From that link:
- a more bicameral system and fewer deadlocks in the Council, through more decisions by qualified majority voting and the ordinary legislative procedure;
- a fully-fledged right of legislative initiative, and a co-legislator role for Parliament for the long-term budget;
- an overhaul of the rules for the Commission’s composition (rebranded as the “European Executive”), including the election of its President (with the nomination to be done by Parliament and the approval by the European Council - a reversal of the current process), limiting the number of Commissioners to 15 (rotating between the member states), enabling the Commission President to choose their College based on political preferences with geographic and demographic balance in mind, and a mechanism to censure individual Commissioners;
- significantly greater transparency in the Council by publishing EU member state positions on legislative issues;
- more say for citizens through an obligation for the EU to create appropriate participatory mechanisms and by giving European political parties a stronger role.
Some changes missing from that link that I found interesting:
- Switch from «High Representative» to «Union Secretary» and «President of the European Council» to «President of the European Union».
I very much prefer the old names, and I don’t like the downgrade from High Representative to Secretary.
- Parliament now chooses by itself how to divide its seats between member states.
Not really in favor of this, this should be the European Council’s job.
- More power to the CJEU for resolving inter-institutional disputes, and involving it in the process for suspension of EU membership.
- Gives more agency to the European Defence Agency and gives the CSDP its own budget. It also copies NATO’s article 5 wording for mutual defense.
- Amending the treaties needs the approval of 4/5 of member states.
That would currently mean 22 out of 27, so no more French-Dutch veto.
- Adding the risk to cross planetary boundaries when considering environmental policy (?)
- Adds a more concrete language, from «may» and «suggest» to «shall» and «enforce».
Lobbying is necessary. It is not just corporations doing lobbying, but also social and environmental groups. The problem is that these issues are impossible to adress with the “base” because they are often too specialized. Ask the average citizen what his stance on regulating a specific product is and he will just tell you to fuck off.
We are simply 200 years too far into industrialization and technology to let average Juan, Jonathan or Joe make an informed opinion on most topics.
Partly agreed. The ignorance of voters is irrelevant in a representative democracy. It’s not voters who make the law, it’s their representatives. Voters are supposed to pick representatives based on their values and then trust them to get on with learning about specific issues. The reason lobbying is inevitable is not that voters are ignorant, it’s that the representatives are incompetent or sleazy or lazy, they don’t take their job seriously, and they make laws according to whatever expert has their ear. Big business has the money to pay for their attention, and so NGOs end up having to play the same game.
Of course, whether all this is the fault of voters or politicians comes down to intuition. Most people say the latter. Personally I would say it’s the former. After all, in a democracy we get the politicians we deserve, by definition.