People tend to criticise the European Union for the lack of Democracy. I will not debate this question on an absolute political or ideological reference, because Democracy has a huge variety of combinations and degrees, since the Athenian version wherein the citizens, and only the citizens, voted directly on each executive measure to take, till the far-fetched representative Democracy in which people vote by double-proxy, like in the USA for example. In the USA, the citizens vote on electors from an electoral college, said members of this college voting then again to elect the president, said president then deciding later the executive measures to take. Hence, in the USA, the citizens decide on the measures to take, by double-proxy in chain. In many other democratic nations with two chambers, a similar double-proxy process is used to elect the members of the high chamber, like the Senate in the USA, Brazil, Italy, or the House of Lords in the UK. And many of those who criticise the European Union for lack of Democracy, do not dare to say that the USA or the UK are not democratic. It is obvious that the European Union needs more patriotic feelings and a bit more of propaganda, exactly like the USA does with Hollywood. Just this can explain this enormous paradox on the public opinion, when one objectively compares the democratic instituions in the EU and in the USA.
Therefore, regarding Representative Democracy in the EU, it is relevant to say the following: the EU has three main institutions, the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, and all of them are as democratic, directly or indirectly, as any other democratic institution in any developed nation, like in the UK for example. European citizens vote directly for the European Parliament to elect its members (that's how Nigel Farage appeared there, for instance). As with respect to the members of the European Commission, they are appointed by the members of the European Parliament, exactly like any other parliament appoints the member of the corresponding government. Regarding the European Council, it is formed by the democratically elected national governments of the member states, being one nation equivalent to one vote, and therefore in the Council the vote of Malta has the same value as the vote of France. In the UK, for example, people do not vote directly for the government, nor the Head of the State, the queen, nor the House of the Lords; the British citizens vote for their Parliament, whose members later on appoint the government. Exactly as the European Parliament does with the European Commission. The obvious conclusion, I would say, is that the European Union needs not more democracy, she needs more marketing!
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