The EU is usually open -- see the TTIP negotiations.
The EU Parliament is elected based on popular vote. If populists like Farage are in the parliament, that's only because people vote for them. Hardly undemocratic.
The EU Council comprises the elected head of government of each member state. Hardly undemocratic.
The EU Commission comprises a president, who is selected by the EU Council and approved or denied by the EU Parliament. The Council also appoints the members of the commission, each country appoints 1 person. In the UK this is no different to the PM appointing ministers.
For this law to pass, not only does the parliament of elected MEPs have to pass it, but so does a majority of the Council, elected leaders.
While it suits heads of various EU governemnts to blame 'the EU', it's entirely in their control to approve or reject the directive, and it's entirely in your MEP's control to approve or reject it.
This is not true for the Congress which is the comparable institution to the European Parliament.
Each state is apportioned a number of seats which
approximately corresponds to its share of the aggregate
population of the 50 states.
... The method of equal proportions minimizes the
percentage differences in the populations of the
congressional districts. [1]
Some outliers exist, because states are guaranteed at least one seat (compare that with 6 for Luxembourg)
I don't get your point. you say it is not true and then you agree that some outliers exist. this is exactly the point, that there are outliers like this in US Congress, just like there are in the EU parliament. Probably the value is higher in the EU, but I think that's fair to protect the smaller states.
His argument is that the 11:1 ratio of MEPs is not democratic, but the 2:1 ratio of Congress is democratic.
The UK has a system, widely known as democratic, where the government of the day (with the exception of 2010), does not have the support of the voting population. In 2015 David Cameron and his Tory party got 100% of power in Parliament, and thus 100% of power in the executive, based on 36.9% of the voting public.
The U.S presidential elections are also classed as democratic, despite that twice in the last 20 years more people have voted for a different candidate than the one who became president.
(It's actually worse than 11:1 ratio -- Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian has 1.3m voters per MEP, Malta has 70,000, that's a 19:1 ratio)
However I've never heard people complain that Malta, Luxemboug, Slovenia, Cyprus etc hold the cards, people always complain it's Germany and the UK that call the shots.
The senate was never meant to be democratic; the state of US government classes must be atrocious these days, because people never seem to understand this. Senators have only been directly elected at all for 100 years, they were supposed to be a check on populism from the lower house, and a way for smaller states to block large states from ramrodding through nationwide legislation.
The EU Parliament is elected based on popular vote. If populists like Farage are in the parliament, that's only because people vote for them. Hardly undemocratic.
The EU Council comprises the elected head of government of each member state. Hardly undemocratic.
The EU Commission comprises a president, who is selected by the EU Council and approved or denied by the EU Parliament. The Council also appoints the members of the commission, each country appoints 1 person. In the UK this is no different to the PM appointing ministers.
For this law to pass, not only does the parliament of elected MEPs have to pass it, but so does a majority of the Council, elected leaders.
While it suits heads of various EU governemnts to blame 'the EU', it's entirely in their control to approve or reject the directive, and it's entirely in your MEP's control to approve or reject it.