Swedish Pirate Party Member To Be EU's Youngest MP 152
First time accepted submitter genjix writes "In a few weeks Amelia Andersdotter will be the second Pirate Party member to take a seat at the European Parliament in Brussels. The 24-year-old Swede was voted in more than two years ago, but due to bureaucratic quibbles her official appointment was delayed. TorrentFreak catches up with the soon-to-be youngest MEP to hear about her plans and expectations."
Re:Only 24? (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of European countries have very young MPs in national parliaments. The Minister of Taxes in Denmark is 26. The youngest MP in Denmark is 20.
Re:Only 24? (Score:4, Informative)
Canada has younger (19!); thanks to Quebec's recent purge of the Liberals/PQ, several "no hope of being voted in at all" candidates from the NDP got in.
Re:Naysayers say nay (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm. The parliament selecting the government is not a system which was developed in mainland Europe, I think. As far as I know it's derived from the British "crown in parliament" system. The electorate votes for the parliament, and all other functions of the state are derived from parliament.
In a presidential system like in the US or France you don't get to vote for the setup of all positions of government, either. Then the president gets to choose who is in charge of which department (though there can be parliamentary controls).
Re:Naysayers say nay (Score:2, Informative)
Tosh!
The Commission drafts the legislation, then depending the legal domain, it will follow a predefined route as specified in the (Lisbon) Treaty. Most legal domains use the Co-Decision process by which the Council (comprising all EU Members and chaired by the member holding the rotating presidency) will first address technical details (civil servant technical experts from the members), as the legislation matures it moves through the Council's committees until the Council and Parliament can negotiation directly. The Parliament has its own committee structure and most drafts of the legislation are publicly available from both the Council's secretariat and the Parliament. The rules of the process and the rights of the negotiation parties are all specified in the treaty. With the Lisbon treaty the MEPs have much more authority giving its members, directly elected by the European public, considerable poser. You can also view MEP voting histories and contributions to discussions on the Parliament's website. The Commission's main role is oversight thereafter.