Conclusion

Abstract

This study began with two controversial stories about civil society organisations at the level of the European Union. They opened the debate concerning which of them comes closer to reality: Are Brussels-based CSOs transmission belts for their members’ interests and concerns and hence legitimising agents for policy-making at the European Union, as some suggest? Or are they elite-dominated entities, out of touch with their membership bases in member states, and therefore ill-suited to promote democracy at the EU level, as others retort? Empirical evidence on the matter has so far been scarce. However, providing answers to these questions has become of crucial importance, since the enhanced participation of CSOs has emerged as a remedy for the alleged democratic deficit of the European Union. Participatory elements, such as strengthened cooperation and a dialogue between EU institutions and CSOs, are seen as a complement to the imperfect representative democracy at the EU level. This view has been promoted in some of the academic literature, but also by the European Commission (as discussed in chapter 2.2). The institution cooperates with specific CSOs provided that they are representative of larger European constituencies and, in this capacity, capable of contributing to the input legitimacy of EU policy-making. This study set out to submit the two stories to an empirical test and investigate the extent to which EU-level CSOs are the voice of their members.