I fear Tom Carruthers (Oxford Mail, June 7) has very different views on EU “Democracy” than the rest of us.

The European Commission consists of wholly appointed bureaucrats who have to swear, when taking office, to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. In addition this is the only body that can propose EU legislation.

The EU parliament can only approve or reject the appointment of the commission as a whole – it cannot approve individual members.

The Council of Ministers has 28 members – one nominated from each country (again not directly elected). Even worse as the UK consists of 12.5 per cent of the EU population to be properly represented here we should have at least three representatives out of the 28 not just the one.

The European Parliament, whilst it does have elected members, uses a system of “degressive proportionality” which means that there are widely different constituency sizes. This means that citizens of some countries have effectively 10 votes for our one. 

None of the presidents are elected.

In reality therefore the EU is actually profoundly undemocratic.

PAUL WILSON
Kennedy Close, Oxford