Is There a Democratic Deficit in the EU - Research Paper Example

IS THERE A DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN THE EU? by of the of the Introduction Since last few decades, the debates over proper constitutional system for Europe have rapidly grown.1 The accusations of democratic deficit initially discussed in the European Parliament’s pact for the European Union in the early 1980s, resulting 1986’s Single European Act whose primary objective was to eliminate the democratic deficit in the EU’s structure.2 As the Nice and Amsterdam treaties failed to reform constitutional structure of the EU, the debates over democratic deficient in the EU became more intense in academic and political fields.3 While most scholars, politicians, and even members of the EU agree that the EU has democratic deficit, some advocates like, Andrew Moravscik and Giandomonico Major argues that there is no democratic deficit in EU as it contains all properties of healthy democracy from party organization to party competition at the entire European level in the European Parliament (EP).4 The purpose of this paper is to examine whether democratic deficit exists in the EU or not. On the basis of extensive research and major arguments of Hix, Follesdal, Majone, Milev, Bellamy, Akaytay, Apostolovska, and Friedrich, the paper will rebuttal the arguments of Majone and prove the democratic deficient in the EU under crucial sets such as, absence of legitimate structure, weak EP, lack of social legitimacy, lower control of national parliament, lack of public involvement, and ignorance towards public preferences in EU policies. Defining Democracy and Democratic Deficit Before evaluating the structure of EU and analyze the major democratic deficiencies in it, it is necessary first to define the concept of democracy and democratic deficit. Democracy The definition of democracy is highly contextual and complex. According to the definition of Stallybass and Bullock, democracy is the governance of the masses in which supreme power is hold and exercised by the demos indirectly or directly through the representative governing structure. The concept of democracy is clarified with simple description, “governing of the people, for the people, by the people.”5 Direct democracy and indirect democracy are the two basic forms of democracy in the world today. In direct democracy, all civilians directly involve in decision-making process. It is the oldest form of democracy. Referendum is a great example of today’s direct democracy. In representative or indirect democracy, representatives of common citizens, who are elected by periodical free elections, are assembled to take decisions on the behalf of citizens. Also, other important institutions such as the judiciary system and media often restrict the power of government by challenging its actions and decisions when it is necessary. It is certainly the most dominant democratic concept in today’s world.6 Many critics claim that under positive environment democracy can be a powerful force whereas when exposed to lobbying or under the control of dominant interests it can be beneficial force for ill purposes. The efficiency of democracy and targeted actors (whether actual citizens or particular powerful groups) that are mostly benefited from the actions or decisions of the government confirm whether democracy consists of a ‘deficit’ or not.7 Democratic Deficit Over the last two decades, the concept of democratic deficit, which literally means lack of democracy or impairment in democratic structure, has been regularly used to argue lack of democracy in different bodies of the EU and inaccessibly of EU to common people due to its complex operating structure. The term was initially presented by the British scholar, David Marquand in the early 1970s to highlight the lack of legitimacy in democratic structure of the European Community.8 Europeanization of Democracy and Basic Form of the EU’s Democratic Deficit Europeanization of Democracy In today’s globalized world, democratization has widely transformed. Robert Dahl, a modern political expert, identified 3 crucial periods of transformations in democracy.9 First era was identified during the early 15th century in Greece when people were directly involved in administration and law-making. Second one was state-based democracy and the third period of transformation in democracy was considered through the rise of transnational model of democracy. According to Dahl, telecommunications, advanced technology, and rapid globalization have transformed the conventional state-based democratic concept to the transnational level. Franses Fukuyoma states that EU is the ideal example of latest transformation in the conventional parliamentary democracy as it has its own unique formation and democratic structure. With interconnected relations between the EU Parliament, the EU Commission, and the EU Council, the EU has formed its own democratic system. In the scholarly literature, it is identified as the “Europeanization of democracy.”10 The EU is not a nation-state, international organization, or particular market; rather it is a transnational governing body with distinct democratic structure. According to Katz, conversion from sole economic body to a transnational political unity after the 1990s rose massive shortcomings and democratic deficit in the EU.11 Basic Form of the EU’s Democratic Deficit Democratic deficit in the EU can be defined as the difference or gap between “ought” in expected theoretical sets and the “is” in context of actual present orders in the EU.12 On the basis of major democratic theorists’ presented models of democracy, 6 main characteristics of healthy democracy are identified, namely, institutionally founded regulating procedures, competition for governing authority, deliberation quality, scope for all adult civilians to participate in, presence of electoral system, and government’s responsiveness towards majority of the demos. Though these are not complete evaluating elements, they cover most of the features of modern political system that is generalized as ‘democratic.’13 On the basis of these salient characteristics of democracy, the basic form of the democratic deficit in the EU is identified. According to the concept of EU democratic deficit, lack of legitimacy in the EU is highly evident from its political power shift from the democratic parliamentary structure of state-based governments to the high executive-based government system at the European level.14 The executive governing system of the EU consists of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. European Parliament (EP) is the only body of the EU which is directly elected by the European voters. The EP is too weak to control the executive governing bodies, and the Council and the Commission of the EU are not obliged to the Parliament, unlike the democratic structure of open division of powers. The decision-making process is conducted without consideration of interest and preferences of the citizens.15 Based on the arguments of Hix, Follesdal, Akaytay, Bellamy, Azman, Milev, and Friedrich, the democratic deficit in the EU can be identified in 6 major sets, namely, lack of legitimacy, excessive executive power and lowered state parliamentary control, weak EP, absence of European election, huge gap between EU and citizens, and social legitimacy. Lack of Legitimacy According to the argument of Majone, EU has credibility problems rather than democratic deficit. He claims that the EU requires effective policies to protect the interests of minorities, more clear decision-making process, and better relation between parliamentarians and media.16 Similarly, Moravscik, argues that EU has two powerful mechanism in terms of the EP, which shows direct accountability, and the elected state executives, which shows indirect accountability of EU’s democratic structure.17 However, the arguments Majone and Moravscik for the EU are feeble because the political structure of the EU gives excessive power to the executives and less authority to the state parliaments which allow the executive bodies to ignore the state parliaments in the policy-making process at the European level. Consequently, there is a total absence of legitimacy in the EU governing system.18 The member states and the EU admit that the EU needs to solve legitimacy problems, but they deviate over the solutions. Many EU states argue that they should have more control and power to develop the EU as more inter governmental democratic system. But, some governments emphasize on promoting only their national parliaments to make the EU more legitimate and accountable. In a way, a lack of basic harmony between the national parliaments and the EP has significantly escalated democratic legitimacy issues in the EU, especially in the EP.19 (25 18-19) Excessive Executive Power and Lowered State Parliamentary Control The structure of decision-making process that gives excessive power to executive bodies like, the Council of ministers and the Commission of the EU and lower preference to national parliaments is the core of democratic deficit in the EU. Often it results in the ignorance towards the preferences and interests of the state parliaments which are official representative of the will of the member states’ citizens that are simultaneously citizens of the EU too. Furthermore, executive actors such as, the members of COREPER, ministers of Council during addressing and voting in the Council, the Directorates General of the Commission’s state officials are more distant from the state parliaments’ monitoring than the state ministers in the domestic policy-making system. In addition, executive roles have been authorized to the special bodies Eurojust and Europol in the field of justice, security, and freedom.20 The more executive bodies are separated, the more difficult the control over them becomes. Therefore, the legal control over the executive bodies will be achieved only when the state parliaments and EP will make combine efforts to control the executive bodies. The process is clearly absent in the EU, raising the question over transparency of decision-making process of the EU.21 More precisely, in the process of European democratic integration, there is a significant lost of powers of the state parliaments which are crucial representative institutions of national democratic systems. By excluding the representative democracy from the core governing structure and providing excessive power to the executive bodies, the EU indirectly ignores the role of its citizens in the policy-making system, which is contradict to the fundamental characteristics of democratic model.22 The European Parliament is too weak According to Moravsik’s argument, the qualified majority voting system and co-decision method in the European Council have reduced the influence of the European Commission in decision-making process. Also, the EP holds power of veto for the Commission’s member selection and legislations can’t be approved without majority support in both the EP and the Council.23 But, in reality, the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t give any right to EP for the legislative initiative as it is still owned by the Commission.24 The EP is too weak compare to the Commission and the Council because even though EP has same legislative right as the Council through the co-decision method, a majority of the legislations in the EU are still passed through the consultation process which can’t be intermitted by the EP. Moreover, though the EP has the power of veto over the formation of the Commission, the state governments are still the main agenda setters in the recruitment of the Commission.25 The EP is mainly criticized for the massive imbalance between the power and representation. According to the theoretical model of democracy, power and representation should be in balance and any difference between two bodies, where one is commissioned to represent people and the other isn’t to represent, can’t be significant. Due to less power in law-making process than the Commission, EP has failed to represent or protect citizens’ privileges and rights.26 Absence of European Elections Citizens of the EU have a right to elect their state parliaments and their representatives in the EP through open elections. But, there is a remarkable difference between the state elections and elections of the EP. First of all, the interest of the European citizens in the elections for EP is too low. It is evident from the EP election in 2009. According to the reports of Pew Research, though almost 381 million Europeans had opportunity to vote, less than 40% of citizens did voting.27 Significant loss of voters was identified among the powerful member states such as, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, France, and the UK. Even the EU itself acknowledged the fact that EU seems inaccessible to common citizens and suffers from huge democratic deficit.28 The main reason behind such low interest of citizens in EP elections lies in its structure and working mechanism. Citizens are aware of the fact that the executive bodies on the European level are not picked from their elected representatives in the EP and thus are not responsible to it. When the citizens vote for the EP elections they don’t vote for the parties or personnel at European level, neither for the agenda of EU policies. In a way, the role of citizens in EP is too limited.29 The EP elections can’t be considered as actual “European elections” as they are not about the direction of the EU policy objectives or common citizens’ representation through their elected parties or personnel at European level.30 Hix and Follesdal also claim that the EP elections are not “European elections”, but are ‘lower-level state contests.’ These elections are fought by state parties on the national issues rather than European issues and on the basis of state governments performance. Also, the voters have no opportunity to elect between rival competitors for the executive bodies at the European level, or to dismiss the elected representatives for their actions or policy stands in the EU.31 Huge Gap between EU and Citizens Regardless of the increased capability of the EP and regardless the participation of the member states in European elections, the EU has remained too distant and inaccessible for the voters. Though majority to EU citizens demand that more power in decision-making process should be given to citizens at European level, majority of crucial policies and legislation concerning European citizens are made in the EU by unelected executives in Brussels. According to the available reports, the perception about the European Unions’ executive institutions like, the European Commission among the citizens is identified as bureaucratic bodies, unfriendly, driven by unclear, often unreasonable, and complicated procedures, and distant from common citizens.32 The main issue is the lack of connection between the politics in the EU Council and the EP and the reflection of citizens about it. The absence of electoral contest regarding political behavior in the EU executive bodies, it is impossible for common citizens to punish governments or members of the EP for the ‘wrong’ representation.33 According to Bellamy, the normative value and success of any democratic model should be measured in terms of ‘input’ sets rather than ‘output’ sets.34 ‘Input’ applications relate to the fundamental right of citizens to actively and equally participate in policy-making and decision-making procedures.35 Unfortunately, this major ‘input’ characteristic is absent in the structure of the EU, highlighting its democratic deficit.36 Implementation of both, direct and indirect representation channels in democratic model becomes successful only when the government succeeds in realizing the basic norms of public authority and political equality. Imbalance of power and lack of public authority in the EU democratic structure makes it difficult to be immune from the democratic deficit.37 Conclusion Despite recent efforts to improve the mechanism of the EU, it suffers from the democratic deficit. Excessive power to the executive institutions, weak parliament, lack of participation of citizens, and inaccessibility of EU to its common voters has mainly trigger the democratic deficit in the EU. It is necessary for the members of the EU to work collectively to reform the structure of the EU and eliminate existing democratic deficit in the EU, ensuring collective success and effective functionality of democracy at the European level. Bibliography Akaytay, A, Gümüş, FB, & YK Gümüş, Is there a democratic deficit in the European Union?, epoka.edu.al, 2013, pp. 12-17, retrieved 13 November 2014, . Azman, KD, ‘The problem of “democratic deficit” in the European Union’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 1, no. 5, 2011, pp. 242–250. Bellamy, R, ‘Democracy without democracy? Can the EUs democratic outputs be separated from the democratic inputs provided by competitive parties and majority rule?’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 17, 2010, pp. 2–19. Follesdal, A, & S Hix, ‘Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU: a response to Majone and Moravcsik’, European Governance Papers (EUROGOV), no. C-05-02, 2005, pp. 1–27. Ford, M, Europes democratic deficit is getting worse, The Atlantic, 23 May 2014, Global, retrieved 13 November 2014, . Kröger, S, & D Friedrich, ‘Democratic representation in the EU: two kinds of subjectivity’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 2, 2013, pp. 171–189. Miller, V, & J Lunn, The European Union: a democratic institution? - Commons library research paper, parliament.uk, 2014, pp. 1-72, retrieved 13 November 2014, . Milev, M, A ‘democratic deficit’in the European Union?, geopolitis.net, 2014, pp. 9-32, retrieved 13 November 2014, . Moravcsik, A, ‘In defense of the “democratic deficit”: reassessing legitimacy in the European Union’, Center for European Studies Working Paper, no. 92, pp. 1–18. Runcheva, H, & M Apostolovska, Democratic deficit of the EU after the Lisbon Treaty-Is there an institutional solution?, academia.edu, 2014, pp. 1-8, retrieved 13 November 2014, . Read More