The eu’s Legitimacy in the Eye of the Beholders

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

Figure 2.1: The Features of the Two Republicanisms 16

Figure 3.1: Scharpf’s Components of Democratic Legitimacy 21

Figure 3.2: Bernard’s Components of Legitimacy 21

Figure 3.3: Components of Legitimacy 22

Figure 3.4: Models of Legitimacy 24

Figure 5.1: Strengths and Weakness of Documentation 29

Figure 5.2: The Features of the Two Republicanisms 32

Figure 5.3: The Operationalisation of the Dimensions and the Components 33

Figure 5.4: The Operationalisation of the Models 33

Tables

Table 6.1: Dutch Distribution of Judgements 36

Table 6.2: Dutch Distribution of Dimensions 37

Table 6.3: Dutch Dimension * Judgement Crosstabulation 37

Table 6.4: Dutch Distribution of Components 37

Table 6.5: Dutch Component * Judgement Crosstabulation 38

Table 6.6: Dutch Distribution of Models 38

Table 6.7: Dutch Model * Judgement Crosstabulation 38

Table 6.8: Dutch Distribution of Multi-level Governance 39

Table 6.9: Dutch Facets * Judgement Crosstabulation 40

Table 7.1: British Distribution of Judgements 42

Table 7.2: British Distribution of Dimensions 42

Table 7.3: British Dimension * Judgement Crosstabulation 43

Table 7.4: British Distribution of Components 43

Table 7.5: British Component * Judgement Crosstabulation 43

Table 7.6: British Distribution of Models 44

Table 7.7: British Model * Judgement Crosstabulation 44

Table 7.8: British Distribution of Multi-level Governance 45

Table 7.9: British Facets * Judgement Crosstabulation 45

Table 8.1: French Distribution of Judgements 47

Table 8.2: French Distribution of Dimensions 48

Table 8.3: French Dimension * Judgement Crosstabulation 48

Table 8.4: French Distribution of Components 48

Table 8.5: French Component * Judgement Crosstabulation 49

Table 8.6: French Distribution of Models 49

Table 8.7: French Model * Judgement Crosstabulation 49

Table 8.8: French Distribution of Multi-level Governance 50

Table 8.9: French Facets * Judgement Crosstabulation 51

Chapter 1 – The EU’s Democratic Deficit?

[There is a need] to improve and monitor the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions, in order to bring them closer to the citizens of the Member States.

The Nice Declaration on the Future of the EU¹
From June 4^th to June 7^th, 2009, the people of 27 countries could vote for the European parliament. The pre-election debate in the Netherlands was dominated by the Partij van de Vrijheid (PVV)² of the well-known Geert Wilders. The party ran on an anti-Europe platform and won four seats coming second in the Netherlands, thus many people seem to share their anti-European, nationalist sentiment.³ The legitimacy of the European Union (EU) is doubted by this party and the problem seems to be more than just democratic. For this party is not running for a more democratic EU – they want to abolish the European Parliament – but for ‘less Europe’. In their eyes, the EU should only be an economic union and national sovereignty is to become paramount once again. Their slogan is simply: For the Netherlands!⁴

This is interesting for the EU’s legitimacy problem is often described as a democratic deficit. This democratic deficit is a rather new problem for the European project. At the start the European project was seen as an international regime. It was not until the beginning of the 1990s that the EU became perceived as a system of multi-level government in other words another level of representative democracy (Nispen and Posseth 2007). This is also about the time when public support for the EU started to decline among the populations of the Member States. The legitimacy of the European level of governance became a political issue (Bursens and Baetens 2004: 2).

The EU’s legitimacy deficit was observable in several events over the last two decades. There was the failed referendum on the Maastricht treaty in Denmark in 1992. More recently the French, Dutch and mostly likely British no against the constitutional treaty in 1995, of which then a modified version was rejected by the Irish in October of 2008. Further, there were collective actions against the EU, like violent anti-EU protests as part of the anti-globalisation protests and protests against the Bolkenstein services directive. Finally, there is the ongoing decline in voters turnout and support in general for the EU by the public at large (Bursens and Baetens 2004: 2; Bursens and Helsen 2004).

The European political elites thus felt forced to consider the question of public acceptance of the EU. At the Nice European Council, the democratic deficit became officially acknowledged and the intent was formulated that future institutional reforms should aim tackle this problem. The Laeken Declaration (2001), the Constitutional treaty, the EC White paper on Governance, the establishment of the EC Vice-president for communication were all initiatives to tackle the EU’s democratic deficit (Ibid.).⁵

More thematically, Van Middelaar (2009)⁶ distinguishes between three ‘roads’: a German, a Roman, and a Greek ‘road’. The first focuses on the creation of a common identity – European citizenship, anthem and flag –, the second focuses on the Roman slogan of bread and games – Europeans are seduced with (economic) achievements. The third road tries to increase the role of the citizens or more in general to improve ‘the democratic life of the Union’.⁷ The European parliament was made more powerful, a constitution was to be introduced, and after its failure plan D was enacted with the aim to close the gap between the EU and its citizens through ‘communication’ (Liebert and Trentz 2008: 8). What all these initiatives have in common is their interpretation of the gap between the EU and its citizens as a democratic deficit.