mr president time has perhaps habituated us to the hollowness of the ritual that we have just carried out
familiar as we are with the eu structures we have ceased to see how anomalous how outrageous it is that we have supreme executive and legislative power in the hands of an unaccountable and unelected bureaucracy
the majority of laws in the member states come from a european commission whom nobody votes for and nobody can get rid of
the only bit that pretends to democratic authority is the rite that was just carried out in this chamber which i cannot help saying put me in mind of one of those occasional meetings of the people's assembly in the old comecon times where we all stand up and congratulate ourselves on having rubber-stamped the decision
i have no personal problems with josé manuel barroso
if we are going to have a federalist president of the commission and i can see that is the will of the house it might as well be him as anyone else
he seems a nice chap and like all british politicians i am profoundly lusophile and aware of our relationship with our oldest ally but there is something farcical about the pretence that there is any democratic involvement in a system that puts a monopoly on the right to initiate law in the hands of people that we cannot vote for and cannot get rid of
