Same for ol' Rupie — not Australian for a while now.

Sorry old mate but you have eaten far too much propaganda

Now look at the EU
the EU Commission has a President (elected)
the EU Parliament has a President (elected)
the EU Council of Europe (the countries) has a President (elected)
the European Court of Justice has a President (elected)

These organisations work together to run the EU; no single one has authority over the other three.

Fixed that for you; oh wait a minute......

Maybe no floor; tonight £1 buys CHF 1.19

Feck me!

indeed ...

Amazon.co.uk, I love you!

Wasn't he original Australian, he may be American on paper now, but some things are hard to change

But naming all those bodies (and there are plenty more smaller ones that occasionally muscle in) actually just proves the point that the EU is a massive, unwieldy, creaking bureaucracy that totters along under the weight of its own self-inflated grandeur.

As for that array of presidents being "elected", it really depends what you mean by "elected". They certainly don't get elected by the public. The President of the Commission is appointed by the Council, and rubber-stamped by the parliament. The Council (mostly heads of state) have to have some sort of conversation to discuss who they want. Is that what you mean by elected?

Same with the President of the Council. He/she is appointed by themselves after a meeting. I guess if the choice isn't unanimous, there has to be a show of hands. Is that what you mean? Again, no public election. The Council is constitutionally pretty chaotic. It's a convention, not a rule, that it's made up of national leaders but in practice they can send along anyone -- usually a minister below PM/President, apart from the big set-piece meetings when the big cheeses all turn up together.

The Court of Justice President is chosen, or "elected", by the senior judges themselves. Again, a tiny group of people, and certainly not the public.

As far as I know the parliamentary president is elected by members of the parliament, which at least has the democratic benefit of an electorate so large that it actually reaches into 3 figures -- unlike all the others you mention.

I'm glad we'll be finally free of all that nonsense within 2 or 3 years. We need to be friends and business partners with our neighbours, without being part of all that excessive bureaucracy.

now you're just nitpicking

if you pour boiling water on somebody's hand and ask what happens and somebody answers he'll move his hand away and put it under the tap. you don't say, no that's wrong. his left hand will move away, his mouth will scream and his legs will propel him up.

it's bloody obvious that the different member states involved will have different views, but the totality of these different reactions is then the reaction of the EU.

And the British Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet are all elected by the public? No they are not!

The President of the European Commission is elected by the European Parliament.

Pretty poor analogy; you are still thinking of the EU as a single entity.

If you pour boiling water on the hand of, say, the EU commission then who knows how the Council of Europe or the EU Parliament or the ECJ will react; if indeed they react at all.

Got it now?

OK, if you really don't believe the EU exists and can't get off the single entity thing, then when you see me write "the EU", just mentally check if in the context it can be replaced with "the counterparties to the UK on the brexit negotations" and if so, make that substitution mentally and be happy.

You keep writing "the EU" and then you fool yourself into believing it is a single entity as was proven by your analogy.
You are the one who needs to take the mental step to accept that there are different groups involved and then you will stop making general assumptions and so be able to better analyse the situation

you misunderstood the analogy then.

the point is that the individual reactions are irrelevant. it is only the impact on the final position that matters.

if the representative of one country votes against extending the timeline, yes, you could go and say this one voted this way and this one voted that way.

OR you could use common sense and use a level of abstraction and say "the EU vetoed the extension"

(here you can replace the EU with the European Council it makes you happy)

Ah good, you are starting to get it
If you state the European Council or the EU Parliament then it is clear what you mean; if you say the EU vetoed the extension then you continue to promote this myth about the horrible unelected EU making decisions behind closed doors.

i always got it. you are the one who seems to be struggling.

you can use EU as short hand and it should be clear what it means from the context.

the European Council is just one of the institutions of the EU (that thing you don't think exists)

and frankly, which specific institution isn't even relevant in the context i raised.

So, you are basically saying that the $$$ per capita for a manufacturing job is the same figure as for a services job...

I do not believe you got it. You used a body as an analogy for the EU. Your problem is a body has a head that completely controls the body which is a poor analogy for the EU; what is the EU equivalent of the head?

The EU is more like a street of houses. Each house has a role that they perform alone. Sometimes there are tasks that require two or more houses to work together.

Oh please, let's be honest here, any trade agreement where French, Germans, and Italians need to agree on something will take ages, will complicated to understand, and will need 10 times more pages than needed. Put US, UK, AUS or CAN (not the Québécois of course ) on a table and I'm sure the problem will be solved more quickly.