Hmm, now whose fault is it that the EU institutions are so complicated and opaque? The citizens? The journalists? Or maybe...?
The problem is mostly the sheer amount of things going on, you couldn't possibly keep up with it all.
And in a democracy if you don't know how your own laws are made the fault is always yours as a voter
Completely immune is overstating it, and the power to initiate legislation is not that meaningful given that the EC initiates what the council tells it to initiate and can't actually turn it into law without parliament and council
You are aware that those with power to initiate legislation are appointed by national governments right?
If you are unhappy with how your country posed itself in those propositions, you can and should vote for parties that have different stances.
Nobody's attention span is infinite. I don't doubt I could understand all details of the EU legislative process and keep track of what sort of terrible proposals are underway if I put in the time, but I have a day job, hobbies that are frankly more interesting, and enough national legislation to keep track of.
If you then also say that the outcome is still my responsibility as a voter, then it seems like the logical solution is that I should vote for whatever leave/obstruct-the-EU option is on the menu. I don't understand why I am obliged to surrender either a large and ever-growing slice of my attention or my one-over-400something-million share of sovereignty.
Because your puny state is no match for the US, China or soon enough, India. Heck, even Russia in its current incarnation outmatches 80% of the EU countries.
That's it, it's that simple, conceptually.
It's basically the Articles of Confederation vs the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, it's not a pretty process, but the alternative is worse.
We can all live in La-La-Land and pretend we're hobbits living in the Shire ("Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble will come to you") until reality comes crashing down.
They are not. People just don't bother themselves to spend half a calory in brain power to read even the Wikipedia page about it, and just repeat shit they read in forum posts.
I mean, here on HN, a website where people are supposedly slightly above average in terms of being able to read shit, the amount of times I read how EU is "bureacrats in Brussels" "pushing hard for changes" is weird.
