Can political journalism exist at the EU level?

Obscure decisions taken by unknown politicians or technocrats in a political and institutional system nobody can understand might be a good way to summarise the impression that EU public affairs frequently give. Some writers criticise the EU's lack of a co-ordinated communications strategy for this state of affairs (Meyer 1999). A more common complaint focuses on the EU's so-called ‘democratic deficit’, with most writers insisting on the legal and procedural aspects of this legitimisation problem: the unelected Commissioners, the weakness of Parliament and the complicated decision-making process. ¹ From this point of view, legitimacy would be solely a technical problem, adequately resolved by institutional reform. However, the question of legitimisation might be rather more complex. The issue of the ‘democratic deficit’ has probably been badly presented since very few studies have questioned the representations given of the original political system: its processes, issues and actors. Indeed, most of the time, European decisions seem to come out of nowhere because the political process they have been through has a very low public profile.