A Mathematical Perspective Power Shift Within The Council Of The European Union

Even in France the referendum in favor of the Treaty only gained a small majority. Meanwhile in Germany the Treaty had to be tested for its legal consistency with the German constitutional rights. The UK, just like Denmark, only signed the Treaty after their opt-out from the single currency and from the social protocol were approved from the EC.

Since 1950 European Union (EU) was created it has promoted peace, prosperity and values among the member nations and its neighbouring countries. EU’s influential tools, has helped transform many European states into functioning democracies and prosperous countries. EU’s membership has grown from 6 to 28 countries (Enlargement, 2014), satisfying a historic vow to integrate the continent bringing in most states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by peaceful ideals.EU has anticipated the enlargement as an extraordinary opportunity to endorse political strength and economic success in Europe. EU’s extension policy is open to any European state that fulfils the EU’s political and financial criteria for membership; still the political process of inclusion of new state requires a unanimous agreement from all the existing 28 member states. Europe is considered to be more flourishing and safer place due to the promotion of democracy, anti-corruption policy and the single market policy.

When identifying the presence of a democratic deficit in the European Union, it is important to consider a range of factors, including international treaties and the effect they had on its structured governmental framework. One of the first official agreements established by the European Union (formerly

The multigovernmental nature of the European Union and the national governments of its member states also helps to decrease the democratic deficit, not only on a supranational level, but on a national level as well (Eising 2011). Because there is a division of powers and sovereignty between these two levels of governance, citizens have the capacity, through interest group activity, to represent their interests to two different legislative bodies that could pursue legislation in their favour (Kohler-Koch 1997; Eising 2011). Similarly, due to the relatively nascent state of European Union interest group activity, many groups with similar interests are combining and coordinating efforts in order to have a bigger influence over policy decisions (Greenwood 2003, Eising 2011). Because of this unique phenomenon, smaller groups may work in tandem with

Further, the Commission’s institutional structure is a factor putting great weight on perceptions of the democratic deficit since it lacks democratic credentials yet largely dominates EU law-making in spite of the presence of the EP as its democratic face. Commissioners are not elected, directly nor indirectly, as is with most sovereign executives. Follesdal and Hix however argue that the exercise of these executive powers requires contestation of political leadership and policy. They also suggest that direct elections by citizens or national parliaments should be allowed for the contestation of the Commission President who holds the most powerful EU executive position, so as to increase democratic input. Contrary to this position is that of Moravcsik, who discounts the idea of elections as a possible remedy and rejects the notion of

The United Kingdom initially joined the European Union in 1973 for economic reasons hoping to promote trade and form relationships with other states in the Union. In 1975 the UK held its first national referendum on withdrawal from the European Economic Community. According to the poll,” 67 % of Britons voted to stay in the EEC and 32 % voted to leave the union” (GYE). Because of this result the UK stayed in the EU in 1975. Over the past 40 years the European Union has been through a lot of change, many more countries have joined the organization and the EU has extended its control over more aspects of daily lives. These changes have sparked a lot of controversy coming from both the UK public and

Furthermore these democratic foundations were further “reinforced” with the conditionality’s of membership adopted at the Copenhagen Summit in June 1993, whereby democratic governance and human rights were included in its criteria for membership. Furthermore, the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 formally established a Common Foreign and Security Policy which included objectives of which included the development and consolidation of democracy. The EU as Lucarelli argues hence became a strong instrument for the promotion and development of democracy in Europe and but especially in post-communist ones. This Furthermore, the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 reaffirmed its strong democratic position through Article 6:

Thomassen (2006: 1) notes that the legitimacy of political institutions can be assessed either with normative theories or with substantive evaluation in relation to participants. While the theoretical approaches can be considered largely relevant to the requirements for founding democracy, the latter shows a considerable resemblance to an analytical approach which divides legitimacy into components of input, output, and throughput, each representing citizens’ demand and initiatives, process of negotiation and revision of legislations, and policies created through the process (Thomassen, 2006: 2-9; Schmidt, 2010). What can be noted from this division of components is that the lack of democracy in any of three components may undermine the legitimacy of the entire system, and that ensuring legitimacy requires the involvement of citizens (Miklós, 2011: 5). In this essay, the issue democratic deficit will thereby be addressed based on such description of the democratic legitimacy which is to be understood with regards to whether the EU institutions and policies appropriately represent citizens and whether its political procedures involve citizens (Peterson, 2005: 1511-1513).

This paper will assess the claim that supremacy of EU law is still an evolving and debatable concept. To do this, I have divided this paper into four sections. The first section will discuss the establishment of supremacy in EU law through ECJ case law. The second section will explore the vibrant debate surrounding constitutional pluralism that has arisen since the early 1990s. The third section will examine the debate and impact of the codification of primacy in the early 2000s. The fourth section will examine the extent to which the principle of sovereignty has been accepted in three EU Member States, namely, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland.

The concept of power has come to be associated with the terms wealth, authority and government. Much of what is studied in the field of political science is defined by the parameters created to express the concept “power” and how well it is used to distribute wealth and authority. It is important that the ideas that symbolize the characterization of power can be defined within a set of parameters that are readily relatable because the basis of political science is the study of the theory and practice of politics, which can be broadly defined as the determining of the distribution of power and resources.

Common institutional design elements in Europe make it easier for this representation to occur. More than two-thirds of European government structures include elements such as Parliamentary or Presidential/Parliamentary hybrid systems and PR voting. Understanding these design elements in necessary to understanding how ERPs form and how their public support translates into representation in European countries.

Despite some traces of unanimity, the Treaty implies strong supranational victories in the development of the AFSJ. This development can be explained as a natural evolution: strengthening the integration in one sector pushes for integration in another, and this has become more obvious as the EU is growing with more members. In order to make a free mobility possible, it is useful to have cooperation within the fields of AFSJ.

Comparative analyses of European politics allow political scientists to formulate and test policies through cross-compare, learn best practices, make predictions and develop a standardized model of democracy for new nations. Techniques of comparison are useful in the observation of government formation, as they enable analysts to derive the similar and differing factors influencing formations. Throughout Europe, there are four types of government formations: single-party majority, minimal-winning coalition, oversized coalitions and minority governments. According to European Politics: A Comparative Introduction, where Tim Bale calculated the percentage of each administration between 1945 and 2010, the overall composition of Europe 's governments (limited to the 27 member-states of the European Union or EU-27) can be broken down into the following: 11 percent single-party majority, 33 percent minimal-winning coalition, 34 percent minority government and 21 percent oversized coalitions (Bale 2013 – p119, Gallagher et al., (2011: 434). While minimal-winning coalition and minority government are far more common than other types of governments, it has been argued that coalitions are the "norm" in Europe (Boucek, 2010:48-51).

Originally, the EP was conceived as little more than a consultative assembly with limited scope in certain areas, however it has gained significant new powers and responsibilities with the signing of the Single European Act in 1986, the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1996. Elections Election s to the European Parliament are held on a five year fixed term basis, there is no uniform electoral procedure consequently the five sets of direct elections held to date have been contested on the basis of different national electoral arrangements. In the 1999 elections the UK did not use its standard 'first past the post' system, but rather proportional representation on a regional basis. This meant that for the first time a form of proportional representation was used in all Member States. As well as the differences between the electoral systems of

The European Union (EU) was established in order to prevent the horrors of modern warfare, experienced by most of Europe during the World Wars of the 20th century, from ever ensuing again, by aiming to create an environment of trust with the countries of Europe cooperating in areas such as commerce, research and trade (Adams, 2001). The EU has evolved into an economic, trade, political and monetary alliance between twenty-eight European Member States. While not all Member States are in monetary union (i.e. share the currency of the euro), those that are form the ‘Euro-zone’ (Dinan, 2006). The EU can pass a number of types of legislation, with a regulation, act, or law, being the most powerful. Its ‘tricameral’ (European Union, 2007)