‘In Defence of the “Democratic Deficit”: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union’

Abstract

Is the European Union democratically legitimate? It is an appropriate moment to pose this question. The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a stable institutional equilibrium - let us call it the ‘European Constitutional Settlement’ - that serves as a de facto constitution for Europe. The Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice failed to alter its structure significantly. Deliberations now underway, despite being turbo-charged with constitutional rhetoric, are unlikely to achieve much more. The most ambitious proposals still under serious discussion - incremental expansion of qualified majority voting or flexibility, the creation of a forum for national parliamentarians, restructuring the European Council and its Presidency, for example - consolidate decade-long 604 ANDREW MORAVCSIK trends rather than launch new ones. Incremental moves to deepen foreign policy, justice and monetary policy co-operation appear to require only minor centralizing reforms, and few other functional issues of significance are visible on the horizon. None of this will alter the essential trajectory of European integration. Thus we may now be glimpsing the constitutional order that will govern Europe, barring a severe crisis, for the foreseeable future.

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