Sausage-making, european parliament style

[innonimatu]

It has been said that seeing politics, in this case the legislative process, at work will leave one as sick from seeing the works of a sausage factory. It's probably an exaggeration, at least in this case. It is actually worth watching some law-making.

The case study I propose here is this, and seems well-documented by now: in a recent committee vote over amendments to a new copyright directive draft (recommendation?) in the European Parliament, a commission with 23 present members (out of 24) cast... 26 votes on one divisive issue, and 25 on another!

In an unexpected turn of events, one of the key committees in the European Parliament voted recently to weaken a reform of the copyright monopoly for allowing re-publication and access to orphan works, pieces of our cultural heritage where no copyright monopoly holder can be located.

When a work has gone orphan, it means that it is effectively lost until the copyright monopoly expires, 70 years after the creator’s death. You can only hope that somebody has kept a copy illegally and copied it across new forms of storage media as they go in and out of fashion as the decades come and go, or it will be lost forever.

The vote in committee on March 1 was supposed to end that (or, more technically, recommend a course of ending that to the European Parliament as a whole). However, the copyright industry lobby won key points in the voting procedure with 14 votes against reform and 12 in favor of it, according to the just-published protocol. This is according to a fresh report from our Brussels office – I cannot yet find the protocol on the EU’s web pages (which are notoriously disorganized; it may actually be published).

There’s a problem with this. There are 24 seats in the committee, and one group (non-inscrits) was absent, lacking deputies to fill that person’s vote. So, there should have been 23 votes at the most. But we just counted 12 votes for reform and 14 against. That’s 26.

The video of the events is rather interesting, especially the fast and apparently chaotic way in which votes get counted. I understand that they have a lot of amendments to dispatch, but... not even being able to check if the number of votes adds up!? This is ridiculous!

Is this supposed to be normal? The kind if (let's be generous) mistake that gets done every day?

 

[Save_Ferris]

Sausage factories don't disgust me. I just care about the end product.

 

[cardgame]

The government is a body of people notably ungoverned.

That quote seems quite applicable here - and indeed, who is going to stop this kind of shenanigans from happening?

 

[ParkCungHee]

It has been said that seeing politics, in this case the legislative process, at work will leave one as sick from seeing the works of a sausage factory. It's probably an exaggeration, at least in this case. It is actually worth watching some law-making.

Okay, I'm asking because I'm curious, do they translate that phrase different in Portuguese?

 

[Leoreth]

EU law making is different from sausage making in that sausages are at least an acceptable end result.

 

[Winner]

EU law making is different from sausage making in that sausages are at least an acceptable end result.

Well...


Link to video.

As always, Yes, Minister provides a valuable insight...

 

[Takhisis]

26 votes from 23 voters? No double votes? Privileges? AI being a crapshoot?

 

[innonimatu]

Okay, I'm asking because I'm curious, do they translate that phrase different in Portuguese?

Nah, I'm to blame for all rhetorical liberties there.

 

[FriendlyFire]

If they have hard copies of the votes, should they not be able to check ?
also LOL

 

[Abegweit]

EU law making is different from sausage making in that sausages are at least an acceptable end result.

It is funny to see how even statists are cynics about statism. I've seen this before.

 

[Takhisis]

Could you please just stop using the blanket name of 'statists' against everyone not agreeing with your political ideas? It just alieanates people because it sounds as if you were calling all of us 'the enemy'.

 

[Arwon]

Well, yeah.

 

[Abegweit]

Could you please just stop using the blanket name of 'statists' against everyone not agreeing with your political ideas? It just alieanates people because it sounds as if you were calling all of us 'the enemy'.

Statists are statists. Deal with it. And, yes, statists are the enemy. If you think that describes you then look in the mirror and think.

 

[Arwon]

Angry reductive namecalling is the only valid form of political expression.

 

[Abegweit]

Angry reductive namecalling is the only valid form of political expression.

There is no such thing as a valid form of political expression. Politics is all about lies for the purpose of theft.

 

[Takhisis]

If everyone were half as rude to everyone else as you are we'd have no forum.

 

[Arwon]

or society!

 

[downtown]

or society!

Society is theft brah. It's full of thugs.

 

[Takhisis]

Mmmk, back to the topic at hand, has anyone found anything else on how 23 people get 26 votes?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It is funny to see how even statists are cynics about statism. I've seen this before.

What exactly is a statist ?
Someone who thinks there should be a state or analogous political system ? This would mean about 95% of the people in the developed world follow a f-ing -ism.