EU democracy and the Treaty of Lisbon

Bevir, Mark; Phillips, Ryan

doi:10.1057/s41295-016-0078-2

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The Treaty of Lisbon, the last large-scale revision of the European Treaties, prescribed to enhance multiple democratically and federally relevant principles. However, the dynamics of EU governance have failed to bring about, for instance, either the transition to EU parliamentary government or an effective extension of national parliaments (see, for example, Bevir and Phillips 2017 ). Concerning representative democracy, the requirement of member-state governments to consider EP elections in selecting the Commission President was celebrated as step towards a parliamentary model.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can the EU be a federal democracy? Assessing the horizontal and vertical dimension of the EU government from comparative perspective

Sonnicksen

2021

Comp Eur Polit

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The European Union remains an ambivalent polity. This uncertainty complicates the assessment of its democratic and federal quality. Drawing on comparative federalism research can contribute not only to making sense of whether, or rather which kind of federalism the EU has developed. It can also enable addressing such a compounded, but necessary inquiry into the federal and democratic character of the EU and how to ascertain which type of democratic government for which type of federal union may be appropriate. The article first elaborates a framework to assess the dimensions of federal and democratic government, drawing on comparative federalism research to delineate basic types of federal democracy. Here the democratic dimension of government is taken as referring primarily to the horizontal division of powers (among ‘branches’) of government, the federal dimension to the vertical division of powers (among ‘levels’) of governments. The framework is applied to the government of the EU in order to gauge its own type(s) of division of power arrangements and the interlinkage between them. Finally, the discussion reflects on whether or rather how the EU could comprise a federal democracy, especially in light of recent crisis challenges and subsequent institutional developments in EU governance.

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