The European Union

Analysts have also criticised the undemocratic nature of the legislation, because interest groups dominate policy-making in the EU excluding more regular channels of democratic governance. The very complexity of the legislative procedures also means that it is virtually impossible for even experts to understand them. In addition much of the decision making takes place behind closed doors. They have also targeted European elections as decentralised, apathetic affairs.

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 democratic deficit is a theory developed by scholars in order to illustrate that the European Union and its institutional bodies suffer from a lack of democracy (Wincott, 1998, p. 414). However, there are many definitions of the democratic deficit (Chryssochoou, 2000; Justice, 1996; Warleigh, 2003; Weiler, Haltern & Mayer, 1995) depending on the views and approaches of each scholar. Joseph Weiler's ‘standard version' of the democratic deficit is one of the most common definitions and it is a set of widely-used arguments by academics, scholars and the media (Weiler et al., 1995, cited by Follesdal & Hix, 2005, p. 4). It consists of five claims that explain why the EU can be called undemocratic and they are the following: a) there is an

From a macro scope it is evident the EU is strong promoter democracy and has deeply embedded democratic features, however, as Peterson and Shackleton point out that “understanding politics always begins with understanding institutions not at least the EU”. Taking this advice the essay will seek to examine the two main legislative bodies within the EU,

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

he following paper will address the question of how democratic the European Union is by analysing each of its institutions and the decision procedures in the European context. It will take into account the special role of the European Union as “a system of polycentric governance” (Garner, 2009: 230), and the complex relationships between its institutions and the institutions of its member countries. Hereby taking into account that the “EU can be characterized as ‘a system of network governance’ in which ‘the ‘‘state’’ is vertically and horizontally segmented and its role has changed from authoritative allocation ‘‘from above’’ to the role of an ‘activator’ ” (Crum and Fussom, 2009: 257). The EU with its high degree of complexity remains unique in the world of governance and shouldn’t be compared to nation states. Following a multilevel approach that recognises this uniqueness the question whether the scepticism towards the EU’s institutions and the voices that see a democratic deficit inherent in the EU are right shall be answered.

EP elections are a key ingredient in the debate over the democratic deficit in the EU. Generally this debate concerns the distance of EU institutions from ordinary citizens and the need for more direct citizen input into the EU decision-making institutions.

Therefore, to prove that the claims regarding the EUs democratic deficit are convincing the firstly, the European commission and its legitimacy as an unelected institution shall be questioned. Secondly, the complexity of the EU which discourages voting within

Nowadays, European Union is not a state; it can be defined as an association of corporate bodies, including the part states and the European Institutions .It has built up another sort of political framework that goes past the traditional intergovernmentalism and has considerable components of supra-nationality. Before it was made, it was almost impossible to develop a political arrangement of majority rule administration separated from the institutionalized country state model.The improvement of the Union has

Furthermore, the existence of ‘comitology committees’ which contribute to the drafting, editing and enacting of European Union laws further detach the citizens of the EU from the decision-making, leaving a large portion of European processes to be organised by unelected committee members. The delegation of authority to expert committees, whilst being more efficient, distances the citizen from the European Union, making the institution much less democratic.

One of the sources examined in this paper was that of Giandomenico Majone’s article “Europe’s ‘Democratic Deficit’: The Question of Standards”. This article’s purpose was to factor in what definition was to be used for the democratic deficit. In this article Majone separates the two parties influenced by the democratic deficit: The European Community (EC) and the European Union (EU). The democratic deficit then that is used for this paper is taken strictly from the definition used by Majone, “Technocratic decision-making, lack of transparency, insufficient public participation, excessive use of administrative discretion, inadequate mechanisms of control and accountability – that arise whenever important policymaking powers are delegated to

Around the turn of the millennium political leaders around Europe were challenged by two antithetical developments within their societies. On one side, the European citizens rely on them to handle and solve the major contemporary political issues (e.g. unemployment, peace- and safekeeping). On the other side, increasing distrust and indifference concerning politicians, politics and institutions (on the national and European level) leads to a growing legitimacy issue for the European Union and its institutions. As a result the incumbent president of the Commission of the European Communities, Romano Prodi, announced “promoting new forms of European governance” (Prodi, 2000:4) as a key strategic objective of his Commission from 2000-2005. Consequently, the European Commission published the White Paper on European Governance in 2001, introducing steps to a more democratic Union.

A legislative process where there is a lack of transparency and accountability creates a democratic deficit. A democratic deficit (or democracy deficit) occurs when presumably democratic organisations or institutions (particularly governing institute) fall short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation where representative and linked parliamentary integrity becomes widely discussed. As far as lack of democracy is concern at European Union, it was first cited by a by Young European Federalists in their manifesto at that time. European Union was formed in order to create an everlasting relation within in its state. It is worth remembering the EU is a supranational state of unprecedented model. It is also worth remembering that EU initially was formed only to enhance collaboration within few financial interests and democracy was not the goal it thrived for. This initial goal has slightly been over shadowed by some critics of its undemocratic status. This issue has somewhat cause the estrangement within the EU states. There have been calls for EU to involve its citizen more and more into their decision making. Although considerable efforts are made throughout its history but one might argue that EU could have done more in order to make it more transparent in last half a century.

After establishing the four principles as the basis for examining the EU’s democratic performance, what’s left to examine is how the EU falls short of meeting these standards resulting it suffering from ‘democracy deficit’.

There are few glaring events that will go down in history as the defining geopolitical events of this century. Great Brittan’s recent results from a referendum heldon on June 23, 2016 to decide if it should leave the European Union (EU) is one such glaring event. Brexit, the acronym for this referendum, is synonymous with the contemporary populist sentiment supporting nationalism, economic autonomy, curbing immigration, and defying elitist politicians who do not understand the reality of the working classes. As a result of feelings of lost power and economic insecurity by the working class people, the citizens of Britain voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU in hopes of industrial reform. It was a surprise even to those who voted yes to the referendum. Britten has a new Prime Minister, Theresa May, who still needs to work out how the exit will be negotiated within a two year time period.