Haideti sa incercam sa raspundem impreuna... - How would you determine the foundations of legitimacy of European legislation as compared to your national system?
I agree with Dr. Ingolf Pernice[3] arguments that EU legislation has a double legitimacy: it is a Union of states and the Council represents the executiv branch of each national Member States' government, which has legislative powers that it lacks on respective national scene, and a Union of citizens, and the European Parliament represents them and it is elected by them. So a collectivity of Ministers, on a proposal of a collectivity of civil servants could and must pass binding and enforceble legislation even in face of conflicting legislation passed by national parliaments. The council could pass a legislation in the face of European Parliament disapproval. More the Council can legislate in the area that were subject to parliamentary control at national level I agree also with Weiler that "typical argument views the European Parliament as the principal repository of legitimacy and democracy"[4] in the EU structure, known as "democratic legitimacy"[ 5]. But according with this view, "the powers of European parliament are weak and misdirected. The budgetary powers do not affect the important areas of budgetary policy: revenue raising and expenditure on compulsory items.The possibility of denying a discharge on past expenditure lacks sanction power."[6] To conclude Weiler noticed that "The powers to dismiss the Commission, to ask questions of the Commission and to recieve answer are illusory"[7] , because the power to dismiss is collective and does not have the power to appoint, at best and "misdirected because the Council is the "Villain of the Piece" in the most European Parliament battles, at worst"[8] To clarify our answer at the deeper structure we have also to analyse and discuss the notions: of democracy, integration, and legitimacy with the help of external argument made by Weiler in his article. I agree with him that Democracy cannot exist in our modern polity as in "the Greek Polis". Our days representative democracy replaces direct participation. His exemple is easy for our undertsanding. "If we imagine three independent polities each enjoying a representative democracy and if we assume that for different reasons the three polities decide to integrate and share their sovereignty" [9] in the fields of taxation, foreign trade and defense and if this decision to integrate was democratically reached, within each polity, then the integrated polity enjoys formal legitimacy. He considers that "definition of formal legitimacy is distinct from that of simple legality. Formal legitimacy is legally understood in the sense that democratic institutions and processes created the law on which it is based. In our case the treaties. In this formal sense, the existing structure and process rests on a formal approval, by the democratically elected parliaments of the Member States; the Community process suffers from a clear Democracy Deficit in the classical sense."[10] A sistem that enjoys formal legitimacy may not necessarely enjoy social legitimacy.It is not compulsory also that an institution, system or polity must enjoy formal legitimacy to enjoy social legitimacy. According to Franck[11] "Social legitimacy occurs when the government process displays a commitment to guarantee values that are part of the general political culture, such as justice, freedom, and general welfare. Most popular revolutions since the French revolution occurred in polities whose governments retained formal legitimacy but lost social legitimacy. In our example, the integrated polity whould not be undemocratic but it will be less democratic, in terms of ability of citizens to influence policies affecting them. Why? Because in the integrated polity a hugh majority of the electors in polity A can be outvoted by electors of polities B and C (n190). For this reason, one of the motivations for regionalism is to enhance democracy in the sense of giving people more direct control of areas of public policy that affect their lives. To suggest that in the process of integration there is a loss of democracy does not condamn the process of integration. The electors in polities A, B and C have important reasons for integrating despite of this loss of some direct control over policy, when it is made in the larger polity. The main reason could be size, they are aggregating their ressources, especially in the field of defense, foreign trade. Multinational corporations, which may manage to escape the control of any particular polity may exist only an integrated polity can tax or regulate them effectively. In other words, the independence and sovereignty of the single polities may be illusory in the real interdependent world. Even within each polity the minority was obliged to accept majority decisions. Why do we claim that in enlarged, integrated polity, in which an equally valid majoritarian rule applies, a loss of democracy occurs? What defines the boundary of the polity within which the majority principal should apply? No theoretical answer exist to this question. People accept the majoritarian principle of democracy, within a polity to which they see themselves as belonging. The process of integration, even if decided upon democratically brings a loss of direct democracy in its actual process of governance. What becomes very important for the success of the integration process is the social legitimacy of the new integrated polity despite this loss of total control over the integrated policy area by each polity. How will such legitymacy emerge? Two answers are possible. The first answer is a tangible and demonstration that the total welfare of the citizenry is enhanced as a result of integration. The second answer is ensuring that the new integrated poliy itself, within its new boundaries, has democratic structures. But more important is to give a temporairly enhanced voice to the separate polities.This suggests that in a federation created by integration, rather than by devolution, there must be an adjustment period in which the political boundaries of the new polity become socially accepted as appropriate for the larger democratic rules by which the minority will accept the new majority. >From the political point of view the European Union is a confederation, at the moment. The big debate is if there is the time ripe for a radical change towards a more federal structure. The Constitutional Treaty did not solve this debated question. Denying sufficient Voice to the constituent polities may bring about a decline in the social legitimacy of the integrated polity with consequent disfunction and even desintegration. In term of democratic theory, the final objective of a unifying polity is to recoup the loss of democracy inherent in the process of integration. This loss is recouped when "the social fabric and discourse are such that the electorate accepts the new boundary of the polity and then accepts totally the legitimacy, in its social dimension, of being subjected to majority rule in a much larger system comprised of the integrated polities."[12] We have seen how this notions play out in this constructed analysis of the democratic legitimacy in the European Union. The Union including its weak Parliament, apointed Commission and unaccountable Council, enjoys perfect formal legitimacy. The treaties all have been aproved by the Community electorate through their national parliaments in accordance with the constitutional reguirement of each Member State. If there is a crisis of legitimacy it must be a crisis of social legitimacy. The legitimacy problem is generated by several problems. The primary factor is that the European electorate only grudginly accepts the notion that important area of public life should be governed by a decisional process in which their national voice becomes a minority which can be overridden by a majority of representatives from other european countries. For the first time national parliaments are very interested in the structure process of european integration and they consider that simply enhancing the powers of European Parliament will not solve the democracy deficit. In terme of social legitimacy, there is no difference between a decision of the Council of Ministers and a decision of the European Parliament. To the electorate, both chambers present themselves as legislative, composed of Member States' representatives. The electorate of a minority member state might consider it socially illegitimate that they have to abide by a majority decision of the integrated polity considers Weiler. "The most legitimating element, from a social point of view, of the Community was the Luxembourg Accord and the veto power. But this enabled the Community to legitimate its program and its legislation. The legitimacy of the output of the Community decisional process was at least partially due to public knowledge that it was controllable through the veto power. The current and potential shift to majority voting normal rule might therefore exacerbate legitimacy problems. Even an enhaced European Parliament, which would operate on a co-decision principle for all range of policies, will not necessarily solve the legitimacy problem. The legitimacy crisis does not derive principally from the accountabilyty issue at the European level, but from the redefinition of the European polity"[13] is the conclusion of our analysed article of Weiler. So in conclusion the majority voting exacerbates the Democracy Deficit by weakening national parliamentary control of the Council without increasing the powers of the European Parliament. But even increasing the powers of the European Parliament ( to full-codecision on the most important plan) does not holly solve the problem. ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- - [1] J.H.H. Weiler, the Transformation of Europe, Yale Law Jurnal, Yale Law Journal Compagny, June,1991, p.21 [2]Ingolf Pernice, Course text, Introduction to European Law http://cife. iliasnet. de/ilias. php?baseClass= ilLMPresentation GUI&ref_id= 155 [3]Ibidem, Chapter 6 European Decision -making and the role of national parliaments [4] J.H.H. Weiler, Capter 2. Challenges of "Democracy" and "Legitimacy" , the Transformation of Europe, Yale Law Jurnal, Yale Law Journal Compagny, June,1991, [5] the problem of democratic structure is addressed this way by the Dublin Summit, Annexe 1, reprinted in Conclusions of the European Council Dublin 25 &26 June 1990, EUROPE DOC. ( no. 1632/1963) 9 ( June 29, 1990) [6] Ibidem,p.39 [7] Ibidem [8] Ibidem [9] Ibidem [10] Ibidem,p.40 [11] Ibidem [12] Ibidem,41 [13] Ibidem,42 Asociatia/The Association"Proeducatia Rromilor Europeni in Contextul Integrarii Euro-Atlantice si Mondiale"Vizitati pagina http://www.geocities.com/survivor1977roVisit the web page http://www.geocities.com/survivor1977ro __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
