Cyprus-Forum.com

[metecyp]

Hi everyone,

I've recently realized how undemocratic the European Parliament is and I wanted to share with you because I know some members of the forum "love" pure-democracy, and they might find this as disturbing as I do. Here are some figures taken from http://www.europarl.eu.int/presentation ... ult_en.htm.

Key: Country, Population, Seats in the European Parliament

Cyprus, 0.8 million, 6
Estonia, 1.4 million, 6
Latvia, 2.4 million, 8
Germany, 82 million, 99
France, 60.4 million, 72
Spain, 39.4 million, 50
Greece, 10.5 million, 22

As you can see, Estonia's population is almost 1.5 times of Cyprus and yet they get only 6 seats instead of 9. Latvia has 3 times more population than Cyprus, and yet, they only get 2 more seats than Cyprus! Wait, it only gets worse.

Greece has a population more than 10 times of Cyprus and yet they don't even have 4 times more seats in the European Parliament.

And finally, Germany has a population more than 100 times of Cyprus, and they only have 99 seats (about 17 times of Cyprus seats).

Isn't this ridicilous? What happenned to democracy and human rights?

Hold on. I've just found this quote on the same page.

The challenge has been to avoid too great an increase in the total number of Members after enlargement, while bearing in mind the relationship between the number of seats per country and size of population, and ensuring that the less densely populated States have an adequate political voice.

Hmm..Something to think about...

[Piratis]

EU is a union between independent countries. These countries make agreements. For example Estonia knew how many PMs they would get, if they didn't like it then they shouldn't had joined. Also, Estonia as an independent country can move out of the EU if they decide that they don't like it.
EU is not a country. Is an association between independent countries.

[metecyp]

EU is not a country. Is an association between independent countries.

That's not the point here. The point is that you can't have pure democracy all the time. There are some situations where some smaller states/minorities get more than what they actually deserve so that they have enough political voice. Otherwise, smaller states like Cyprus, Estonia, etc. would have no influence in any decision making in the EU.

[Piratis]

That's not the point here.

No, it is exactly the point.

There are some situations where some smaller states/minorities get more than what they actually deserve so that they have enough political voice.

Yes, there are some situations.
In EU for example no country was obligated to join. Since most European countries are small, if they wanted EU to expand, they had to make their rules in a such a way that it would be attractive or at least acceptable to the other countries so they would show interests to join the union.

Also, we are not the ones who decide how many MP Cyprus will get. If we said that we wanted as many MP as Germany has they would have laughed to say the least.
So maybe the representation of small states is a bit higher for functional reasons, but their demands should be within what EU as a whole considers as acceptable and fair.

[insan]

How does this EU parliament work? Simple majority vote or all of them have equal power? As far as I know all of them have the equally effective veto power...

So what does the number of MEPs mean in this parliament? Just a symbolic representation?

[mehmet]

there is a difference between the Council of Ministers where every nation ahs veto power, and the Parliament, which is not a parliament in the true sense. it is a forum for discussing, debating and proposing policies but ultimately has less power than the Council of Ministers. So if Malta, Cyprus any country wanted to veto, they could. But all this is up for discussion currently and the EU has not been able to decide what the arrangements should be now that 25 nations are within it. Until then the arrangements that existed when the EU started with just 6 members remains.

[metecyp]

Yes, there are some situations.

Ok, so what's your criterion for these situations? In what situations can a minority have more political representation than its population?

You're saying that EU is a union of independent states and if a state wants to join to the EU, they have to accept that the European Parliament is not pure democracy and you're right. But this is not the point. There are many examples where a minority group/state gets more than what it deserves so it can have a political voice in the overall structure. And nobody complains that this is undemocratic because one part of democracy is that the majority makes the decision AND the other part is that the minority is being listened.

Unfortunately, some narrow-minded and one-sided members of the forum emphasize on the majority ruling part of democracy and they convienienty omit the minority being listened part. You won't find a single Turkish Cypriot that has any desire of ruling the Greek Cypriots whatsoever. All they want to make sure is that they will be listened and they'll be able to participate in the politics of Cyprus and they have every right to demand this after 40 years of isolation and exclusion.

[Piratis]

Metecyp,
having political voice and being listened is one thing and nobody disagress. But impossing your opinion and have the right to veto everything is a totally another thing. Can't you see the differene?

One example: We have parties that participate in the parliament with 1 member. (they got a bit more than 1.79% that is the minimum needed to elect a PM). Those parties have a political voice. When we had the referendum for example they participated in most discussions in TV, all their views are in newspapers etc. Also, since presidential elections are almost always won with a tiny difference, those parties are needed in order to elect a president (and therefore the canditade president has to present a program that will sutisfy at least some of the small parties also).

In the case of TCs, we are talking about 10 times the power of those small parties. Therefore they will have political voice and they will be listened too just like eveybody else is.

So who denied your democratic right to be listened to? NOBODY!

It seems to me that because you are unable to argue against our true position you intentionaly change our position and attack something that you created in you mind but it has absolutely nothing to do with our position.

[michalis5354]

Metecyp , there are people also who tend to think that GCs are all evil minded and are ready to attack and kill the Turkishcypriots and the Turks. I happened to face this situtation many times in the past. The Turkish military who of course think like any other military worldwide - We are the good and they are the Bad guys - have created this scenario and this scenario indeed really exist . Unfortunately the perception that has been created by the military is this and its is indeed a very narrow approach that dioes not reflect the present but only the PAST.