Treaty tackles EU 'democratic deficit' issue

WORLD VIEW THAT THE European Union suffers from a "democratic deficit" has become a standard criticism by its friends and foes…

WORLD VIEWTHAT THE European Union suffers from a "democratic deficit" has become a standard criticism by its friends and foes alike. But when one probes what this means and how best to tackle it, the difficulties quickly multiply. It is problematic enough to define democracy at national level, so how can one apply it transnationally? Do such criticisms reflect an idealised version with little real application in practice at national, let alone European, level? How would one democratise the EU anyway?

The Lisbon Treaty states that the EU is founded on representative democracy, as are its member-states. That immediately narrows the field, since direct or plebiscitory forms are thereby excluded. Popular representation through parliaments is the European norm, and there is a great variety of methods for expressing preferences. So too with the architecture of checks and balances - courts, constitutions, minority rights - reflecting democratic structures.

Effectively, representation is done through political parties. Often this is through party list systems, giving far less individual choice to voters than is the case in Ireland; our high level of personal contact between elected representatives and voters is quite exceptional. The same applies to our referendums on EU treaties. They are not the norm in many other states for constitutional changes.

The treaty repeats existing guarantees for national parliamentary scrutiny of EU business. But it provides for enhanced scrutiny by recognising the role of national parliaments in having advance sight of EU legislation, co-operating among themselves and with the European Parliament. This is a significant innovation, but its effectiveness will depend on national decisions about capabilities.

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Very often criticisms of the lack of democratic accountability in the EU are better directed at national governments, which have reduced parliamentary control through party centralism and enhanced executive power. And since EU governance is above all a co-operative venture between national executives using the EU's institutions, it can readily be seen that any democratic deficit begins more at home than in Brussels.

That feeling about accountability is, of course, increased by the sharing of sovereignty and the transfer of executive power in certain areas to EU levels. Without proper parliamentary scrutiny and accountability of EU business at national level, there is an increasing disjunction between policy and politics. As a result we have politics without policy at national level, and policy without politics at EU level, as one writer puts it. Sometimes this deparliamentarisation is referred to as a double democratic deficit, in that scrutiny taken away at national level is not replaced by scrutiny by the European Parliament. Tackling such a problem is a real challenge, since it first requires agreement on what is deficient and where. Undoubtedly the assumption of a relationship between diminishing democratic accountability and political legitimacy drove the drafting process of the constitutional treaty and underlies the Lisbon Treaty that succeeds it. It is addressed at several different levels.

Representative democracy is declared to be the foundational principle - of member-states through their heads of state and government, and of citizens through their national parliaments, or directly at European level through the European Parliament. The role of political parties is explicitly recognised "to contribute to forming political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the union". National parliaments, too, are recognised as contributing actively to the good functioning of the EU.

A major new formulation of competences, distinguishing between exclusive, shared and national ones, is spelled out. It is clearly stated that competences not conferred on the EU by the treaties remain with the member-states. National parliaments are asked to police that. Thus the balance between member-states and Brussels is certainly not the centralising one asserted in so much hostile commentary.

Whether these roles will be taken up in practice at national level is quite a different matter. Politicisation of EU issues, as during this referendum campaign, can help construct a functioning political system to reduce such deficits.

But the campaign is conducted at two different levels. Some on the No side object to the system in principle, qualifying them as "hard" Eurosceptics. Others on the No side have a softer view, objecting more to particular policies than to the whole system. Still others are better described as critics rather than sceptics, since they favour integration but want to see it take a different course.

On the Yes side there are similar divisions between those who believe existing structures provide adequate democratic accountability and those who want to see a much greater politicisation at European level, with stronger European parties, more left-right competition in next year's European Parliament elections and a clearer relationship between elections, policy outcomes and political leadership. That has become more doable given parliament's stronger co-decision role in the treaty.

The referendum campaign distorts and conceals such divisions, partly because it concerns both existential and policy questions. Some fear there is not enough political glue in the EU to sustain such a combustible combination, making it too readily hostage to populist or xenophobic mobilisation. But the treaty does take valuable, if incomplete, steps to redress the democratic deficit giving rise to such fears.

pgillespie@irish-times.ie