Debating Political Identity and Legitimacy in the European Union by Cerutti Furio Lucarelli Sonia Schmidt Vivien A

Author:Cerutti, Furio, Lucarelli, Sonia, Schmidt, Vivien A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Furthermore, its decision of 30 June 2009 puts a clear stop to further integration by emphasizing the sovereignty of the national Bundestag and Bundesrat as law- making bodies. The majority of European law experts, however, share the con- clusion that the current treaties and the EU political system already entail significant constitutional features and that its ‘double legitimacy’ (citizens and states) relies on its own institutional structures: the Council, Commission and Parliament.

Comparative politics may help by providing this controversy with roots in real life and looking at its internal dynamics and ability to adjust to external change. According to comparative politics, this dialectic interaction between the European and national courts suggests the general problem of ‘Europeanization’ should be focused on as both a top-down and a bottom-up process of longue durée interaction between the EU polity and the national polities, illustrating the strengths and limits of EU integration (Schmidt 2006): does the EU strengthen or weaken national democratic consolidation? How does it affect domestic democratic legitimacy and how does it interplay with national democracies? On the one hand, the European construction is a historical factor of consolidation of post-fascist and post-communist national democracies (Telò 1995) and the ‘Copenhagen criteria’ (1993) act as ‘constitutional’ factors of the democrat- ization of the new member states and as a constitutional decision for the widen- ing EU as well (to the extent that they entail commitment to the market economy, human rights and democracy, Weiler 1999). On the other hand, the EU acts as a factor to empower executives and weaken national parliaments and various forms of input legitimacy, according to a part of the literature; or, better, as a factor of transformation of domestic democracies. It provokes various adjustment processes of lobbying, networks and interests groups, new balances between national constitutional powers, etc.

Political science research is focusing on the link between the European and domestic democratic deficit, while taking into account the weight of external variables from the global system. Regarding the analysis of the present EU polity, almost fifteen years ago Philippe C. Schmitter (1995) put forward the concept of the ‘functional/federal model’. He was right in underlining the inter- action between federalist streams and functional trends, and in stressing the prac- tical impact of federalist thought (notwithstanding Spinelli’s harsh criticism of both the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act as anti-federalist). Con- trary to the functionalist and federalist rhetoric and expectations of a zero-sum game between states and the EU, not only did both the EU and states take advantage of European cooperation/integration, but the process of ‘constitution- alization without constitution’ resulted in a win-win game, a de facto and de jure alliance between the two EU legitimacies: the direct legitimacy based on citizens (EP) and the one based on democratic member states. Schmitter and others were and are less right in neglecting the fact that this successful model encountered troubles in the 1990s because of the destabilizing effects of the changing exter- nal environment. On the one hand,

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