ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the process of European integration is characterised by two revolutionary breakthroughs in the classic pattern of international organisation: the transfer of the exercise of sovereignty to a higher authority; and forging democratic control over jointly exercised sovereignty. These goals can only be judged successful if the European Union (EU) can overcome its democratic deficit to further evolve from a formal into a living democracy of states and citizens. The decision to provide the three distinctive European communities that is the European Economic Community, EURATOM and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), with one institutional structure, which was implemented through the 1965 Merger Treaty, may be regarded as a turning point in the early history of the EU. The Lisbon Treaty has constructed the EU as a new phenomenon of statehood and international law beyond the Westphalian system of international relations.
