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The EU Democratic Governance in Francisco Lucas Pires’ Thought and Its Enduring Topicality

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Abstract

This chapter reflects on the idea of democratic governance proposed by Francisco Lucas Pires along three dimensions that look especially significant in his vision of Europe: democratic governance in terms of representative democracy and traditional institutional tools; democratic governance as participatory democracy which complements and supports the role performed by representative institutions; democratic governance as a civilising force on the market with more socially oriented policies. These different though complementary understandings of democratic governance are briefly analysed here in the current EU framework, 20 years after the first publication of this seminal book by Francisco Lucas Pires.

This chapter is part of the Jean Monnet Module on “Parliamentary accountability and technical expertise: budgetary powers, information and communication technologies and elections (PATEU)”. cfasone@luiss.it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 1 in the present book.

  2. 2.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  3. 3.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  4. 4.

    In fact, in Chap. 1, Francisco Lucas Pires refers to a time “that the issue of European disunion is solved”, which of course appears at odds with the current Brexit process and the many internal tensions the EU is currently facing, but that was the reality at the end of the last century.

  5. 5.

    For example, where he warns not to ignore the dissatisfaction of pro-Europeans: Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  6. 6.

    He regrets, for instance, that in respect of external commerce Amsterdam had hesitated (Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book) and after the Treaty of Lisbon we can witness the fast growth of trade agreements concluded by the EU in every region of the world.

  7. 7.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 1 in the present book.

  8. 8.

    See European Commission 1997.

  9. 9.

    See European Commission 2001.

  10. 10.

    Governance is traditionally referred to as “a range of processes and practices that have a normative dimension but do not operate primarily or at all through the formal mechanism of traditional command-and-control-type legal institutions”: De Búrca and Scott 2006, 3. The White Paper on European Governance (European Commission 2001, 10–11), defined a set of guiding principles for the decision-making within the EU governance systems: openness, participation, transparency, accountability, effectiveness, coherence, proportionality and subsidiarity. See also Scharpf 2001.

  11. 11.

    De Búrca and Scott 2006, 5.

  12. 12.

    See also Merkel 2010.

  13. 13.

    Francisco Lucas Pires in his book (Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book) talks of them as the winners of Amsterdam.

  14. 14.

    Maurer and Wessels 2001.

  15. 15.

    As reported by Schmidt 2018, 1545, and in particular on budgetary powers, see Fasone and Lupo 2018, 843–846.

  16. 16.

    De Wilde 2012.

  17. 17.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  18. 18.

    Lacking a uniform electoral procedure for the European Parliament (see recently the Council Decision (EU, Euratom) 2018/994 of 13 July 2018) and a transnational electoral constituency, as well known, the seats are still assigned to Member States according to the very much criticised principle of degressive proportionality, which has come under the attack of the German Constitutional Court on many occasions: see, for example, the judgment on the Treaty of Lisbon, BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08, 30 June 2009, paras 284–285.

  19. 19.

    Schütze 2015, 223–262 and Fabbrini 2017.

  20. 20.

    Wessels and Rozenberg 2013, 14–60.

  21. 21.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  22. 22.

    See also Fromage 2020, Chap. 9 in the present book.

  23. 23.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  24. 24.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  25. 25.

    Fabbrini 2015 and Kreppel 2012.

  26. 26.

    Goldoni 2016. For a critical assessment of the politicization of the Commission, see Lupo 2018 and Dawson 2018.

  27. 27.

    Curtin 2014.

  28. 28.

    Schmidt 2018, 3.

  29. 29.

    As contended, amongst many, also by De Búrca 2018, 357, “Despite parliamentary elections, a powerful European Parliament, democratically elected representatives in the Council of Ministers, a legally enshrined principle of transparency, a strong EU court, and various layers of legal and constitutional rights protection, the European Union still lacks real responsiveness to the preferences of its citizens”.

  30. 30.

    Hooghe and Marks 2009.

  31. 31.

    Lindseth 2010, 234.

  32. 32.

    Scharpf 1999.

  33. 33.

    Weiler 2012.

  34. 34.

    Sabel and Zietlin 2008, 272.

  35. 35.

    Maduro 2010, 3.

  36. 36.

    See the essays in Fromage and Van der Brink 2018.

  37. 37.

    Schmidt 2013.

  38. 38.

    Cf., for instance, European Commission 2017 and the critical appraisal by Avbelj 2017.

  39. 39.

    Weiler 2001.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Nicolaïdis 2004.

  42. 42.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  43. 43.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  44. 44.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  45. 45.

    Even though European political parties have been recognized in EU primary law since the Treaty of Maastricht and are regulated in detail today, they are still evanescent and devoid of a shared identity based on common values, as the internal divisions inside the European People’s Party and the case of the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz prove.

  46. 46.

    Hooghe and Marks 2018, 119–20, affirm that Euroscepticism has become a “new and distinct social cleavage that has not easily been internalized or prioritized by traditional political parties whose core programs did not adapt to reflect its salience”.

  47. 47.

    Mair 2007, 16.

  48. 48.

    See, extensively, Kohler-Koch and Quittkat 2010.

  49. 49.

    Klüver 2013, 59.

  50. 50.

    Saurugger 2008, 1284.

  51. 51.

    Dougan 2011 and Cuesta-López 2012, 257.

  52. 52.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 2 in the present book.

  53. 53.

    See Council of Ministers of the EU 2016.

  54. 54.

    See the Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber, Extended Composition) of 22 March 2018, Emilio De Capitani v European Parliament, T-540/15 and the Judgment of the Court of Justice, Grand Chamber of 4 September 2018, Client Earth, C-57/16P, compared to the Judgment of the General Court (Second Chamber), 19 March 2013, Sophie in ’t Veld v European Commission, T-301/10, on international agreements, in particular ACTA.

  55. 55.

    See Schiek 2007, 443.

  56. 56.

    See the Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Law-Making of 2003 (OJ C321/01), while the Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Law-Making of 13 April 2016, OJ L231/16 does not refer to co-regulation.

  57. 57.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  58. 58.

    Joerges 2008.

  59. 59.

    This explains the attempt to involve national parliaments in the Treaty of Lisbon: see Bartl 2015.

  60. 60.

    See Føllesdal 1998, 190, and Barber 2005, 308 and 323.

  61. 61.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  62. 62.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  63. 63.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  64. 64.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 1 in the present book.

  65. 65.

    Héritier and Lehmkuhl 2008.

  66. 66.

    Joerges 2012 and Menéndez 2017.

  67. 67.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  68. 68.

    See, in particular, COM (2017) 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, final and the critical comments by Giubboni 2017.

  69. 69.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  70. 70.

    Lucas Pires 2020, Chap. 3 in the present book.

  71. 71.

    Though under the form of “counter-democracy”, in a deconstructive manner, rather than in constructive terms. See Rosanvallon 2010, 173–190.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, Italy

    Cristina Fasone

  2. Faculty of Law, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

    Cristina Fasone

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  1. Cristina Fasone
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Correspondence to Cristina Fasone .

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  1. Faculty of Law, Católica Law School, Lisbon, Portugal

    Martinho Lucas Pires

  2. Nova Law School, Faculty of Law, Nova University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Francisco Pereira Coutinho

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Fasone, C. (2020). The EU Democratic Governance in Francisco Lucas Pires’ Thought and Its Enduring Topicality. In: Lucas Pires, M., Pereira Coutinho, F. (eds) What Market, What Society, What Union?. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-371-9_7

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