​EU’s Democratic Deficit?
There are so many scholars arguing that contemporary EU’s institutions is facing acute democratic deficit. In this article, I would argue that EU has achieved appropriate democratic balance between its institutions, however, there are some room for improvement for EU to create a people-based organization which are more important and urgent for EU to achieve.
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Next 9 May 2011 will become the celebration of 61st EU’s birthday. Beginning as the unification of coal and steel market between Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, EU is now transformed as a single market between 27 member countries, monetary union between 17 member countries (Eurozone) and free travel area between 14 member countries (Schengen). Having only High Authority on Coal and Steel, EU is now consisted of many institutions: European Commission (EC), European Parliament (EP), Council of Ministers, Committee of Regions (CoR), European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Court of Justice (ECJ).
EC is the proposal initiator, Council of Ministers and EP are the joint decision-maker whether to approve the EC’s proposal or not. EP is also the EU budget regulator. CoR and EESC are the advisory body of EC and EP. ECJ is the interpreter and supervisor of EU’s law. Looking at these configuration, some may wonder why EP only has small power compare to national parliamentarian government. The only institutions which directly elected by European citizen is EP. Therefore, isn’t it important for EP to balance the power of executive as happened in parliamentarian system where they can elect prime minister and initiate legislation? Some analysts believe that the main weaknesses of current EU is the democratic deficit, too much power on Commission and Council of Ministers.
This issue creates more push to have a bigger role for EP by giving authority for EP to decide the President of EC/Council of Ministers and more areas for co-decision, such as foreign policy and home affairs. The writer argues that having a bigger parliament will not solve the problem and instead, current decision-making process is “enough” to deal with European challenges. Simon Hix mentioned that there are urgent need for more direct representation in Brussels to tackle urgent European issues such as economic and monetary reforms and common foreign policies. He mentioned that “EP elections, moreover, are by-products of these national electoral contests; fought on domestic issues rather than EU policy agenda or executive officeholders at the European level.”
However, there are two opposition to Hix’s argument. First, problem of European issues not addressed by European citizens is not inherently the problem of European election. In national election, voters can choose the parliament member sometimes not because of his/her policy agenda but of family relatives or direct benefit such as facilities or money. Second, EP elections will give opportunities to national opposition parties to gain votes and help EU’s citizen to evaluate constantly government’s policy in many areas.
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If we increase EP’s power significantly, such as by putting co-decision procedure in all issues or abolition of Council’s/Commission’s role, this will make the centralization of power into a single hand. By having separation of powers, we can prevent the majority tyranny where majority will decide everything, opening room for oppressing citizen’s constitutional right, which has done by tyrants or despots. Having one entity governing EU is also harmful to the idea that EU is a very diverse and different entity. In qualified majority voting, there are significant gap of voting power between small members and big members in EP, EC and Council right now. If there will be one very strong institution governing EU and occupied by the alliance of strong states who have unbeatable voting power, small states, such as Poland or Austria, will have no say in governance. That would be unfair battleground and makes small states leave EU.
Having a multi-layered, multi-centered, division-of-power governance, as EU has right now, ensure the check and balance system between EU’s institutions and greater democractic control as well as accountability (Zielonka). Zielonka thinks that dispersion of power contributes to accountability because different centers watch each other’s moves and publicize abuses of power. He added that enhanced deliberation also contributes to accountability because issues are considered in more depth by a variety of actors.
I think that EU is a very diverse actor where 27 member states have their own characteristics, functions, identities and purpose which will be difficult by only one big institutions. By having a different capable and legitimate institutions, member states can aspire their opinions and demands to preferred mechanism and institutions. The idea of listening to mass crowd is really important to EU. Having lack of these capabilities will create actors ignore the importance of organisation.
It is also important to stress that having a unified and encompassing organization doesn’t mean that transparancy and top performance is there. There are so many rooms for expert and eurocrat to do corruption, policy-bias and unmaximized performance. As Sunday Times’ report, there are three MEP who are caught receiving bribe for changing a law. The important thing is on how EU can increase its transparency and accountability of their daily work. The conclusion is that parliamentarian system should not be the ideal reference for European governance and current EU’s configuration is enough to face contemporary European problems.
After proving that there is a democratic balance in EU, I will try to propose solution on how to increase interest of European constituent on EU’s issues such as environment, migration or foreign policies. It is the fact that the interest of European citizens on European politics is quite low. Spesific report arranged by European Commission, Optem Report, shows that European public does fell ill-informed on EU issues in general. One of the reason is the lack of interest of politician to discuss about EU as mentioned by Lars Niklasson, senior lecturer of political science in Linköpings Universitet:
Leaders at the national level are being curtailed, but they want to ignore it. In France’s case, they are talking about an ‘offensive denial’. And in Sweden, we sometimes see how decisions come in through the back door. Our politicians don’t talk about what’s being decided in Brussels and the consequences.”
I believe that bottom-up approach is the main solution to market EU to its citizen. The purpose of politician is to be re-elected in the longer term and giving power to EU means that they will lose their job. They will try to keep the power as long as possible despite they don’t have that much power. The consequences is that there will gap between national politics and EU’s decision. The key to solve this problem is to empower EU’s citizen about EU’s power in order to keep national politician in their “real” responsibility.
However, one big problem which EC need to face is that most EU’s legislation involve expertise and the discussion are mostly on major technical issues which is hard for common citizen to understand. The directive on the size of bulb, for example, will mainly deal on technical instrument which cause dislike from citizen nevertheless the change will impact significantly to daily citizen’s life. It is also a problem when there is no “real” European media and national media not constantly discuss EU’s politics as they don’t attract more readers.
I propose three solution to marketing EU to its citizens. Firstly, there should be EU’s corner in many public places which are equipped with computers, leaflets, posters, booklet and reports. From a screen, the citizen can access real-time of the current EU’s legislation and know understand them easier by having attractive and simple leaflets, posters or booklets. Secondly, EC can invite college students, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), or politician to visit European institutions. By having the trip to European institutions, they can understand the impact and opportunities of EU for them. There has been some current funding for this program but still limited. Lastly, EU should have discussion forum in local, national and social media. By having these media, citizen can ask directly to EC about current EU’s legislation and receive answers quickly. It is also important to put the basic information of EU’s institutions in basic and high schools. Political education in school hold important part in creating awareness about EU.
In conclusion, this article has proved that the most important challenge for EU right now is not changing power configuration of EU’s institutions but changing EU citizen’s mindset about EU. The writer believes that multi-layered and multi-centered governance is the most effective governance for a diverse and enlarged EU. The question is on how to promote citizen’s participation in EU’s politics. This article concludes that grass-root campaign about the importance of EU’s institutions will give significant boost in achieving the “real” European organizations.