Both national MPs and EU commissioners are public officials who form public policy that affects citizens' lives. In that much they are comparable. Both procedurally and in scope of effect there will be differences of course (commissioners are much more powerful, and therfore should be held to a higher level of scrutiny).
In any case, similarity of jobs is orthogonal to the narrow question - who has the stronger mandate?
Take Person A who via an elected representative would like to effect legislative change in their nation. Who has the stronger mandate to take action?
In other words, which representative would be closer to the truth in saying that "they were acting in Person A's name"?
1. For the sake of argument, let's take the UK Prime Minister. He is voted for by a party consisting of members of the public via an open process to represent a specific platform; is elected directly by a constituency numbering in the low tens of thousands of people who happen to live in a geographical area of the nation under representation.
Furthermore, the representative is a widely known public figurehead with a well-known platform meaning that although members of the public in other constituencies cannot affect his election to parliament directly, they can affect the amount of power he wields. The election covers 70 million people.
2. For an EU Commissioner a shortlist of representatives are chosen in secret by a team of people, each of whom is a proxy, elected via a process similar to (1). One of the shortlist is chosen by a vote from members of a directly elected parliament. The election takes into consideration the views of 3/4 billion people.
The EU commissioner shortlist process is secret (and thus open to nefarious influence - go on: tell me this will not happen), the final vote is diluted by the views of an order of magnitude more people, spread over a much greater geographic area (meaning a much wider range of concerns need be taken into consideration), and the commissioner need not have been elected directly by anyone from the population he represents (other than via proxy).
Based on this, it is clear that the representative in scenario (1) has a stronger claim to be said to be acting in the name of Person A than the person elected via process (2).
The EU is hence less democratic than the institutions is is replacing, and is in some sense democratically regressive.
(And this is before any discussion about the differences in the legislative path between Westminster and the EU).
I agree. Thank you for the expanded explanation of the reasons behind my above brief comment.
I just note in passing with wry bemusement, that my comment that sparked such illuminating discussion apparently deserves only 0 points.
In any case, similarity of jobs is orthogonal to the narrow question - who has the stronger mandate?
Take Person A who via an elected representative would like to effect legislative change in their nation. Who has the stronger mandate to take action?
In other words, which representative would be closer to the truth in saying that "they were acting in Person A's name"?
1. For the sake of argument, let's take the UK Prime Minister. He is voted for by a party consisting of members of the public via an open process to represent a specific platform; is elected directly by a constituency numbering in the low tens of thousands of people who happen to live in a geographical area of the nation under representation.
Furthermore, the representative is a widely known public figurehead with a well-known platform meaning that although members of the public in other constituencies cannot affect his election to parliament directly, they can affect the amount of power he wields. The election covers 70 million people.
2. For an EU Commissioner a shortlist of representatives are chosen in secret by a team of people, each of whom is a proxy, elected via a process similar to (1). One of the shortlist is chosen by a vote from members of a directly elected parliament. The election takes into consideration the views of 3/4 billion people.
The EU commissioner shortlist process is secret (and thus open to nefarious influence - go on: tell me this will not happen), the final vote is diluted by the views of an order of magnitude more people, spread over a much greater geographic area (meaning a much wider range of concerns need be taken into consideration), and the commissioner need not have been elected directly by anyone from the population he represents (other than via proxy).
Based on this, it is clear that the representative in scenario (1) has a stronger claim to be said to be acting in the name of Person A than the person elected via process (2).
The EU is hence less democratic than the institutions is is replacing, and is in some sense democratically regressive.
(And this is before any discussion about the differences in the legislative path between Westminster and the EU).