Campaign briefing:
Democracy and the European constitution

May 2004

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The Laeken Declaration of December 2001 that launched the constitution-drafting process observed that "citizens are calling for a clear, open, effective, democratically controlled Community approach, developing a Europe which points the way ahead for the world. An approach that provides concrete results in terms of more jobs, better quality of life, less crime, decent education and better health care. There can be no doubt that this will require Europe to undergo renewal and reform."

The aim of the campaign is to show that the draft European constitution will, if implemented, increase the rights of citizens and the powers of elected parliamentarians within the EU.

Why democracy matters in the EU

The origin of the European Union is the recognition that there are issues too big for an individual country to solve on its own. European integration is necessary to enable effective solutions to be applied to common problems. Much of the debate about the development of the EU has been around the need to make sure that European decision-making is democratic.

Democracy is the idea that decisions are based on the will of the majority; various institutional and electoral mechanisms are used to identify that majority will. However, if those decisions cannot be implemented because the institutions to implement them are not adequate, those decisions are rendered meaningless. The will of the majority must not only be identified but also capable of being expressed, otherwise democracy is left hollow.

For this reason, the very fact that the European Union is providing the means for the member states to work together to deal with things that they could not do alone is in itself a democratic advance.

However, there are two further considerations that the European Union must observe.

First, if national decision-making can no longer be effective on an issue and the power to deal with an issue has been transferred to the European Union, then the European decision-making must be just as democratic as the national decision-making it has replaced. In fact, many people argue that it should be more democratic, in order to compensate for the fact that it is further from the citizen. Federalists are especially vigilant in ensuring that the Europeanisation of a policy area is not used as a means of removing democracy from the way it is implemented.

Secondly, the protection of human rights under the rule of law must be observed as rigorously in the European Union as it is within the member states. Federalists are insistent that human rights do not become less important as the political institutions become more distant.

Who takes decisions in the European Union?

This briefing will examine the development of decision-making in the EU by looking at five different elements, all of which might have some influence on the decisions that are taken:

European Commission

member state governments

European Parliament

member state parliaments

the citizens

In the case of the European Commission and the national governments, their influence on decision-taking might be exercised either by ministers or by civil servants. This briefing will not draw a distinction between the two because the ministers are politically accountable for the decisions taken by their civil servants in their name.

The fact that these two elements will see so many decisions taken by civil servants adds to the importance of the role of the European Parliament and the national parliaments. In addition to their legislative role, they also have the function of scrutinising the actions of the corresponding executive bodies. Parliamentary accountability is an essential accompaniment to executive power.

The citizens have been included as a separate element as distinct from their representation through the political institutions. The EU is more than a union of states: it is better understood as a union of states and citizens. There are some ways in which citizens might have an interest that cannot be expressed through the executives and legislatures of the Union or the member states.

What decisions are taken?

This briefing will look at five key aspects of the political life of the European Union to see how the influence of the five different interests is changed by the draft constitution. Have they gained influence or have they lost it?

It should be pointed out that influence in this context is not a zero-sum game. If one element in the political process gains influence, that does not mean that another must necessarily have lost it.

As noted previously, interdependence between the different countries of Europe already exists and the creation of the EU is a means of reclaiming influence back to the representative political institutions. A well-designed institutional system should expect to see the influence of the various political elements rise. As the influence of a political element grows, so does the importance of its accountability.

The five issues looked at in this briefing are:

Leadership of the EU

The legislative process

Controlling justice and home affairs

Foreign and defence policy

Protecting human rights

An examination of each of them follows. It is based on the text of the draft constitution presented by the European convention. Negotiations in the subsequent IGC have not so far changed the text in any fundamental respect and are unlikely to before the IGC itself is concluded.

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