Political Representation in the EU: A Second Transformation?

Abstract

Since the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the reality of a deepening European integration process has ended the (assumed) ‘permissive consensus’ among the European people that had sustained early phases of the integration process. Since then, an intensive debate about what is now called ‘the EU’s democratic deficit’ has grown and continues to gain momentum. The legitimacy crisis of the EU appears to be too strong, as policy-making is seen as distant, non-transparent, and not in line with institutional checks and balances at the nation-state level. While increasingly affected by European integration, many European citizens believe that they have little say in European decision-making, a situation described as ‘policies without politics’ (Schmidt 2006: 5). Accordingly, several EU — related referenda have resulted in a majority of ‘no’ votes, clearly expressing that the people want to have a say and want to be represented in European policy-making.