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Democracy in the European Union

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Democracy in the European Union 1 Democracy in the European Union Achim Hurrelmann Forthcoming in: Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, Achim Hurrelmann and Amy Verdun (eds.) (2017), European Union Governance and Policy Making: A Canadian Perspective, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Reader’s guide: This chapter examines democratic processes in the EU. In a first step, it takes stock of institutional mechanisms through which citizens can influence EU decision making: European Parliament elections, democratic processes at the national level, and procedures for civil society participation. In a second step, the chapter addresses the normative question of whether there is a “democratic deficit” in the EU. It reviews some of the most important arguments in this debate and examines proposals for how the EU might be made more democratic. Introduction When the predecessor institutions of today’s European Union – the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) – were created in the 1950s, their powers did not extend beyond the regulation of limited and relatively technical aspects of economic life. These institutions were more bureaucratic than political in nature; concerns about their democratic quality were hence not considered particularly pressing. This changed when more and more legislative powers were transferred to the European level, and European integration began to affect an increasing number of policy fields. Although 2 there was never a significant “democracy movement” in the citizenry, the architects of European integration realized that a democratization of EU institutions was necessary to safeguard political support for the integration project. This realization led to successive rounds of reforms aimed at improving the democratic quality of EU decision making. As a result of these reforms, the EU now possesses more mechanisms for democratic input than any other regional or global institution. Nevertheless, it is still widely criticized for being insufficiently democratic. Eurosceptic parties portray it as a power-hungry “superstate” whose unelected functionaries encroach on the competences of democratic member states, and even observers who are generally in favour of European integration often deplore that the development of democratic institutions and practices at the EU level has not kept up with the incessant growth of EU policy-making responsibilities. In the light of such arguments, this chapter approaches the question of democracy in the EU from two angles. The first part looks at the existing mechanisms for democratic input; it discusses through which channels citizens can influence EU decision making and how they make use of these opportunities in practice. The second part then turns to normative debates about the EU’s democratic quality; it reviews competing positions on whether there is a “democratic deficit” in EU politics and introduces proposals for making the EU more democratic. Democratic life in the EU Democracy means “government by the people”. In the context of modern, large-scale polities where day-to-day decisions cannot be taken by the citizens directly, it consists of 3 institutionalized procedures that enable citizen participation in selecting political leaders, making substantive policy decisions, and holding leaders to account for their performance in office. Democratic states usually possess a considerable range of such procedures. In Canada, for instance, citizens can vote in elections at the municipal, provincial and federal level; in addition, that they can also seek to influence politicians between elections, for instance by forming associations that lobby for specific policies. The citizens of EU member states have similar options, but for them, the EU constitutes an additional political level at which participation might be warranted. What options do citizens have to influence politics at this level? This section will discuss three channels of democratic input in the EU: (1) elections to the European Parliament (EP); (2) national elections and referendums that shape a member state’s position in EU decision making; and (3) formalized procedures for civil society input between elections. We will discuss each of these channels in turn, and will then examine how citizens make use of them in practice. European Parliament The EP is a supranational legislature composed of 751 members from all 28 member states. Since 1979, its members have been directly elected every five years. EP elections take place at the same time in all member states, usually over a period of four days. Details of the election differ from one member state to the next: Electoral rules vary somewhat, though all member states now use proportional representation systems, and different parties appear on the ballot in each state – usually the same ones that also dominate national politics. Most of these parties are, however, associated with a 4 European Political Party and an EP Party Group, which bring together national parties that are ideologically like-minded. Figure 1 displays the Party Groups in the 8th EP, elected in May 2014. Figure 1: Party Groups in the 8th European Parliament (2014-19) (Group names and strength as of March 2016) ALDE (70) Greens EPP (216) (50) S & D (190) ECR (75) EFDD (45) ENF (38) EUL (52) NA (15) EPP: European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) S&D: Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament ECR: European Conservatives and Reformists ALDE: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe EUL: Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left Greens: Greens/European Free Alliance EFDD: Europe of Freedom and Democracy ENF: Europe of Nations and Freedom NA: Non-attached members Activity 1: Use the Internet to do research about the Party Groups listed in Figure 1. For each group, identify (a) its political orientation on the left/right and pro/anti- European integration axis; (b) some core positions highlighted in the group’s program or manifesto; (c) the geographic distribution of support for the group (from which member states do most of the group’s parliamentarians come, which member states are underrepresented?). EP elections are significant in EU politics for two main reasons. First, they influence the nomination of the President of the European Commission. Article 17(7) TEU requires the European Council to “take into account” the EP elections when deciding on its nominee. Referring to this article, most European Political Parties in the run-up to the 2014 EP 5 election nominated their respective “Spitzenkandidaten” (leading candidates) for the office of Commission President. After the election, the candidate of the party that won the most seats, Jean Claude Juncker of the European People’s Party (EPP), was appointed to lead the Commission. It remains to be seen whether this process established a precedent that will be respected in future EP elections. Even if this is the case, however, it is important to note that the EU – unlike Canada and most of its own member states – is not a parliamentary system in which the executive (the Commission) is responsible to the legislature (Box 1). Once the Commission has taken office, its political survival is not dependent on continuous EP support. Box 1: Parliamentarism in Canada, the United States, and the EU Parliaments play different roles in relation to the executive depending on whether they operate in a parliamentary or in a presidential system. In parliamentary systems like Canada, citizens elect the (lower house of) parliament (House of Commons), which in turn elects the head of the executive (Prime Minister). This implies that the head of the executive is dependent for his/her political survival on parliamentary support; the parliament may vote him/her out of office with a simple majority, and the government falls. By contrast, in presidential systems like the United States, both the parliament (Congress) and the head of the executive (President) are elected by the citizens in separate elections. In such a system, the parliament is restricted in its activities to legislative functions. It cannot bring down the head of the executive; the only exception is a process of impeachment, a special procedure reserved for crimes committed in office that requires oversize majorities. The EU displays elements of both systems. As in a parliamentary system, the head of the EU’s main executive actor – the Commission – is not directly elected. Rather, Article 17 TEU establishes an explicit link between EP elections and the Commission Presidency. However, while the EP must give its consent to the Commission President (as an individual) and to the College of Commissioners (as a group), it may not nominate the President or the individual Commissioners. (The Commission President is nominated by the European Council and the individual Commissioners by the Member States.) Once the Commission has taken office, it does not require the continuous backing by an EP majority. This implies that the Commission, which tends to be politically heterogeneous (its members come from a range of different parties), does not need to cater its policies to a specific parliamentary majority; rather it can seek to find 6 majorities for its legislative proposals on a case-by-case basis. The EP can only bring down the Commission through a motion of censure, a procedure reserved for cases of gross misconduct that requires a majority of two thirds of the votes cast (Art. 234 TFEU). In these respects, the EP operates more like a parliament in a presidential system. The second reason for the significance of EP elections lies in the legislative powers of the EP. While the EP originally had only a consultative role in EU legislation, the EU’s ordinary legislative procedure (Art. 294 TFEU) now requires legislative acts, including the budget, to be approved by both the EP and the Council. In EP committees and in the plenary, legislative proposals are carefully scrutinized and may be substantially amended or even blocked. EP Party Groups have emerged as powerful – and remarkably cohesive – legislative actors.
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