Would you support a switzerland like direct democracy for EU laws?
August 2, 2025
I think our politicians are too easily bought, and vote against our interests too much, therafore i think it is time for another form of democracy to be implemented.
26 comments
No. It requires a fairly mature society for this to work. A lot of countries in the EU don’t have that
Nope. What works for Switzerland would never work for the EU.
Parliament should get more power, the Commission and Council of Ministers should lose power.
Direct democracy is a scam. It sounds cool at first, but ultimately, with voters getting bored you only get special interest groups that go and vote.
Organising something like that for the entire EU sounds like a very large operation and the demographics are very diverse, it would lead someone being more represented than others very easily. People would probably grow tired of it fast, many would not care to involve much at all and lack the knowledge needed to make up their mind anyway.
The European Citizens Initiative and the frequency of its use shows how much/little people care about exercising the possibility of directly contributing to a legislative proposal.
Absolutely yes. However it will never happen because that reduces the power of current power structures.
Considering that Switzerland had regions where women weren’t allowed to vote until the 1990s due to direct democracy… let’s just say no.
Absolutely no, and the best arguement against this is Switzerland itself, just look at the average turnout for these referendums.
Hmm not sure about it. People is usually focused on short term personal interest, not really long term thinking.
Hell no. We’ve got politicians we vote for, let them do their job and if we don’t like the results we can always vote them out of office. The average Joe (like me) has neither the time nor the knowledge to participate in political decisions in a meaningful way, it would only lead to even more manipulation through bad actors on social media.
And Switzerland? Actually I see it as a deterrent example and not something to emulate.
The only reason this works in Switzerland is because the German part of the Confederation constantly votes down stupid financial proposals which do not include any sort of plan of how they are supposed to be financed (like the UBI referendum from a few years back).
Good luck having the same sort of prudence in most of the EU, considering that even in Switzerland the French part votes in favour of everything that is spending, no matter the consequences.
absolutely not. these things dont work on such a big scale. switzerland is already taking ages to pass anything with this system, in the end it works for them and its great, but it doesnt work for the eu or any larger country.
You can’t have such a system in a multilateral, diverse landscape such as the EU. It would just mean that the largest few nations would always decide on everything. You might say they already, but if we would just start counting votes, it would be even worse.
I only know the EU need a complete reform or else it will fall. As of now I’m questioning if our beautiful union is in Denmark’s interests.
Reluctantly no. I’ve seen how a bunch of nutters here turned a referendum about an association treaty with Ukraine into a government popularity vote
Not just ‘no’, but ‘hell no’.
The Swiss experience isn’t exaclty an argument in favour of adopting a system more widely.
The experiences that various countries have had with referendums over the past decade also shows how it’s a very bad idea.
No. Looking at Switzerland already shows that this isn’t really working for such a small country. Doing that on the EU level is just opening up whole new levels of BS.
Depends on the level of education in society. We already saw what happened in U.S. and the current right wing trend in Europe.
Hell no, just think about how stupid, gullible and easily influenced the average citizen is. And half of the population is even dumber.
God no. We need to reform and improve every countries education system first. And make 12 years mandatory. We’d also need media outlets and influencerd to pass a fact check system before they publish anything
People are just too lazy and are always looking at the path of least resistance (or the simplest black/white talking point), they can’t be trusted having grown zp in today’s systems
I do not support direct democracy voting, as people might not be well-informed on every issue.
However, we need more choices. Currently, we can only vote for mainstream parties. I would support a shorter election cycle – every two years, as is the case with the U.S. House of Representatives. We can say: that decision was not good, you are out.
I am convinced that the majority of people are uninformed and therefore allow themselves to be influenced far too strongly by scaremongering, demagoguery and agitation. You can already see this in the democratic system, which is widespread. I am strongly against direct democracy in the current system.
What we need is:
– Strictly combat corruption
– Limit politicians to a maximum duration
– Deplatform demagogues
– Incitement must be penalised
– Political action must be comprehensibly justified
– Information and education campaigns
I could also imagine the following in an early phase:
– A rotating citizens’ council with a say, which is informed by experts
No. I want less European parlament, not more. I’d prefer if it didn’t exist. I have no interest in having the opinion of German MPs affect laws in Sweden.
One problem is that the populace has to be highly educated for *representative* democracy to work well, even more so in case of direct democracy. So, on paper I would love this, in practice it would likely be terrible.
I support direct democracy in principal, given the amount of people voting for a referendum exceeds the amount of people voting for parlement.
In practice, this never happens.
I also wouldn’t mind in theory a form of referendum where you can “correct” the vote of the party you voted for only. That way you could see your parlementaire vote as a default proxy, with a way to deviate from it if you want. but in practice I don’t see a way to do that while maintaining a secret ballot, and it probably won’t make a relevant difference anyway.
If you want to help strengthen eu Parliament against lobby groups, the best way to go is bigger budgets for fractions to spend on their political and scientific staff. That way they can come to timely informed decisions without corporate control. Because that’s where it goes wrong: lobby groups present solutions to members of parliament that don’t have enough time and resources to come to independent decisions.
> I think our politicians are too easily bought, and vote against our interests too much
Unfortunately, voters are often idiots, too, and even vote against their own interests. People are easily manipulated and vote on gut feeling instead of reason.
Populists often abuse direct democracy for their agenda and top troll governments, hence they are usually the ones calling for more direct democracy.
26 comments
No. It requires a fairly mature society for this to work. A lot of countries in the EU don’t have that
Nope. What works for Switzerland would never work for the EU.
Parliament should get more power, the Commission and Council of Ministers should lose power.
Direct democracy is a scam. It sounds cool at first, but ultimately, with voters getting bored you only get special interest groups that go and vote.
Organising something like that for the entire EU sounds like a very large operation and the demographics are very diverse, it would lead someone being more represented than others very easily. People would probably grow tired of it fast, many would not care to involve much at all and lack the knowledge needed to make up their mind anyway.
The European Citizens Initiative and the frequency of its use shows how much/little people care about exercising the possibility of directly contributing to a legislative proposal.
Absolutely yes. However it will never happen because that reduces the power of current power structures.
Considering that Switzerland had regions where women weren’t allowed to vote until the 1990s due to direct democracy… let’s just say no.
Absolutely no, and the best arguement against this is Switzerland itself, just look at the average turnout for these referendums.
Hmm not sure about it. People is usually focused on short term personal interest, not really long term thinking.
Hell no. We’ve got politicians we vote for, let them do their job and if we don’t like the results we can always vote them out of office. The average Joe (like me) has neither the time nor the knowledge to participate in political decisions in a meaningful way, it would only lead to even more manipulation through bad actors on social media.
And Switzerland? Actually I see it as a deterrent example and not something to emulate.
The only reason this works in Switzerland is because the German part of the Confederation constantly votes down stupid financial proposals which do not include any sort of plan of how they are supposed to be financed (like the UBI referendum from a few years back).
Good luck having the same sort of prudence in most of the EU, considering that even in Switzerland the French part votes in favour of everything that is spending, no matter the consequences.
absolutely not. these things dont work on such a big scale. switzerland is already taking ages to pass anything with this system, in the end it works for them and its great, but it doesnt work for the eu or any larger country.
You can’t have such a system in a multilateral, diverse landscape such as the EU. It would just mean that the largest few nations would always decide on everything. You might say they already, but if we would just start counting votes, it would be even worse.
I only know the EU need a complete reform or else it will fall. As of now I’m questioning if our beautiful union is in Denmark’s interests.
Reluctantly no. I’ve seen how a bunch of nutters here turned a referendum about an association treaty with Ukraine into a government popularity vote
Not just ‘no’, but ‘hell no’.
The Swiss experience isn’t exaclty an argument in favour of adopting a system more widely.
The experiences that various countries have had with referendums over the past decade also shows how it’s a very bad idea.
No. Looking at Switzerland already shows that this isn’t really working for such a small country. Doing that on the EU level is just opening up whole new levels of BS.
Depends on the level of education in society. We already saw what happened in U.S. and the current right wing trend in Europe.
Hell no, just think about how stupid, gullible and easily influenced the average citizen is. And half of the population is even dumber.
God no. We need to reform and improve every countries education system first. And make 12 years mandatory. We’d also need media outlets and influencerd to pass a fact check system before they publish anything
People are just too lazy and are always looking at the path of least resistance (or the simplest black/white talking point), they can’t be trusted having grown zp in today’s systems
I do not support direct democracy voting, as people might not be well-informed on every issue.
However, we need more choices. Currently, we can only vote for mainstream parties. I would support a shorter election cycle – every two years, as is the case with the U.S. House of Representatives. We can say: that decision was not good, you are out.
I am convinced that the majority of people are uninformed and therefore allow themselves to be influenced far too strongly by scaremongering, demagoguery and agitation. You can already see this in the democratic system, which is widespread. I am strongly against direct democracy in the current system.
What we need is:
– Strictly combat corruption
– Limit politicians to a maximum duration
– Deplatform demagogues
– Incitement must be penalised
– Political action must be comprehensibly justified
– Information and education campaigns
I could also imagine the following in an early phase:
– A rotating citizens’ council with a say, which is informed by experts
No. I want less European parlament, not more. I’d prefer if it didn’t exist. I have no interest in having the opinion of German MPs affect laws in Sweden.
One problem is that the populace has to be highly educated for *representative* democracy to work well, even more so in case of direct democracy. So, on paper I would love this, in practice it would likely be terrible.
I support direct democracy in principal, given the amount of people voting for a referendum exceeds the amount of people voting for parlement.
In practice, this never happens.
I also wouldn’t mind in theory a form of referendum where you can “correct” the vote of the party you voted for only. That way you could see your parlementaire vote as a default proxy, with a way to deviate from it if you want. but in practice I don’t see a way to do that while maintaining a secret ballot, and it probably won’t make a relevant difference anyway.
If you want to help strengthen eu Parliament against lobby groups, the best way to go is bigger budgets for fractions to spend on their political and scientific staff. That way they can come to timely informed decisions without corporate control. Because that’s where it goes wrong: lobby groups present solutions to members of parliament that don’t have enough time and resources to come to independent decisions.
> I think our politicians are too easily bought, and vote against our interests too much
Unfortunately, voters are often idiots, too, and even vote against their own interests. People are easily manipulated and vote on gut feeling instead of reason.
Populists often abuse direct democracy for their agenda and top troll governments, hence they are usually the ones calling for more direct democracy.
Prime example: Brexit.