Also, I can only vote for the EP on candidates from my own country, who actively campaign under their own national party but they are part of a European party (regularly together with another party from my own country with which they pretend to disagree on national politics).
If the EP was anywhere near democratic, I would be able to vote for any European candidate, and they would at least campaign for the European party they will be a part of, once elected.
None of the countries I'm familiar with allows you to vote for arbitrary candidates even on local elections. You can only vote for candidates that are running for your local area. At least on Italy the major national parties definitely are not members of the same EU party. I'm pretty sure that's the case in UK as well.
I can only vote for candidates standing in my region, both in UK and Germany.. I'll grant the UK could be more democratic too, but the EU is as democratic as at least some of it's member states.
There are no "European Parties" at least not how one generally understands the term in national politics. Candidates for the EU parliamentary election are elected on the ticket of national parties. Those parties are free to form alliances (on a national basis) but most don't.
Once a candidate is elected and joins the parliament, they usually join a faction of like-minded MPs from across the EU, i.e. conservatives, liberals, social democrats, greens. Those are NOT parties but function similar to i.e. the faction structure in German parliament which may also contain members from multiple parties. Politicians from different national parties may end up in the same faction in EU parliament but that is rare.
This is more or less the same how it works for national elections in many countries, it is called "representative democracy", simply adapted to make sure that the EU parliament is roughly representative of the EU electorate.
Voting in NL is possible on all candidates, nationwide. As it should be.
Wether it is a faction or a party, two Dutch parties who claim to be different when campaigning for Dutch elections, sit and vote happily together in the EP.
It is all representative democracy, they gave us a direct vote in a referendum, two or three times. The outcome was not as desired, apparently, so it was either done again, or ignored.
The sales pitch is that we should all be Europeans, voting for European governance... So let me vote on Europeans, not just dutchies. May be different in other countries but that makes no sense to me. A lot of countries allow voting on anyone who is an eligible candidate for the thing being voted for. Unless, e.g. like for the us Senate, where, iiuc there is an equal representation of two senators per state.
There is no „as it should be“ in voting systems. The exact same system can be a good fit for one situation/country/institution and be a catastrophe for another. You are annoyed by Dutch politics, not European politics, so kindly sort out your personal Problem but don’t try to speak for the rest of us in these pointless and non factual sweeping terms.
There definitely is a way it should be, and like I mentioned, in some situations it should be different.
Not sure why you seem to think how I am annoyed by Dutch but not European politics, or how I am speaking for "the rest of you". Have you agreed to that with that rest? For the record, I am not annoyed by but rather disgusted with the actual political and governmental systems and practices. And I am very much not alone in this, second largest party in our recent elections is built on this very topic. So are many throughout Europe. Mostly framed as "right wing" which is exactly what people are tired of, me included.
The ones who seem to be speaking for others are the politicians with a feeble mandate :)
If the EP was anywhere near democratic, I would be able to vote for any European candidate, and they would at least campaign for the European party they will be a part of, once elected.