Creating supra-national institutions democratically: Reflections on the european union's "democratic deficit"

Abstract

The German Supreme Court’s finding that the Maastricht Treaty is consistent with the immutable article 20(2) of the German Basic Law (“all state authority emanates from the people”) is believed by two serious democratic deficits: The people lack meaningful democratic control over the central executive organs of the European Union as well as meaningful participation in designing the emerging European institutions. The latter, second-order democratic deficit–though often presented as a philosophical or pragmatic necessity–is in fact avoidable through a decision procedure that would allow the people of Europe themselves to determine the constitutive features of their Union: its geographical 2710 domain, the scope of its authority, and the procedures through which it exercises its powers. Reflections on how a democratic supranational order can be shaped democratically–though they may come too late for the EU–are likely to be of increasing political relevance.