ABSTRACT
It is widely recognized that the European Union (EU) suffers from a democratic deficit, due to its weakly developed and inadequate democratic structures, a cumbersome and executive-driven policy process and an ‘incomplete’ constitutional arrangement. The integration project is widely critiqued, but the critics do not agree on the proper diagnosis. Some are concerned with costs and efficiency, others with technocracy and lack of popular participation and others yet with the absence of a sense of community and a common identity. Some critics will denounce the EU for its lack of ambition, whereas others will denounce it for its overly strong ambition. These disagreements stem from different perceptions of what the EU is, what it should be, and how its democratic legitimacy can and should be assessed in normative terms. Through the CIDEL project, we sought to disentangle this confusion by specifying and assessing in a systematic manner, different strategies for how the EU’s legitimacy deficit could be handled.1 We asked: what is the EU and whose interests does it serve? Is the EU first and foremost:
• A tool for enhancing profit and economic growth? The ensuing entity would be a mere problem-solving arrangement
• A collective project to define and promote a European identity? The ensuing entity would be best labelled a value-based community
• A political effort aimed at forging a citizen’s Europe? The ensuing entity would be best understood as a rights-based post-national union.
