The Quest for Legitimacy in the European Union
| Date | 01 May 1996 |
| Published date | 01 May 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1996.tb02085.x |
The Quest for Legitimacy in the European Union
Grhinne de
B&a*
Introduction
Whilst it is true that the European Community has always, to some extent, been
a
contested political entity, the debate in recent years about the role and future of the
European Union has increasingly focused on its legitimacy. The need to enhance
the legitimacy of the Community has been a familiar theme of the many reports
and proposals for its reform over the years, most recently during the time of the
‘Maastricht’ debate on the Treaty of European Union (TEU) in
1992
and
1993.
However, it is largely since the Maastricht process that the debate on the European
Union has been in terms of
a
‘crisis’ of legitimacy. The fact of the
1996
Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), in which the revision of the Treaties is yet
again under consideration, has further sharpened and intensified that debate.
It has been suggested that the extensive discussion of the legitimation crisis of
the capitalist welfare state in the
1970s
has led to a dilution of the meaning of
‘legitimacy,’ and to discussions of legitimacy which are limited to defining its
different meanings in different contexts.’ It
is
certainly true that the concept
is
a
difficult and ambiguous one which eludes easy definition. At one level, legitimacy
is about the justification, and the acceptance, of authority and of the exercise of
power. In most western political systems, the power of the state is legitimated
through the democratic process, in that government is supposedly based on the
consent of the governed, who broadly support the values on which the state is
founded. Thus legitimacy has both
a
social aspect, in terms of being rooted in
popular consent, and a normative aspect, in terms of the underlying values on
which such consent is based.*
I
propose to examine the debate on legitimacy in the European Union, the
language in which it is conducted and the nature of the values at its heart.
To
illustrate the issues,
I
will use as primary sources the reports which have been
prepared by the European institutions and others for the IGC.3 What becomes
evident
is
that the legitimacy problems which
are
articulated and the proposals
*Somerville College, Oxford.
I
would like to thank Rachel Craufurd-Smith, Murray Hunt, Gillian More,
Jo
Shaw and the
Modern
Low
Review
readers for their comments and help.
1
2 Jachtenfuchs, ‘Theoretical Perspectives on European Governance’ (1995)
I
EW 115, 126.
See
Weiler, who distinguishes
also
between ‘formal’ and ‘social’ legitimacy,
in
‘After Maastricht:
Community Legitimacy
in
Post-I992 Europe’
in
Adam (ed),
Singular Europe: Economy
and
Polity
ofrhe
European Community afer
I992
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992) p
1
I.
The most important official reports are: (1) Report of the Council on the Functioning of the Treaty on
European Union (‘Council Report’), Brussels, 1995;
(2)
Commission Report on the Operation of the
Treaty on European Union (‘Commission Report’), SEC(95)
73
1
final;
(3)
European Parliament
Resolution
on
the Function of the Treaty on European Union
with
a
view to the 1996
Intergovernmental Conference
-
Implementation and Development of the Union (‘Parliament
Resolution’), A4-01OU95; (4) Report of the Court of Justice (and Court of First Instance) on Certain
Aspects of the Application of the Treaty on European Union, May 1995 (‘Court of Justice Report’
and ‘CR Report’);
(5)
Report of the Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 1995 (‘Committee of the
Regions Report’); (6) Report of the Economic and Social Committee on the 1996 Intergovernmental
Conference (‘ECOSOC Report’), Brussels, 4May 1995;
(7)
Progress Report of the Chairman of the
3
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1996
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59
made to address them centre around
a
number of recurrent themes. The four themes
identified, which are inevitably overlapping and interrelated,
are:
(a) the idea of
citizenship,
and the need for
a
greater degree of closeness to the citizen of the
Union; (b) the need for greater
democracy
within the Union; (c) the application of
ideas of
subsidiarity
to Union decision-making and legislation; and (d) greater
openness, transparency and accessibility
within the decision-making processes.
What is apparent is that although there appears to
be
a high level of general
agreement that these concepts
-
citizenship, democracy, subsidiarity and openness
-
are crucial to the legitimacy of the Union, the particular conceptions of each
diverge widely. Closer examination of their usage reveals the very different and
disputed meanings being attributed to the same terms under discussion.
Before considering these ambiguities, the background and apparent causes of the
current legitimacy crisis will
be
assessed.
I
will also examine briefly the different
ways in which the European Union,
as
a political entity,
is
viewed, since it
is
clear
that the way in which the Union is characterised affects fundamentally how the
question of its legitimacy is perceived and addressed.
The background to the current legitimacy crisis
Given the fact that the Community’s powers have been gradually expanding
throughout the course of its history, the comparatively late identification of
a
crisis
of legitimacy in the
1990s
requires explanation.
It is often noted
-
in particular by functionalist and neofunctionalist interpreters
of the Community’s early history
-
that, during the initial and relatively
successful phase of the European Coal and Steel and Economic Communities, the
European project was largely elite-driven and technocratic. There was little
popular interest in the Community and little serious questioning of its legitimacy
-
what has been described as the existence of a ‘permissive consen~us.’~
However, it has been argued that there was at the same time a generally high
level of goodwill and diffuse public support for the
idea
of European integrati~n.~
With the launch of the
‘1992
project’ by the Single European Act, however, and
the growth in Community competence beyond the economic into more obviously
social and political spheres, the Community’s profile has inevitably become very
much higher.6 The heated public debate surrounding the Maastricht Treaty, the
initial negative outcome of the Danish referendum on ratification and the close
result in the French referendum focused attention sharply on the existence of
a
substantial level of public opposition.
What is more difficult is to pin down the exact nature and causes of the
opp~sition.~ During the Maastricht debate, it appeared that dissatisfaction with
Reflection Group on the Intergovernmental Conference, September 1995,
SN
509/1/95 (Reflection
Group Report
I);
(8)
Report
of
the Reflection Group, June and December 1995,
SN
520i95
(Reflection Group Report
11).
4
See Lindberg and Scheingold,
Europe’s
Would-be
Polity: Patterns of Change in the European
Community
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice
Hall,
1970).
5
See Slater, ‘Political Elites, Popular Indifference and Community Building’
in
Tsoukalis (ed),
The
EC: Past. Present
and
Future
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) p 69.
6 See Reif, ‘Cultural Convergence and Cultural Diversity
as
Factors
in
European Identity’ in Garcia
(ed),
European
Identity
and
the Search for Legitimacy
(London: Pinter, 1993)
p
131.
7 ECOSOC suggests optimistically that the decline
in
confidence in the EU ‘does not mean that EU
citizens are introverted
or
that they reject the integration process,’ but reflects instead the high hopes
they have for
a
European social model:
op
cit
n 3.
350
0
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1996
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