In CITES, the EU should have 1 vote, not 27.

 At CITES COP20, the proposal to list eels in the Appendix was rejected by a vote of 35 to 100. Of those 35 votes, 27 are believed to have come from the EU, which proposed the listing. However, these weren't cast by individual member states; instead, a single EU representative pushed one button to vote on behalf of all 27 countries. Furthermore, even with an Appendix listing, free trade would remain legal within the EU. In practice, the EU operates as a single entity under CITES.

If each EU country voted independently and voluntarily, there would be no issue with the legitimacy of the outcome. However, I believe that using a 'single button' to represent 27 nations is an unacceptable stance for democratic societies.

How would these leaders feel if the same lopsided system were used in their children’s school elections? Would they not feel ashamed to explain such a process to the next generation?

It is disappointing that the EU appears to feel no such conflict. This is especially glaring given that, excluding the EU's block vote, the proposal was rejected by a staggering margin of 100 to 8 among the rest of the world.