
| bureaucrats and oligarchs who are separated from the common
| rabble by several levels of people and who won't give up
| their seat ever.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| One can discuss, critique, and even whine about structural
| flaws in their society without necessarily wanting to tear it
| all down around them.
| wronglyprepaid wrote:
| > Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens
|
| But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who were
| elected by EU citizens?
|
| Every country I have ever lived in had a similar arrangement, I
| control who are elected to parliament, parliament votes for
| president, and the president serves at the pleasure of
| partliment.
|
| Not that this is an endorsement of the EU or Ursula von der
| Leyen, I'm not an EU citizen, don't live in an EU country, and
| don't care to live in one either.
|
| I think the main issue with EU is that it too much is decided
| at the EU level, but this to me is not related to it using a
| parliamentary system or Ursula not being elected directly by EU
| citizens, I think it is more related to what powers they can
| exercise.
| toyg wrote:
| _> But was she not elected by EU members of parliment_
|
| Technically she was nominated by the European Council, i.e.
| the heads of state of the 27 member countries. EU Parliament
| is called to approve or reject the nomination of the entire
| Commission, which is theoretically set up by the candidate
| president (in practice national governments have a big say,
| and there are formulas to guarantee representation in the
| cabinet for every country in a cyclical manner).
|
| Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't
| trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic
| system has bigger problems than some text messages.
| quarantaseih wrote:
| ", i.e. the heads of state of the 27 member countries. "
|
| The Italian president is un-elected (chosen by parliament).
|
| Also, what does this mean for Spain, whose head of state is
| a King?
|
| Im sure "head of state" means "effective ruler of the
| country", a PM in Italy, the president of France. But ut
| just points to the Byzantine rules the EU has created in 20
| (or is it 30? Or is it 70?) years.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't
| trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic
| system has bigger problems than some text messages.
|
| Then the proper quest is if you trust 27 heads of state,
| only 1 of which you have any political influence over.
| toyg wrote:
| At some point, everyone's freedom ends where someone
| else's begin. If you want a continent-size government
| (which, let's be honest, in a world of superpowers you
| do), you'll have to compromise with another 450k citizens
| and their representatives. Americans manage to do it,
| after all.
|
| Also, EUParliament gives us a direct say in practice.
| People worried about the democratic deficit in the EU
| should push their own governments to relinquish more
| powers from Council to Parliament.
| blibble wrote:
| > If you want a continent-size government
|
| I really don't get who looks at the existing continent-
| size governments and says "yeah, I want that to be the
| model for how I'm governed"
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| The alternative is to be governed by a continent size
| government of another continent.
| brnt wrote:
| I do. Because if it isnt thuis continent sized government
| over which I have soms control, it'll be another
| continent government, over which is have zero control.
|
| I am from a small country, and I think this bring a
| perspective of inherent relatedness that people from
| larger countries lack. Control can't be binary, nor
| should it be. We're together with many others.
|
| We've never been more in control of ourselves than we are
| right now.
| native_samples wrote:
| Only a small minority of people actually think continent
| sized governments are a good idea, especially in Europe.
| Most people think this is self-evidently a bad idea,
| which is why the EU leaderships are never willing to let
| people actually have a referendum on the question - the
| UK being the lone exception, and look at how nastily the
| various pro-EU minorities in power tried to stop it being
| implemented!
|
| _" Americans manage to do it, after all."_
|
| Americans fought a brutal civil war to ensure the federal
| government would continue to enjoy supremacy over the
| states. In the modern era, about half of Americans
| currently think their country is heading for a second
| civil war, according to opinion polls. In recent days
| you're seeing elected federal politicians directly state
| that people should disobey rulings of the Supreme Court
| and laws of state governments. You've had federal
| agencies spying on and directly attacking elected
| presidents, with no consequences.
|
| So it is absolutely not clear that Americans manage to do
| this, in a timeless/stable sense. They've managed it in
| the 20th century but for most of that time they had
| serious external enemies to bind the country together.
| Historically speaking, very large and powerful
| governments tend to collapse from internal decay,
| splintering into small countries. The number of countries
| rapidly increased in the 20th century as empires fell
| apart and new countries formed in their wake. Very few/no
| people regret this process - you don't see many people
| hankering after the Ottoman Empire or USSR, do you? A lot
| of the instability in the Middle East is a legacy of this
| process, for example.
| jonp888 wrote:
| That's simply not true.
|
| A glance at any opinion poll shows there is nowhere near
| a majority for leaving the EU in any member country.
|
| Politicians who used to talk about it as a goal, such as
| Le Penn in France, no longer mention it at all, having
| seen how chaotic it was for the UK.
| [deleted]
| lrem wrote:
| You seem to say that every democracy with districts is
| broken. E.g. what fraction of US senators is a given
| citizen electing?
| pndy wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_U.
| ..
|
| In short: the EU citizens vote for Member of the European
| Parliament who represents own country and the Europarties.
| Citizens have no direct control over: the European Council,
| the president of the council, the European Commission and the
| president of the comission. You might get the feeling that as
| EU citizens we have little control over what runs over our
| heads on EU levels and because of this, a criticism might be
| observed over how truly democratic the EU is and if some
| bodies of the EU represent their citizens or particular goals
| of the Comission and their members.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_E.
| ..
| toyg wrote:
| The point is: national governments have control over most
| EU mechanisms. National governments are elected by "you",
| so "you" should trust them to carry out "your" interests.
| If you don't, the problem is not the EU as much as the way
| "you" elect your own government, surely?
| native_samples wrote:
| The problem with this argument is as follows:
|
| 1. National governments do not have control. That implies
| that for each government, they could ensure the outcome
| they wanted, which is impossible in a shared legal
| system. In the era of the veto, you could argue that they
| had at least the very minimal level of control over
| change (by stopping it), but the EU has been
| systematically removing national vetos.
|
| 2. Even when vetos did exist, they were hardly 'control'
| as a regular person would understand it. That would be
| akin to arguing that as long as a car has a working brake
| you're in control even if you can't move the steering
| wheel or stop the engine.
|
| 3. We don't actually _know_ the national governments
| control who becomes EU Commission President. We _believe_
| this to be the case because in theory the treaties say
| that 's how it works, but the EU routinely violates its
| own treaties. For example the treaties say that the
| Commission gets Commissioners allocated and the national
| governments control those assignments. In practice the
| former president (Juncker) boasted in public that he
| vetoed any commissioner he didn't like. This is _not
| allowed_ under the treaties but, happens anyway.
|
| 4. The actual process by which vDL became President is
| entirely and completely opaque. The national leaders
| walked into a locked room and ... something happened.
| Then vDL was announced as leader. How was that decision
| arrived at? Which countries voted for her or against her,
| and why? Was there even a vote at all? Are leaders being
| threatened or bought? The question may sound absurd but
| actually the EU has quite bad problems with corruption,
| and effectively buying support via massive subsidies to
| poorer countries is a core tactic.
|
| The point is, nobody can answer these questions because
| the EU is completely opaque. vDL refusing to release
| critical negotiations in direct violation of EU law is
| entirely expected from this system; the EU has lots of
| laws and regulations but they are always ignored the
| moment they become inconvenient. No system that claims to
| be democratic can tolerate such levels of opacity.
|
| One last point. The assumption in your argument above is
| that if voters elect a politician they will actually
| represent the people who elected them. At the individual
| / leadership level it is fairly well known that the EU
| routinely corrupts politicians into going against voter's
| wishes by offering to hire them into the Commission
| temporarily after they lose elections. These jobs come
| with absolutely massive "pensions" that are well out of
| line with any normal pension, which require virtually no
| work to obtain, which can be claimed before reaching
| retirement age and which can be rescinded if the
| recipient is disloyal! In effect these so-called
| "pensions" are legal bribes.
|
| The extent of the pension bribes problem can be seen in
| the scale of EU payments to UK politicians (who of course
| all became strong remain supporters):
|
| https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-
| news/europe...
| tankenmate wrote:
| You could also say that directly elected members go
| against the electorate due to party influence like the
| party whip system in the UK. Look at Brexit, it has
| caused economic harm to the UK, and this has caused
| support for it to drop; but MPs are not looking to change
| tack and "make the best of Brexit" (as polls suggest the
| populace wants), they're doubling down to make it worse.
|
| "Democracy is the worst form of government - except for
| all the others that have been tried". I would suggest the
| same holds for most of the variations, no system will
| keep all the people happy (or be perfect).
|
| Personally I am prefer the grander bargains of democracy;
| transparency (vs back room deals), rule of law (vs
| corruption), and accountability (vs protection by / for
| the party). I also would prefer rationality over
| tribalism, but I suspect that might be too much to ask of
| humanity.
| an9n wrote:
| This really is jumping through hoops to excuse the fact
| that a citizen of the EU has no way of directly removing
| these people via their vote.
| swores wrote:
| That's true of most countries, the best we can do with
| our vote is hope that when mixed with many other votes it
| leads in the direction we prefer, sometimes in a direct
| count, often in a multi-staged affair where your vote may
| or may not influence a local MP/senator/whatever which
| will then potentially influence which political party's
| leader becomes the PM/president/whatever.
|
| Maybe (surely) the EU could be restructured to be even
| more democratic, but isn't that also true for pretty much
| every country in the world?
| hef19898 wrote:
| But in most EU countries the current government can
| actually be removed a vote of non-confidence by the
| respective parliaments. More often than not with a simple
| majority vote. US style impeachment has much higher
| hurdles to pass.
| posterboy wrote:
| > But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who
| were elected by EU citizens?
|
| Yeah but no. I guess there's an electorate, as much as
| there's active components in homeopathic snake oil.
|
| > I think it is more related to what powers they can
| exercise.
|
| Nothing of that changes the statement that Mrs., err, von der
| Leyen is not directly voted by citizens. The word mongering
| is immaterial to the metacommentary on power structures.
| Which you acknowledge and leave pretty much unspecified. If I
| understand the top comment correctly, there is fear of
| corruption or whatever, and it's simply disengineous to blame
| that on the electorate.
|
| As a point of reference, Fukuyama (end of history, etc.)
| outlines how corruption is a normal tendency en route to
| regulated democracies. In this view, where local patriotism
| and consequent nepotism are concerned, it sounds to me very
| much like the electorate shares in the blame, and that the
| organized societies on the next level, the _model
| democracies_ , must have grown out of this.
|
| I rather doubt that this is the case. Sure, the aristratic
| family name may be a statistical fluke, especially where
| family names pass through paternal lineages. It is
| nevertheless part of the bigger picture.
|
| TL;DR: Yeah comissioners to the parliament are voted but no
| they aren't. This is not debatable.
| malermeister wrote:
| I don't think one can seriously quote Fukuyama these days
| anymore.
|
| Does it feel like history ended in the 90s? Seems like the
| past few years had decades worth of history to offer...
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| The point is the promised us something else.
|
| Many (of the interested) people in the EU are unhappy about
| some democratic shortcomings of the EU. The only directly
| elected body is the parliament and it is not very powerful.
| There is too little power at directly elected bodies and too
| much power at elements, that are far from the voters reach.
|
| At the last election they wanted to address that and promised
| that the lead candidate of the party with the most votes will
| be the commissioner.
|
| That didn't happen. Instead we got vdL, who was in trouble as
| Minister of Defense in Germany for some hiring consultants
| without proper process and for ... deleting messages from her
| phone.
|
| The whole situation is extremely painful for people like me,
| who support the EU. The tone-deafness, the disrespect for the
| voter. It is painful.
| varispeed wrote:
| This is exactly the issue why many people voted for Brexit.
| There was a feeling of disconnect between the people and
| the power. Now it may seem like a complete disaster, but we
| feel that our vote matters more now. It's a shame the EU
| has not addressed this and they don't seem to be doing it
| anytime soon. The most painful side effect of this is
| increasing corruption and lack of sense of responsibility
| among politicians. They feel like they can do whatever they
| want and there is extremely slim chance they get booted out
| or investigated.
| phatfish wrote:
| Most people voted for Brexit to stop immigrants "taking
| their jobs", and to try and piss off useless UK
| politicians. They might tell themselves after the fact it
| was for some other reason now they realise what they have
| done.
|
| I've never heard anyone say they think their vote
| "matters more" because of Brexit. Aside from the fact it
| is patently untrue (we still use the least democratic and
| most divisive method, FPTP) the EU Parliament elections
| are actually more democratic by virtue using PR, which
| allowed UKIP to send a load of MEPs to Brussels.
|
| More than a smaller party could ever get into Westminster
| even if they had a similar proportion of support due to
| our broken democracy.
| rayiner wrote:
| Note that the US has a specific mechanism to address this
| disconnect. Anyone who exercises any real power and
| discretion in the executive branch must be appointed by
| the President and confirmed by the Senate. The executive
| bureaucracy may be sprawling, but you can lay the blame
| for any significant policy failing directly on someone
| you voted for (or against).
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Which is about the equal to the EU. Council of the EU [1]
| has similar function as the senate in the US. The council
| is made up of the heads of governments, as elected, by
| the member countries. The council proposes the
| commission, which is then left for the EU parliament to
| confirm.
|
| This very close, pretty much about equal to the election
| process of the US senate before the 17th amendment in
| 1912.[2] The difference being no popular vote for the
| president. As is the case for the "head of state" for
| pretty much all European countries. Exceptions are only
| France?
|
| The major difference is that only the commission has the
| right to legislative initiative. To balance this the EU
| parliament can dissolve the commission based on a vote of
| no confidence.
|
| So all in all, it's a truly democratic system with all
| the checks and balances. The major difference is the lack
| of cross European parties, thus your choice becomes
| collected together in the same basket as what your chosen
| party thinks is the right path. Completely through
| representative democracy, either from the head of
| government or European parliament.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Europea
| n_Union
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_
| to_the_U...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission#Di
| smissal
|
| [4]: Kurzgesagt - Is the EU Democratic? Does Your Vote
| Matter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU
| gjm11 wrote:
| > but we feel that our vote matters more now.
|
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but: I am in the UK, and
| I absolutely 100% do not feel that any vote of mine
| matters more now that we have left the EU. (And, also,
| there are votes I no longer get to cast -- e.g., those
| for members of the European Parliament.)
| notahacker wrote:
| How's the decreasing corruption and newfound sense of
| responsibility working out for UK politicians?
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| While that was a rhetorical point in the Brexit campaign,
| in reality the nameless unelected bureaucrats in Brussels
| were simply replaced by nameless unelected bureaucrats in
| London
|
| Every Western "democracy" suffers from the same
| fundamental problem - entrenched deep state, and a lack
| of feedback loop towards it. It's extremely hazy where,
| how and by whom decisions are truly made, and as a
| consequence, nobody ever faces any consequences if those
| decisions flop. People like Biden, Harris, Johnson or
| Truss are so glaringly incompetent that nobody even
| suspects them to have any input into the decision
| process, they're simple announcers. Elections allow us to
| change the announcers, but change nothing about the deep
| state that ultimately dictates the policies. Brussels
| works the same way, it's just makes the fundamental
| problem more obvious
| thenaturalist wrote:
| Your statement strikes me as too generalizing and overly
| simplistic and the conclusion that basically the entire
| circus of Western democratic parties and elections is
| meaningless and we're all ruled by an anonymous,
| malicious class of fellow citizens that somehow want only
| the worst for us and we're gonna label them the "deep
| state" is as absurd as it is unnecessarily threatening
| the freedom we all cherish.
|
| Two or even several things can be true at the same time.
|
| Yes, some decision making transcends legistlative periods
| of elected officials. Other decisions are actively
| brought in and executed.
|
| Yes, there is a lack of feedback loop. Sometimes there
| are public compliance investigations after the fact.
|
| Yes, some politicians are incompetent and have risen due
| to other qualifications, be it greed, be it
| communication. Some politicians may just not show their
| qualifications in the few moments when all the spotlight
| is on them.
|
| Democracies are imperfect exactly not because there is a
| centralized hidden agenda going on but because people
| like you and I with emotions and ego participate in every
| step of the process.
|
| Yes democracies are painfully slow to respond to change,
| don't catch all malicious actors in its executive branch
| and live with an oversized public servant body most of
| the time, but so help me any spiritual being you might
| know or believe in I'd choose to live in one any day of
| the week over autocracies where everything is nicely
| simple and announced by one, all competent super hero.
|
| I'd recommend watching an annual People Congress of the
| CCP or how Putler auditions his inner circle and scolds
| them like school boys and then let's have a talk about
| the deep state.
| mythrwy wrote:
| Yes I agree and this is not all together a bad thing.
|
| We need some stability otherwise fast talking demagogues
| and mob sentiment would routinely upset the apple cart.
| The bureaucracy (aka the "deep state") provides that.
|
| But what you point out is also a problem. How do you get
| rid of corruption and incompetence when they routinely
| circle the wagons to protect their own and are beyond the
| reach of the voters? It is a big problem in Western
| society right now.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted
| was because they didn't want the influx of
| (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over.
|
| That and the idea that they would have a lot more control
| after brexit while in reality the world is more
| complicated than that. E.g. they lose negotiation power
| in important trade deals because nowadays Britain is just
| a tiny island with little to say. A lot of other laws are
| influenced by international treaties between bigger
| economical powers as well.
| scarygliders wrote:
| > Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted
| was because they didn't want the influx of
| (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over.
|
| Yeah no, that's 100% inaccurate, which a study you can
| read at : http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/?p=1153 will show...
|
| Quote:...
|
| What reasons do people give to justify their vote choice
| for Leave or Remain? And, what are the reasons they think
| the other side voted as they did? New briefing note CSI
| Brexit 4: People's Stated Reasons for Voting Leave or
| Remain. Summary of the findings:
| Several different surveys and opinion polls have asked
| Britons why they voted the way they did in the EU
| referendum. The two main reasons people voted Leave were
| 'immigration' and 'sovereignty', whereas the main reason
| people voted Remain was 'the economy'.
| Analysis of data from the Centre for Social
| Investigation's longitudinal survey on attitudes to
| Brexit bolsters these conclusions.
| Among four possible reasons for voting Leave, 'to teach
| British politicians a lesson' is ranked last by an
| overwhelming majority of Leave voters, contrary to the
| claim that Brexit was a 'protest vote'.
| Among four possible reasons for voting Remain, 'a strong
| attachment to Europe' is ranked last by a sizable
| majority of Remain voters, consistent with the claim that
| Britons have a relatively weak sense of European
| identity. When asked to rank the
| reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did,
| Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately
| than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In
| particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance
| that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK
| law-making.
|
| ---end quote.
|
| As for losing negotiation power, since Brexit the UK has
| negotiated multiple Billions of GBP worth of trade deals
| around the world. The OECD and the IMF are forecasting
| that the UK economy will be above the Eurozone economy.
| (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-
| briefings/sn02...)
|
| How's that for a tiny island.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow. The two main reasons to vote for
| brexit are the ones that I mention?
|
| I'm not sure I follow your negotiation power argument
| either. It was necessary. The UK needed to negotiate
| trade deals and they have them now, that does not mean
| this was done from a position of strength. I of course
| hope that they managed to negotiate the best they could.
|
| Regarding the statistics you bring up... What exactly are
| you looking at and over what time period? An interesting
| question would be how the UK could have performed had
| they stayed in the EU.
|
| I ask because your link mentions the following: > "For
| 2021 as a whole, UK GDP growth was 7.4%. This was the
| highest in the G7. The UK had the largest decline in GDP
| among the G7 in 2020 (-9.3%) and its relatively strong
| performance in 2021 was to some degree a recovery from
| weakness in 2020."
| notahacker wrote:
| I'm not sure that posting research showing that Leave
| voters' highest priority was immigration and their lowest
| priority by some distance was teaching politicians a
| lesson is the best way to _rebut_ the GP 's claim that
| immigration was much more important than a sense that
| politicians felt they could do what they wanted...
| rayiner wrote:
| Virtually nobody cares about trade deals. They care about
| how much the people that govern them reflect their own
| values and concerns. India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan
| probably would have benefitted economically from being
| one country with one common market. But nobody wants that
| because Indians don't want to be governed by Pakistanis
| and vice versa. Trade is a red herring.
| r12343a_19 wrote:
| Covid killed democracy.
| nwellnhof wrote:
| > But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who
| were elected by EU citizens?
|
| The EU parliament can only "elect" a president nominated by
| the European Council, just like it can only approve laws
| proposed by the European Commission. It doesn't have the
| right of initiative, only veto power.
| wronglyprepaid wrote:
| They could veto all laws that don't change this. So to me
| it as democratic as Democratically elected representatives
| want it to be.
|
| That being said I have to agree it is not ideal if they can
| only approve or veto.
| BadOakOx wrote:
| > > Ursula von der Leyen was not elected by EU citizens
|
| > But was she not elected by EU members of parliment, who
| were elected by EU citizens?
|
| This is a common argument when criticizing the EU, but in the
| end everybody is elected by the people of EU (directly or
| indirectly). Here is a quick video explaining how it works:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU
| peyton wrote:
| China works the same way. The concentric circles of power
| approach allows the powerful to exercise tight control at
| each tier and minimize upsets.
| throwaway45631 wrote:
| wronglyprepaid wrote:
| > Here is a quick video explaining how it works:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Uu5eyN6VU
|
| Good video, thanks.
| cycomanic wrote:
| While the parliament voted vdL they have very limited power.
| IIRC they can't really do much more than confirm the person
| nominated by the European council, which is not an elected
| body.
| tankenmate wrote:
| EU commissioners are appointed by member governments, in much
| the same way that civil servants are appointed by politicians.
| In most democracies there are three pillars of government,
| legislative, executive and judicial. Commissioners are a part
| of the executive. And here lies the difference, the amount of
| decision making power in the hands of executive vs the
| legislative, and whether the members of the executive need to
| be directly elected vs indirectly elected.
|
| You could also make the case that representative democracies
| aren't as good as direct democracies because citizens don't get
| to vote on laws directly.
|
| Obviously there are trade offs between having elected heads of
| the executive who are more directly accountable to the
| citizenry but have less subject matter knowledge vs indirectly
| elected executive who have somewhat less accountability but
| more knowledge. There is also the case of less corruption
| because the indirectly elected heads of the executive aren't as
| beholden to special interests. Which I personally feel is a
| huge benefit.
| mulvya wrote:
| > There is also the case of less corruption because the
| indirectly elected heads of the executive aren't as beholden
| to special interests.
|
| Unless these heads of the executive need private sector jobs
| after their tenure.
| tankenmate wrote:
| This is true, but no more so than politicians.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's just yet another level removed from the voters. If
| representative democracy is imperfect, then having another
| level to represent the representatives is more imperfect
| still.
| arrrg wrote:
| I want the EU council to hand over many of its powers to
| the parliament and commission. (I'm fine with the
| parliament itself proposing and voting on the commission
| head, I'm not in favor of a directly elected head - but
| that's just the German in me speaking where the federal
| government is set up exactly that way.)
|
| It's the national governments standing in the way of that,
| not the EU itself.
| tankenmate wrote:
| The flip side to this argument is that it's harder to have
| a demagogue in the executive if they are indirectly
| elected. Or worse still a plutocrat dressed up as a
| demagogue.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Maybe the missing messages are saved on the same thumb drive as
| Zensursula's SMS she sent during the German parliamentary
| investigations in the Defense Ministry's dealings with outside
| consultancies, when she happened to be the Defense Minister.
| colpabar wrote:
| Haha, whoopsie! I love funny little mistakes between governmental
| leaders and billion dollar corporations like this. Good thing
| this isn't regular citizens using an encrypted messaging app,
| because then we'd have a real problem.
| [deleted]
| tokinonagare wrote:
| Yep, crazy how transparent and democratic the whole affair and
| the EU is. I'm glad the EU and its subject governments are
| reminding me _daily_ how they protect democratic values, how
| corrupted Russia (and sometimes China) is with all its
| oligarchs, and how they 're protecting and extending my rights.
| lnsru wrote:
| The good think is that EU is not holding you back from
| experiencing perfect democracy in Russia or China. Maybe you
| can become a poster boy/girl as a political refugee from
| rotten West there.
| throwaway109815 wrote:
| yeaso9 wrote:
| phatfish wrote:
| I hear the Kremlin responds promptly to freedom of
| information requests. Just make sure you ask for the right
| thing, or get ready to check your tea and underpants for the
| rest of your life.
| Markoff wrote:
| The European Commission has been unable to find the text messages
| exchanged between president Ursula von der Leyen and the boss of
| giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the EU executive said in a
| letter to the EU ombudsman published on Wednesday (29 June).
|
| Last year, the New York Times first revealed that von der Leyen
| and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had been exchanging texts and calls
| for months to seal a deal for 1.8 billion doses of the
| Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
|
| The messages were then requested by journalist Alexander Fanta of
| news site netzpolitik.org, and a regular EUobserver writer, given
| the importance of the deal.
|
| But the commission's refusal to grant access to these
| communications prompted the EU ombudsman Emily O'Reilly to
| criticise how the commission handled this freedom of information
| request.
|
| Earlier this year, O'Reilly found that the commission staff had
| never explicitly asked the president's office to look for the
| text messages -- calling on the EU executive to do a more
| exhaustive search.
|
| The commission now says that it is unable to find such messages,
| but it previously argued that this type of "short-lived and
| ephemeral" communications do not fall under the scope of EU
| transparency rules on access to documents.
|
| "The commission can confirm that the search undertaken by the
| President's cabinet for relevant text messages corresponding to
| the request for access to documents has not yielded any results,"
| the EU transparency commissioner Vera Jourova said in the letter
| to the ombudsman.
|
| The commission's response has been slammed by the ombudsman's
| office as "problematic" -- with a full analysis expected to be
| published in the coming weeks.
|
| In its response, the commission also says that it is considering
| recommending its staff not use messaging apps in a business
| context -- which would, as a result, eliminate the need to keep a
| record of such instant communications.
|
| Nevertheless, the lack of transparency surrounding these texts
| has triggered outrage among MEPs and civil society organisations
| -- who criticised the commission for using tricks to avoid
| accountability.
|
| Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt, who chairs the
| parliament's special committee on Covid-19, deemed the commission
| response as "unacceptable".
|
| "The complete lack of transparency benefits the industry, not the
| European citizens," she tweeted.
|
| The campaign SumOfUs has collected nearly 130,000 signatures in
| the EU to ask von der Leyen to publish the text messages.
|
| Meanwhile, MEPs have been calling on the commission to reveal
| information on vaccine prices, since only a small group of
| lawmakers had access to heavily-redacted versions of the
| contracts.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Maybe they should introduce Chat Control-like legislation on
| themselves and themselves only. Servants of the people need to be
| transparent, no?
| encrux wrote:
| Officials are usually elected because the people trust them
| (yes von der Leyen indirectly elected, but that's besides the
| point here). In geopolitical decisions for example, the people
| can't and shouldn't be able to know everything.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Trust is a process, not a static state. In order to trust
| someone you don't personally know, you usually need some
| level of transparency. Perhaps not total (as you mention,
| there is genuine need for some secrecy in politics), but
| surely much higher than the required level of transparency of
| random citizens.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| It's almost a certainty that these text messages exist somewhere,
| probably both in government surveillance databases and mobile
| carrier records. If the EU government really wanted to
| obtain/produce them, it could.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| It appears she's using an iPhone -- just ask the U.S government
| to provide copies of those messages.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| You seem to have an agenda to prove that the US Government has
| the same access to US company data that, say China does.
|
| You are wrong. US Private industry denies requests for data and
| access all the time: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-
| refuses-barr-request-t...
|
| Whereas in China, there is no ask. It's illegal to deny
| government access to any private data, for any reason:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_Peopl...
|
| Textbook projection.
| lnenad wrote:
| What is deflection?
|
| - Jeopardy
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Implying the US gov has privileged access to iPhone data
| from Apple is wrong, and it's a projection of how companies
| like Huawei must operate.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > must operate.
|
| Speaking of projection?
| orangepurple wrote:
| Have you ever heard of PRISM?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
|
| What is your XKEYSCORE identity?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| The US is absolutely getting their hands on all text messages
| of EU leaders they can get away with with reasonable doubt...
| They'd be incompetent not to.
| shrubble wrote:
| This is not the first time she has been in a corruption scandal,
| is that correct?
| Lionga wrote:
| Yes she had many corruption scandals and has already deleted
| data from phones that were subject to investigation. Germans
| pushed away the most corrupt politicians to EU Parliment often
| lioeters wrote:
| > Von der Leyen, who was Germany's defence minister before
| moving to Brussels, was engulfed in a similar scandal shortly
| after leaving Berlin for Brussels in 2019. She denied having
| anything to hide after it emerged that one of her two mobile
| phones being sought by a German parliamentary committee had
| been wiped.
|
| > The committee had been investigating whether lucrative
| defence contracts were awarded to outside consultants without
| oversight and whether personal connections were behind those
| deals.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-commi...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Didn't they hem and haw in negotiation for months trying to save
| pennies per shot while people were dying and America was already
| rolling out?
| meibo wrote:
| Von der Leyen's cabinet is a pile of corruption and criminals.
| It's insane how many people in high EU roles are only there
| because they failed in local politics, or got caught in some
| scandal.
|
| How do they say, "die EU nicht den Leyen uberlassen".
| tankenmate wrote:
| I'm assuming there are no convictions (and hence are they
| really criminals if they haven't been convicted?), but I'd like
| to see the allegations for each member of the cabinet.
| meibo wrote:
| In Germany, politicians are rarely convicted, they just end
| up resigning or being pushed to organizations or foundations
| like the EU.
|
| Von der Leyen has many scandals under her belt, including
| ones that involved important phone messages being lost. Who
| knows!
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I think this is a trend in most European countries, to be
| honest. It's all bordering on corruption, and on the EU-
| level, transparency is typically worse than on a national
| level.
|
| Our prime minister in NL recently got away with using a
| Nokia 3310 to circumvent SMS retention laws, which could
| only keep a history of 20 messages. Of course, he cannot
| remember anything important he deleted. His excuse was that
| only this particular Nokia provided him with worldwide
| coverage.
|
| It's really sad that this type of behavior is the status
| quo for one of the more developed regions of the world.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| The phone company is by law required to retain those
| messages, so you are being led astray if that is the
| excuse he produced.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I'm assuming there are no convictions _
|
| It's tough to get stuff to stick on teflon.
| [deleted]
| varispeed wrote:
| If there were convictions that would project a very bad image
| of the EU and the west. The myth that the large scale
| corruption does not generally happen in the west would go
| bust.
| rasz wrote:
| convictions ? ina country where being caught passing
| sensitive information about currently running investigation
| to actual NEO NAZIS being investigated gets you promoted?
| BellLabradors wrote:
| There is a history of it in the institution:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| " It's insane how many people in high EU roles are only there
| because they failed in local politics, or got caught in some
| scandal."
|
| Von der Leyen is a good example.
| drno123 wrote:
| Could we start a kickstarter campaign for a whistleblower to
| provide these messages to the public, maybe some IT guy working
| at a telecom?
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| This is disgusting.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Sadly the EU Commission has a _huge_ history of revolving door
| compensation for its officials and there seems to be no
| inclination to change this.
|
| While it is different these days, an EU position itself used to
| be seen as a 'fin de carriere' (pre-retirement) financial bonus
| for national politicians, coasting out of public life while
| receiving an (in their eyes) earned sweet deal for years of
| laboring in the national political trenches.
| blibble wrote:
| it is also seen as where you can send your awful politicians so
| that they can't do any damage
|
| (von der leyen being a prime example of a national government
| doing this)
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Did they look in the same place that the evidence from Epstein's
| island is stored? Plausible deniability + "expert opinion"
| serving as the null hypothesis = institutional control of Occam's
| razor. I for one don't think there's anything about collusion or
| corruption here unless proof is presented... and since proof
| can't be found: nothing to see here, move along. I'm sure our
| government agencies and these multinational corporations have our
| best interests at heart.
| calibas wrote:
| "We destroyed all the evidence that would prove our innocence,
| so you'll just have to trust us when we say we did nothing
| wrong."
| pessimizer wrote:
| > "The commission now says that it is unable to find such
| messages, but it previously argued that this type of 'short-lived
| and ephemeral' communications do not fall under the scope of EU
| transparency rules on access to documents."
|
| I set up a unlogged jabber chat server at an institution subject
| to FOIA because you can get people to fall for this. Why not
| declare email ephemeral and delete them every night?
| an9n wrote:
| I'm sure there's nothing dodgy happening here. Let's just trust
| the experts and not let trifling matters - such as Pfizer having
| not that long ago received the largest fine in history for a
| healthcare company - could our judgement. Take the vaccine! Trust
| the science(tm)!
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| This has a bit of a but-her-emails vibe to it. In an ideal world
| more official channels should have been used, but this was the
| height of the pandemic. If Von der Leyen had done nothing, it
| would be a way bigger scandal. I am glad the vaccine doses were
| secured by the european commission.
| redeeman wrote:
| thats all well and good, assuming we use the same forgiving
| logic when you or I do something against the rules. But we
| dont. It seems that some are slightly more equal to the law
| than others
| chki wrote:
| Actually where I live (EU) the law is pretty forgiving - at
| least in my opinion.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Not so,fast. Look at fiscal law and its enforcement first
| and then tell me. I live there, too.
| [deleted]
| redeeman wrote:
| I live in the EU aswell, and in my country, the burden of
| proof for tax cases is reversed. The tax department can
| just invent their version of reality, and if I cannot
| disprove it, it sticks.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| this would be a great opportunity for some people in their IT
| department to become whistleblowers. I bet there are quite a few
| people who know how to find the messages but have been told to
| not find them.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Mobile phone data that can't be found? What does that remind me
| off?
|
| > From January 2019 to February 2020, a committee of inquiry
| investigated the legality of contracts awarded by von der Leyen
| to external consultants of the Bundeswehr. According to reports
| in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, cell phone data relevant to the
| investigation was deleted, files were improperly redacted and
| files were destroyed. Text messages were removed from both cell
| phones used by the then minister. For example, an IT officer from
| the ministry's CIT department performed a "security wipe" on one
| of the two cell phones, after which it was finally disposed of
| because von der Leyen's cell phone had been affected by a data
| leak (the so-called Advent calendar hack).
|
| Translated with Deepl from
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen#Beschaffu...
|
| What a hilarious coincidence. Or Einzelfall ;)
| riedel wrote:
| I do not think this is coincidence. Von der Leyen was
| practically kicked out German government because she was not
| able to control procurement for the German military. Now she
| repeated the stunt with the procurement of vaccines knowing she
| faced no consequence last time she simply let evidence of
| incompetence disappear. Her qualification is literally that she
| was born in Brussels into a Eurocrat's family.
| quarantaseih wrote:
| belter wrote:
| I raise you a bigger coincidence...who does not believe in
| fairytales?
|
| Headline from 2020:
|
| "Orgenesis launches cell-based vaccine platform targeting SARS-
| CoV-2":
| https://www.manufacturingchemist.com/news/article_page/Orgen...
|
| who becomes Orgenesis director in Dec 2020 you ask?:
| https://orgenesis.com/team
| checkurprivlege wrote:
| lnsru wrote:
| I skimmed the Wikipedia article and didn't find my favorite
| part about ship repair. Her Bundeswehr spend more for repair of
| an old ship than it would cost to build such two ships:
| https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2019-03/ursula-von-d...
| ls15 wrote:
| Pfizer has a copy, right?
| [deleted]
| throwaway45631 wrote:
| Says the EU: All the more reasons to have all traffic
| preemptively scanned and filtered (for thee) ;-)
| varispeed wrote:
| In the UK if you are asked to reveal your passport, you can get 5
| years for simply forgetting it (not exercised yet as I am aware).
|
| I think the case should be made so that if the messages are not
| found, the politician should be found guilty of losing messages
| and that should attract the same penalty as corruption. They
| would make themselves bloody sure they retain the messages.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| I doubt that is an actual rule - many people don't have
| passports and there is no requirement for someone to show on
| the spot identification.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It's obviously a typo or failed autocorrect for password.
| [deleted]
| taylorius wrote:
| So what's the criminal penalty for destruction of evidence? Hint
| - rhymes with "Fail".
| yrgulation wrote:
| Oooh dont be silly. Politicians only go to prison in east
| europe, as there is no corruption at the eu level or in germany
| (where she also destroyed evidence yet was promoted to chief of
| the eu):
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-under-pressure...
| tlear wrote:
| Let's create a massive self regulating bureaucratic monster, then
| be surprised when it engages in corruption and coverup.
| revertmean wrote:
| The EU bureaucracy has around 33,000 civil servants, so it's
| not particularly massive. Compare with the UK government, which
| has around 475,000 civil servants. In fact, there are English
| local _councils_ that have bigger bureaucracies.
|
| And, of course, the EU has a bigger population than the USA.
| Why don't you check out how many Federal government bureaucrats
| there are, just for fun?
|
| This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity is
| seriously, factually wrong.
| blibble wrote:
| > This idea that the EU is a massive bureaucratic entity are
| seriously, factually wrong.
|
| that's because the EU uses national agencies to implement its
| policies
|
| it is purely the super-high level management
|
| e.g. the employees implementing EU farming/farming policy are
| employed by the member states goverments, aren't classed as
| EU employees and aren't paid by the EU budget, despite nearly
| 100% of their work coming directly from the EU
|
| so of course it looks super-efficient, because national
| governments are paying to implement what it decides
|
| this is in contrast to the US federal government, or your UK
| government/local government examples, which have to employ
| people to do the groundwork
|
| if the spending was correctly attributed the EU budget would
| be orders of magnitude bigger, as would its number of civil
| servants
| toyg wrote:
| _> this is in contrast to the US federal government_
|
| I strongly doubt that. The US federal government doesn't
| run all police forces in the US, or all the environmental
| agencies, or all the driving-license agencies or whatever.
| It runs _some_ elements directly - as few as they can get
| away with, and shrinking.
| blibble wrote:
| the existence of state organisations doesn't invalidate
| the point
| malermeister wrote:
| State organizations are to the US what national
| organizations are to the EU.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > It runs some elements directly - as few as they can get
| away with, and shrinking.
|
| Shrinking?
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-
| governm...
|
| The number has fluctuated a bit, but for 2021 it was
| 40,000 fewer than 1982 and 140,000 more than the lowest
| points in the graph in 2004 and 2007.
| pfortuny wrote:
| But the EU does not govern any country, so it is not
| comparable at all, and has no civil servants apart from at
| its offices.
|
| It is not a federation, like the US.
|
| The EU only governs itself, not its countries. It is not a
| country.
| toyg wrote:
| _> It is not a federation, like the US_
|
| That very much depends on your definition of "federation".
| I can assure you that many people see the EU as being
| exactly that, just in its infancy.
| tchalla wrote:
| Can you explain the corruption here?
| pfortuny wrote:
| Just a link I found:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/european-
| commi...
| checkurprivlege wrote:
| Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized. One out of
| a number of reasons, which also include spectacular incompetence.
| logifail wrote:
| > Then fire Von der Leyen, as she can't be scrutinized
|
| One could presumably fire her using the same mechanism by which
| she was _elected_ [0]?
|
| Oh, wait...
|
| [0] https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-in-the-end-it-was-a-
| backroom-d...
| toyg wrote:
| Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European
| Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be
| out on her ass.
|
| I agree that her nomination was a loss for Parliament in the
| constant, ongoing constitutional war of attrition between
| them and the Council. But that doesn't mean there is no way
| to force VdL from office if necessary.
| blibble wrote:
| > Absolutely, if VdL lost the confidence of the European
| Council, i.e. the governments that nominated her, she'd be
| out on her ass.
|
| there is no mechanism for the council to remove the
| commission president
|
| the parliament can, but only by dismissing the entire
| commission (making it politically very difficult)
|
| this also requires a 66.6% majority
|
| vs the 50%+1 that was needed to appoint, so it's all but
| impossible (by design, again)
| toyg wrote:
| A Commission President without the support of the Council
| would see all her proposals shot down immediately and all
| her commissioners resigning. It would be untenable and
| she would have to resign.
|
| There is the law and there is the spirit of the law.
| After all, for centuries, UK parliaments didn't even
| _technically_ have to hold regular elections if they didn
| 't feel like doing it.
| blibble wrote:
| I'd love to know how you've come to that conclusion with
| such certainty, given nothing even close to it has ever
| occurred, and the EU's usual way of dealing with crises
| is to push them under the carpet and pretend there's no
| problem
|
| (like it's doing here)
| traveler01 wrote:
| Many in the society made money from Covid, now whoever believed
| their BS will suffer for it due to the economy recession coming
| in a few months.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| It's not like it killed a million people in the US or anything.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Flip the situation around with a thought experiment:
|
| How do I get a job within the EU Commission that will give me the
| opportunity to make millions for myself? Who do I need to
| "donate" to? Or do I need to become someone's obedient slave? How
| do I prove myself worthy?
|
| Once in, what do I need to do to make as much money as possible
| for myself with zero negative consequences?
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