Curbing the Deficit: Democracy After the European Constitution

Abstract

This study assesses the democratic potential of the draft Constitutional Treaty for Europe. It reviews the various sources of the democratic deficit in the European Union and examines the effect of some of the provisions of the draft Constitutional Treaty on the quality of democracy at national and supranational level. The institutional strategies contained in the Treaty collide to create a policy dilemma: increasing democratic input or enhancing political accountability. It is argued that embracing the path of accountability, rather than that of democratic input, as a reform formula, would allow us to solve the EU democratic deficit without undermining the Union's institutional efficiency, and without jeopardising the formation of a European political community. This line of institutional development is in tune with the post-sovereign and post-national nature of power relations on the continent in the early twenty-first century