19
General introduction
misconduct in the annals of European integration. This is not, decidedly not,
a story of corruption or malfeasance. My argument is that this failure is rooted
in the very structure of European governance. It is not designed for political
accountability. In similar vein, it is impossible to link in any meaningful way
the results of elections to the European Parliament to the performance of the
Political Groups within the preceding parliamentary session, in the way that
is part of the mainstay of political accountability within the Member States.
Structurally, dissatisfaction with ‘Europe’ when it exists has no channel to af-
fect, at the European level, the agents of European governance.
Likewise, at the most primitive level of democracy, there is simply no mo-
ment in the civic calendar of Europe where the citizen can influence directly
the outcome of any policy choice facing the Community and Union in the way
that citizens can when choosing between parties which offer sharply distinct
programs at the national level.The political colour of the European Parliament
only very weakly gets translated into the legislative and administrative output
of the Union.
The Political Deficit, to use the felicitous phrase of Renaud Dehousse is at
the core of the Democracy Deficit. The Commission, by its self-understanding
linked to its very ontology, cannot be ‘partisan’ in a right-left sense, neither
can the Council, by virtue of the haphazard political nature of its composi-
tion. Democracy normally must have some meaningful mechanism for ex-
pression of voter preference predicated on choice among options, typically in-
formed by stronger or weaker ideological orientation. That is an indispensable
component of politics. Democracy without Politics is an oxymoron. And yet
that is not only Europe, but it is a feature of Europe – the ‘non-partisan’ nature
of the Commission – which is celebrated. The stock phrase found in endless
student textbooks and the like, that the Supranational Commission vindicates
the European Interest, whereas the intergovernmental Council is a clearing
house for Member State interest, is, at best, naïve. Does the ‘European Interest’
not necessarily involve political and ideological choices? At times explicit, but
always implicit?
Thus the two most primordial norms of democracy, the principle of ac-
countability and the principle of representation are compromised in the very
structure and process of the Union.
The implication of the Court of Justice in the democratic travails of the
Union is easily stated even if usually uncomfortably discussed. The late
