As we know, in line with the Lisbon Treaty, Europeans won't have the right to vote for the "President of Europe". Should we have this right?
by 
Jadey - Vive la difference
ANSWERS: 5
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who the hell votes then?
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I think we should, though as a large part of the population of the UK doesn't bother voting in the UK elections, good luck in getting them out to vote for something many will have even less knowledge and interest in. I have to be honest and admit that I couldn't pick out most of the candidates out of a police line-up myself, so I wouldn't know who to vote for.
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I don't understand the EU, anyway. I understood the "Common Market", I think, and it made sense. But, the EU is a strange thing to me. Do most Europeans even understand what it is?
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When Australia voted whether or not to become a republic a few years ago, one of the questions was whether we should vote directly for a president or whether the president should be elected or appointed by the parliament. Many people wanted to vote for a president because that said that leaving it to the parliament would mean the president would be a politician or a politician's president. I think they were exactly wrong. Former prime minister Paul Keating pointed out that if the president was elected directly, then he / she would have to be a politician and could claim a mandate from the people and demand political power. Yet the parliament is also directly elected and also has a mandate from the people. Who should run things? The parliament or the president? The parliament is composed of many people, the president is just one. Which one is more representative of the voters?
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That depends somewhat on what the President's duties actually are, which is (deliberately) uncertain at the moment. One thing is certain. S/he will not have anything like the powers of national Presidents such as those of the US or France. At the lowest level, the post will just be a permanent chairman of meeting of EU heads of state. But it might go further: the President might speak for the EU and try and make the "G2" (US and China) into a "G3". In that case, s/he should have the confidence ot the EU governments for whom s/he speaks. Either way, the EU President is representing the governments more than the people. Therefore it is probably better that the post is appointed by the governments. If the people selected someone who was disliked by most governments, which would be easy, they system would collapse into bickering.
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