Europe and Finland: Defining the Political Identity of Finland in Western Europe by Teija Tiilikainen

Author:Teija Tiilikainen [Tiilikainen, Teija]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, History & Theory
ISBN: 9780429855405
Google: JqybDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 5837652
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1998-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Enhancing Democracy in Accordance with the Old Plans

The original integration plans included two contradictory conceptions of the forms that a democratic government should have at the European level. Federalists strove for the establishment of a powerful European government above nation–States. The democratic nature of this planned federal government has been based upon a parliamentary body, the powers of which have been devised much in accordance with parliamentary powers at the national level. From time to time, more constitutive political powers, such as powers to stipulate the whole political and legal basis of the European Community, have been demanded for the European Parliament31.

The federalist programme for a European parliamentary democracy has not proceeded very successfully. The European Parliament has not been able to achieve the role of legislative supremacy. Nor does it carry out any decisive control of the political executive. The development of Parliament in this direction has, on the contrary, required political compromises which have rendered the Union’s political and legislative system ambiguous and complicated. The Maastricht Treaty took this original democracy programme some steps further through various channels. It established once more a new legislative process at the basis of which Parliament, for the first time, has the right of veto over legislative proposals of certain types. The right of Parliament to make legislative proposals was also slightly strengthened as well as its possibilities of exerting a democratic control over the executive. In addition to the political reasons which have hindered the effective realisation of this democracy programme, there have, however, appeared various administrative factors working in the same direction. One of them is the size of the European Parliament, which is apt to put limits on effective functioning as long as it consists of one chamber only. Another hindrance, and connected with the first one, is the ineffective organisation of party formation at the European level, which reflects itself in a lack of planning and political coherence in the parliamentary work.

European party formation stands conceptually very close to the more novel federalist element, which recent integration politics has raised as one potential solution to the democratic deficit. The concept of Union citizenship is likely to increase the level of Union democracy in various ways. Some of these ways are derived directly from the powers of the European Parliament, while others can be seen to contribute to the democratisation of the European Union at a more basic level in the citizenry. The idea of civil and human rights being laid down at the European level has constituted a vital part of the Christian Democrat plan for European unification. The decisive break-through of the idea took place in the draft Treaty of the European Parliament in 1984, after which two major modifications of the constitutive treaties have already been made in this respect32. The Maastricht Treaty established and recognised the concept of Union citizenship, but only subsequent legal and political practice will show its concrete significance as well as give the outlines for its further development.

The concept of Union citizenship contributes to the unification of political rights at the Union level.

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