-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <SNIP>On Wednesday 24 Sep 2003 21:54, Kaj Haulrich wrote: > As expected, the EP voted for the proposal with a huge majority. > > But just to calm you down a bit : > > Those of you who live in democratic and free countries may think > that it's a real parliament. It certainly is not. The members > are not elected, they are appointed by national political > parties. The real power lies at the Commission. One of the > commissars recently called the EP a "Mickey Mouse Parliament" - > very appropriate. > </SNIP>
For the benefit of any non EU readers the above statement is not actually true. Members of the European parliament *are* elected by ballot and *any* EU citizen can stand. Where Kaj's statement has an element of truth is that, unfortunately, the electors (ie the general public) are pretty well brainwashed to only vote for candidates who represent an established political party, and this does have the effect of filling the parliament with the sort of deadbeats that Kaj describes. However, this is really a reflection of the sheep like mentality of the electors and not a valid criticism of the parliament as such, to put it another way. if you vote for idiots you get idiots in parliament, but is this the idiot's fault or yours Regards Pete Ardnamurchan Scotland -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/csk6bAtXXQnVtr0RApCVAJ9fcBr/rNpl9ihqJ7JJDO6zGnGkZACdE4y2 PvNsNVa2DvNlkr7qI5jpTkY= =Eltz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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