How Is EU's Democracy Really Doing?

[marcus]

From https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1112/c90000-20389440.html
Title : How is our democracy really doing?
By Stefan Sigfried , November 2025 - The author is based in Sweden, and worked as a journalist and with modeling of complex systems, software testing, quality assurance, and programming.

The Western concept of democracy is often reduced to a single principle: the right to vote in free and fair elections ...

Yet, growing dissatisfaction across Europe suggests this model is failing to deliver on its promise of prioritizing citizens' welfare ...

Across Europe, trust in leaders is waning. In France, Germany, Belgium, UK and other places, citizens protest against leaders with low approval ratings who insist on staying in power. The European Union (EU), originally focused on free trade and travel, now pushes military spending, such as billions in aid to Ukraine, a nation plagued by corruption. Many Europeans question whether their votes align with these decisions, as power shifts from national governments to Brussels ...

Free speech, a cornerstone of Western democracy, is also under strain. Media restrictions, such as bans on Russian news outlets, raises questions about censorship. Meanwhile, the EU's actions against leaders like Romania's Călin Georgescu or France's Marine Le Pen, and scrutiny of Germany's AfD, suggest intolerance for dissenting voices. Democracy, it seems, struggles to accommodate those who vote "wrong."

At the heart of this disillusionment lies the unchecked power of a wealthy elite ...
The elite—through control of media, finance, and narratives—grows richer ...

The conclusion seems to be that the Western belief that "democracy = voting = the best system" is dangerously simplistic. Voting is fine, but it's not a panacea ...

Instead, we need nuanced metrics to evaluate governance: Are citizens healthy, safe, and educated? Do they feel empowered to shape their society? Can elite greed be restrained? A scoring system—say, from 0 to 1000—could measure these outcomes, forcing leaders to prioritize results over excuses ...
By measuring the true quality of society, leaders would be forced to deliver real results — they could no longer hide behind the label of "democracy."

A system that measures outcomes would create real accountability and expose the excuses of politicians.

 

[Balifrog]

Look at the last elections in Romania....
Cancelled because the result didn't suit the E.U.
There is no democracy anymore in Europe.
And the US is even worse.

 

[harryopal1]

Democratic voting is a confusing, messy, complicated process that eludes perfection but what is better? A dictatorship? Invariably these are associated with repression and corruption with a ban on free speech and anything remotely critical of the leader. Military coups? Usually resulting in economic disaster along with disappearance of crtics, repression and corruption. I don't even want to think about the EU but better to keep tinkering with the tired old process of democracy.

 

[marcus]

Democratic voting is a confusing, messy, complicated ... but what is better? ...

Even if we assume there is nothing better , we cannot continue with a bad system , can we ?

Few ideas :

• we (but not obligatorily) should directly vote to approve : the laws , going to war , how to spend (our) money from taxes , ...
• less power to elected leaders .
• selecting 5 (for example) : presidents/prime ministers/governors/mayors instead of just one (all voting for any decision) .
• candidates be appointed by us , not by political parties (end of political parties) .
• only government money for candidates campaign .
• wealthy lobbies to be considered illegal .
• prohibit public leaders to talk in public , give interviews , opinions to medias , ...

 

[Bob]

The People's Daily Online? I'm sure that's a very credible and unbiased source.

 

[harryopal1]

The People's Daily Online? I'm sure that's a very credible and unbiased source.

Just had a look at the People's Daily online. A useful source for Sinologists. I found the items on robots particularly interesting with the possibilities for militarization. An intriguing one is the transparent jellyfish-inspired robot for underwater exploration. So imagine the opportunities for espionage as a Chinese ship harbours in a western port and releases a bunch of these to get close to the naval ships of other countries. And the armies of weaponized robots seems no longer some science fiction notion but rather an about to arrive reality. The huge PLA Navy's first Type 076 amphibious assault ship looks ideal for the inevitable attack on Taiwan.

It seems we should all start learning Mandarin.

 

[marcus]

The People's Daily Online? I'm sure that's a very credible and unbiased source.

If there is anything that is not credible or is biased (in the part of the article I posted) , please clarify us .

 

[Bob]

If there is anything that is not credible or is biased (in the part of the article I posted) , please clarify us .

The article is interesting but somewhat slanted to emphasize discord in the West. I suppose that's the author's perceived task.

 

[Hawk256]

It has become very easy to be a "news" source and peddle what ever beliefs that you want. If someone agrees with it then it is a valid source, if not then it is fake news. Hard to know which is which sometimes. I have noticed as late that almost every news story has a slant of some kind.

 

[marcus]

The article is interesting but somewhat slanted to emphasize discord in the West ...

The way I see it is how the democracy system is , in general , not only in Europe .

I saw in my own country and also here in Indonesia , that in general there is doubt in who we vote as we don't know the candidates well enough (I myself was never interested in voting) , the candidates need a lot of money to be elected (so later they may become inclined to return "favors" to the donors) , many (if not the majority) of the candidates are not prepared for the job , many candidates promise too much , ...

To me , a clear evidence of the system's flaws is how bad politicians' reputation is .

In my (South American) country , a person "behaving politically" means that the person always smile & agree with the other person with who he/she is talking to (behaving falsely , not being sincere) .

 

[savin399]

From https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1112/c90000-20389440.html
Title : How is our democracy really doing?
By Stefan Sigfried , November 2025 - The author is based in Sweden, and worked as a journalist and with modeling of complex systems, software testing, quality assurance, and programming.

The Western concept of democracy is often reduced to a single principle: the right to vote in free and fair elections ...

Yet, growing dissatisfaction across Europe suggests this model is failing to deliver on its promise of prioritizing citizens' welfare ...

Across Europe, trust in leaders is waning. In France, Germany, Belgium, UK and other places, citizens protest against leaders with low approval ratings who insist on staying in power. The European Union (EU), originally focused on free trade and travel, now pushes military spending, such as billions in aid to Ukraine, a nation plagued by corruption. Many Europeans question whether their votes align with these decisions, as power shifts from national governments to Brussels ...

Free speech, a cornerstone of Western democracy, is also under strain. Media restrictions, such as bans on Russian news outlets, raises questions about censorship. Meanwhile, the EU's actions against leaders like Romania's Călin Georgescu or France's Marine Le Pen, and scrutiny of Germany's AfD, suggest intolerance for dissenting voices. Democracy, it seems, struggles to accommodate those who vote "wrong."

At the heart of this disillusionment lies the unchecked power of a wealthy elite ...
The elite—through control of media, finance, and narratives—grows richer ...

The conclusion seems to be that the Western belief that "democracy = voting = the best system" is dangerously simplistic. Voting is fine, but it's not a panacea ...

Instead, we need nuanced metrics to evaluate governance: Are citizens healthy, safe, and educated? Do they feel empowered to shape their society? Can elite greed be restrained? A scoring system—say, from 0 to 1000—could measure these outcomes, forcing leaders to prioritize results over excuses ...
By measuring the true quality of society, leaders would be forced to deliver real results — they could no longer hide behind the label of "democracy."

A system that measures outcomes would create real accountability and expose the excuses of politicians.

It feels like a lot of the frustration comes from people expecting democracy to solve every problem by itself. Elections matter, but they don’t guarantee good leadership or good outcomes. When people see living costs rise, corruption scandals, or leaders pushing decisions that feel disconnected from daily reality, trust drops fast.


What Europe is dealing with now is less about the system breaking and more about citizens wanting results they can feel. If governments measured and communicated real outcomes instead of just relying on the idea of “we’re a democracy so everything is fine,” people would probably feel less ignored.

 

[harryopal1]

The way I see it is how the democracy system is , in general , not only in Europe .

I saw in my own country and also here in Indonesia , that in general there is doubt in who we vote as we don't know the candidates well enough (I myself was never interested in voting) , the candidates need a lot of money to be elected (so later they may become inclined to return "favors" to the donors) , many (if not the majority) of the candidates are not prepared for the job , many candidates promise too much , ...

To me , a clear evidence of the system's flaws is how bad politicians' reputation is .

In my (South American) country , a person "behaving politically" means that the person always smile & agree with the other person with who he/she is talking to (behaving falsely , not being sincere) .

And which South American country is that?