Engaged to the European Union (EU in slides)

This video contains information about EU in general, its economic and other statistics, government and its operation. It is good for representing EU to the people living outside of it and it is good for the EU citizens to better understand the place we are living in.

To make this video the content of European Communities initiative "The EU at a Glance" was used. The source of this content is:
http://europa.eu/abc/euslides/index_en.htm

If it is hard to see the text of the video, please try watching it in full screen mode.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• eu
• european
• union
• europe
• statistics
• information

[Spenner56]

The Lisbon treaty's "citizen's initiative" tells us all we need to know about the EU.

Even though there is no legal basis for a European "citizenship" and such a thing does not exist (see the recent German Constitutional Court ruling)..."citizens" will be "allowed" to gather one MILLION signatures and present their petition to the UN-ELECTED commission who are then free to ignore it !

This is a punch in the face for those who still believe in democracy.

George Orwell is turning in his grave.

[WeAreTheEuropeanz]

German court has said nothing on the citizenship of EU. European Union citizenship does exists indeed, every citizen of EU member state is ALSO a citizen of EU. Citizenship of the European Union was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty and was signed by EU member states, it is not something added without national agreement ;)

And it is really funny how a guy criticizes the fact, that EU will create a possibility for its citizens to pariticipate in the EU law designing process.

[WeAreTheEuropeanz]

And then people claim they are pro democracy, strange, isn't it ;)

P.S. Is every part of the government directly elected in your own country? I don't think so. Regarding the principle of government distribution, in my country only the President and the Parliament are directly elected. But th Cabinet is not. And you can use the parallels by yourself, sorry, but my country IS democtaic. You don't need to start electing Central Bank officers for it to be one.

[WeAreTheEuropeanz]

You don't care about democracy. Because if you would, you wouldn't criticize EU for enabling its citizens to use petition as a tool of political participation and also you would agree with the treaty that gives more powers to the directly elected EU institutiion - the European Parliament. But now you oppose such initiatives, so YOU are the one who opposes more democracy in EU ;)

[Spenner56]

Here in democratic Germany we have a similar "tool" but one that forces local government to act if thousands of people have gone to the trouble to gather signatures. Unlike the commission,our representatives are not un-elected burocrats and are there to serve us...not the other way around !

Long live free,democratic Europe.

No to the Lisbon putsch !

[WeAreTheEuropeanz]

I repeat one more time that NOT ALL institutions have to be elected directly for the system to be democratic. The most important thing is that the Commission is formed by the directly elected people.

You have (not suprizingly) ignored all my notes that you indeed act against more democracy in EU. But the truth is oftenly not comforable to acknowledge is the only aim fo yours is to act destructively.

[FrazI1971isBack]

It'll be a long engagement.

[ForFederalEurope]

Nice vid. Eu's great :)

[dallasgoldbug]

EVIL PROPAGANDA

[Spenner56]

With respect, I do not accept your "more democracy in the EU" argument. The "democratic deficit" of the EU is not something I invented. How can the EU be "more democratic" when all legislation originates from thousands of "working groups" meeting in secret for a commission ?

The recent German Constitutional Court ruling also exposed a Playmobil "parliament" with no real citizens to represent and where MEP's are not elected democratically (i.e.one man one vote).

WHAT DEMOCRACY ?

[Spenner56]

I care about REAL DEMOCRACY, not the thing you are perhaps being paid to promote with taxpayers money sent to the "information" commissioner.

The German Constitutional Court ruling was also clear on the EU "parliament"...it can never replace national parliaments because of it's lack of "demos" and undemocratic voting system.

I'll stick with real democracy thanks but you are free to fantasise about power & "democracy" being concentrated in an un-elected commission of millionares if you wish.

[Spenner56]

Under Article 9.TEU, national citizenship becomes SUBORDINATE to EU "citizenship" in the event of conflict between the two. It would be polite to ask people if they wanted a change of citizenship status don't you think ?

The German Constitutional Court's verdict made it clear that this does not aply to Germany as it only recognises national citizenship and not the "European citizen" myth.

Democracy is about people electing their MP's at a local level for government...not out-sourcing !