One all-powerful president of Europe? Conservative chief calls for EU merger – The jobs of president of the European Commission and president of the Council should be merged so the EU can speak with one voice on the global stage, European People’s Party boss Manfred Weber said Wednesday
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goldstarflag
35 comments
How about fuck no.
🇪🇺 Parliament has already approved major reforms to upgrade both the Commission and Parliament. The Commission would eventually become a real executive. He/she would be elected directly or indirectly by EU citizens and enact their collective will. This President of Europe will represent Europeans on the world stage much more effectively.
The Council would then also be downgraded to a Senate with states playing a much a less prominent role; a more federal Europe.
In other words “I AM THE SENATE!!”
President of the Council has 0 influence, so yeah nothing gets lost contrary to what politico suggests.
He wants a european USA. Fascists love this.
Romans had consuls and they did pretty well. At least as long as no-one notices that some river is not too deep to cross
The EU was created to unify Europeans over the generations. It is already a confederation at this point. Only a few steps for a federation.
if there is supposed to be such a position (maybe it’s a good idea), it should be a directly elected position, not the current behind-the-scenes horse trading between different countries
So then what of a head of government position, a Prime Minister of Europe? I hope to god the EU does not emulate the Presidential Republic model. That system always tends to authoritarianism.
Hasn’t history taught us that a position like this is dangerous? And especially with direct elections. One day some European version of Trump will get into that role. What would Europe turn into then?
People want a tsar over themselves so badly, it’s unreal.
Sure but it needs to be elective position with a clear mandate from EU citizens.
Yes, but the appointment mechanism needs to change. “The president of Europe” should be elected by us all, not appointed by politicians and parliamentarians.
this role would be elected by the european citizens, right?
Absolutely, but the appointment has to be based on European elections by European citizens. 🇪🇺
I’m conflicted by this. The Democratic institutions aren’t strong enough I feel, and the disparity between members too great to avoid a populist presidency with winners and loser, but in the same breath the commission has currently too much unchecked power and lobbies hold too much sway.
It’s a tough one.
This is the step forward and would bring more agility to the constitution. If, and only if, they put the right head on top of it. Even by democratic vote, I only see 2 individuals as valid candidates (regardless of their domestic success). They hold more of an aggressive, non forward bending approach that should be the standard mentality for the bloc: Macron and De Wever. Macron specifically for his perspectives so far on tech sovereignity and economical warfare. De Wever as a very good diplomatic choice.
They should also establish additional units for negotiations (qualified, no-nonsense) and a war room for tactics (specialists crunching the numbers to understand our weaknesses and strengths).
and the people should vote
As long as it’s elected by vote in all of europe, yes.
We can’t have this be some backroom negotiations like europeans are used to.
Ursula should have left years ago, she’s incompetent and weak, we need a stronger leader in this world of Putins and trumps.
You know we tend to think about the benefits but what about the risks. Just look at what giving too much power to one individual can lead to. If such a change were to be implemented and it might we should look to history and current situations to place adequate and robust safeguards.
There should also be some serious thought given to non-ambiguous limits and red lines that should never be crossed as well as definite and concise ways to intervene should any future head try to chip away at the restraints or a group or party try to, over several leaders sideline their restraints. Bad actors using the powers that democracies give them to then erode the very same system that they used is a recurring problem it seems.
There should be a game plan for when the situation goes wrong just in case it ever does.
edit: a comma.
This reeks of Costa manipulation.
Anything but a presidential system. Can we not repeat the structural mistakes that have caused the US to fail?
So, the name of the office will be High Orange Turd of the European Union
Great idea. It need codified checks and balances.
See: USA 2025.
This has been pushed multiple times before, as a way to make the new “super” President position more powerful and meaningful. The reality is that President of the Council just isn’t a very powerful position though, it’s a part time job, and so rolling it into the Commission President doesn’t empower that position all that much. The role ends up being President of the Commission except with a few more meetings with the heads of government.
So a minority can elect EU version of trump to fuck everything up? No thanks, point of EU is that power is decentralized, that no 1 person has ultimate unchecked power to do whatever they want.
Hold on! How about we first finish the movement for an European Constitution that was rejected 22 years ago… looking at you Denmark and France. Then give the power to elect the Commission to the people like in every civilized democracy and finally let us people vote for pan european parties, instead of forcing us to vote for strictly national parties that are mainly focused of supporting their interests for the next domestic elections.
And by the way… can the parliament finally bring in its own laws or is this still the privilege of the Commission controlled by the national government?
I want a unified Europe (eventually), but as a parliamentary democracy, not a presidential one.
I trust a parliament more than an individual person.
The problem with this is that Europe has to represent the collective member states, and they’ve very different political systems.
Let’s just say for example by some twist of political outcomes a very controversial EU president were elected by a technical majority – not even a Euro Trump, but just let’s say someone from the hard right of normal politics and started of pushing very ideological agendas, the EU would likely just fall apart – there would be no consensus on them having legitimacy.
The system at the moment isn’t perfect and has well documented deficits and can be slow moving, but that’s the nature of multilateralism and consensus finding politics.
The alternatives all would just end up falling into a huge fissure because it’s a voluntary union of countries, not a tight federal system.
You can’t turn the EU into the US and I don’t really even see why that would be a desirable outcome. Europe doesn’t work like that and very likely wouldn’t. You’d create a brittle structure for an organisation that works on flexibility – it would break.
How about renaming the European Parliament as the European Senate and have two elected consuls to lead it, each having veto power over the other?
Along with that the Commission should be given more authority along with the Parliament (i.e the authority to initiate legislation) and the spitzenkandidaten process should be made actual EU Law and legally binding rather then just being a political agreement and precedent between the parties/groups and the Council.
This is a terrible idea. Europe’s power lies in the fact we can’t have a fucking Donald Trump, why would you change that?
There is absolutely no way that would be better than what we have right now.
I frankly don’t like this, kinda goes against the de facto parliamentary structure of the EU, the council and thus the president of the council is the head of state, the commission the executive, and parliament and the council of ministers the legislatures.
Thai would mean merging the executive with part of the head of state, thats a sort of presidential system, the fix is easy, just give the day to day external foreign relations to the commission president but leave the president of the council.
At max make it a semi presidential system closer to that of Finland that until there isn’t an executive the head of state acts as it with caretaker powers.
And when there is a PM they co-decide foreign policy but the president mostly stays home.
Personally I like something akin Switzerland with a council and a rotating head
How about.. no?