European Union In Crisis: Can The EU Ever Be The European Version Of The United States?

As noted by The Christian Science Monitor, many consider the European Union to be in crisis, with no single group – on the left or the right – having enough power to make the changes it wants, while the public is on the outside looking in helplessly at this debate. This leads to the suggestion that the people in charge are removed from the common people. Can this polity problem be solved so that the European Union is more cohesive?

In the view of the technocrats currently running the EU, issues of importance in the European Union shouldn’t be left to the decision making of the masses of citizens in the EU or even the politicians. In their opinion, concerns about the weakness of democracy in the EU are pointless, since important issues and decisions should be made by those trained to handle such matters.

The #EU technocrats revolt against Greek government giving money to poor pensioners. And then they wonder why Europeans vote for populists.

— Spyros Chatzigiannis (@Spysun04) December 15, 2016

There are others in the debate that agree that democratic representation and influence over the EU decision-making process is important, but who also believe that such representation already exists and is more than sufficient. It is their opinion that the current structure of the EU provides the necessary representation and accountability.

Even so, it certainly is legitimate to ask whether there is further need for separate mechanisms for approving EU policies, given that the various member states have already devolved such decision-making authority upon the European Union.

Each of these states has approved such a devolution of authority based on democratic processes within their respective countries and according to their own constitutional rules. So there is a line of legitimacy for the EU decision-making structure that runs from European Union bodies and institutions to the member states and finally to the citizens of those states.

In addition, the European Union council members are all representatives of democratically elected governments. From this perspective, the EU decision-making process clearly does represent the will of the people. In fact, the peoples of the various member states rarely if ever complain about a lack of democracy in the process, meaning that – from this perspective – any concerns about an EU polity problem are unfounded.

Then there are those who think there is a problem but think the situation is unfixable. Essentially, those holding this position feel that the peoples and states of the EU are simply too different in their political and cultural views for the idea of greater citizen participation in the EU decision-making process to ever work.

And it is certainly true that the states differ in language, culture, economic structures, and development. The range of religious beliefs is another factor. According to those taking this position, these differences mean that it would be impossible for such a collection of states and peoples to ever create a single political unit.

Undoubtedly, the existence of a stable political community is essential for a functioning representative democracy. More than this, those taking this position believe that even if such a thing were possible, it would be undesirable.

They feel that it would lead to measures and decisions that would more deeply involve the EU in matters that are better left to the decision-making bodies of the member states. This could, in turn, diminish or even negate national sovereignty. As reported by The New York Times, these are the kinds of concerns that resulted in the Brexit vote in the UK.

It seems clear that the continuing debate of the issue of European Union polity will not be resolved soon, if ever. Since those arguing that there is insufficient representation and a lack of citizen input in the EU institutions will always be able to say this in any case, an end to this debate seems unlikely. At the same time, there are legitimate reasons for feeling that there is a distance between the people running the EU institutions, the nation states and individual citizens they are supposed to be representing.

[Featured Image by Hannelore Foerster/Getty Images]