EU Should Allow Alternative Ways of Manning the European Consul and Consul of Ministers

 

Recently EU faced a lot of accusations of being undemocratic and controlled but unelected bureaucrats. As much as it's not true only people who actually understand how EU works know them. For many other people EU system is far too confusing. They cannot understand in a commonsense way how EU officials are elected and accountable to public.

European Consul as well as Consul of Ministers consists of national level ministers who head related domestic departments. They are as elected as national governments are.

However, effectiveness of such arrangement varies from state to state. For someone like Germany, who has a similar domestic institution called Bundesrat, or Finland it works well. People who represent their nations there take their jobs with a sense of civic duty and desire to do their best for their country and EU as a whole.

On the other hand, for countries like UK, it consistently fails to deliver. British politicians are too lazy to meaningfully participate in these institutions. Being on EU consuls goes on top of their other responsibilities, but unlike their other roles, they will not be voted out if they fuck up their EU work. Thus, they just sit there upright, looking forward, cast donkey votes and then blame various domestic problems on some "unelected EU bureaucrats" even though they were likely there when vote on the issue was held and voted for it without paying much attention. As much as it was their fault and not that of the EU, voters who do not understand how EU works blame the EU reelect the politicians who sleep on the job.

A solution to this problem is to allow certain countries to hold direct election to European Consul and Consul of Ministers. 

This should be on opt in basis so that countries that think it's more sensible can opt into it and those who prefer current arrangement can keep it. These consuls work on one country, one vote principle so they can work even if different countries have different methods of choosing their delegate. European Consul already allows for some countries to be represented by presidents and others by Prime Ministers instead.

If country ops for election it should be direct presidential style election that is held alongside either European elections or national ones. The winner will be called something like Emissary of <country name here> to the European Union and will represent their country on European Consul and cast their country vote. 

They would also select their cabinet; to represent their country in Consul of European Union (consul of ministers) other countries are represented by a minister of relevant departments so an Emissary should select representatives with relevant experience for each EU department, similar to how the US president selects their cabinet secretaries. National parliament should confirm their selections just like Congress confirms US Secretaries.

This solution will bring more transparency to European Union and address concerns of certain countries over EU's shortage of democracy. At the same time, it will allow for a certain continuity and familiarity in how operates as countries can still retain the current system if they see fit and it will prevent too much unpredictability, that could make EU ungovernable, in such an important institution as European Consul or Consul of European Union. I hope EU can implement this solution as fast as possible.