It’s Hard to Have Your Voice Count in the E.U.

According to polling from
Pew there has been a slight increase in support for the
European Union ahead of next week’s European Parliament elections
following an unsurprising drop in support in the wake of the euro
crisis.

The Pew article goes on to note that a median of 71 percent of
respondents from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, and
the U.K. claimed that “my voice does not count in the EU.”

That the voices of citizens of E.U. member states don’t count is
not just a widely held belief, it is inevitable given the absurd
way the European Parliament functions.

You would be forgiven for believing that because the European
Parliament has the word “Parliament” in it that its 765
members have the power to propose legislation. However, this is
not the case. The European Parliament has the power to approve,
reject, and amend legislation, but it cannot initiate
it. However, the European Parliament’s
website notes that “the European Parliament has a right of
legislative initiative that allows it to ask the Commission to
submit a proposal.”

The European Commission, which has “legislative initiative,” has
28 members (one for each E.U. member state), none of whom of are
elected by the people of the E.U.

When you consider that a
decreasing number of people vote in European elections, that
the people elected to the European Parliament represent a
significant number of constituents who did not vote for them, and
that members of the European Parliament have no power to introduce
legislation it is easy to see why E.U. citizens don’t feel like
their voice counts in the E.U.