by Vladimír Špidla, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities

Three Challenges to Democratic Legitimacy of the EU

The process of European integration was launched by a handful of European democracies in the aftermath of the most destructive war in world history which had been driven by non-democratic, dictatorial regimes. On that background, the democratic legitimacy of the decisions which led to the first Treaties was to a large extent self-evident. Moreover, more than four decades of its early development took place in the shadow of the Soviet totalitarian menace which served, if nothing else, as an evident contrast between democratic legitimacy in the West and the lack thereof in the East. Later, three member states which had previously experienced illegitimate authoritarian regimes (Greece, Spain, Portugal) joined in the "southern wave" of enlargement when they re-established political democracy thus re-enforcing the association between democratic legitimacy and the European integration process. All this is well known.

Yet ever since the dictatorships have all but vanished from the European horizon, the democratic legitimacy of the European Union itself has been increasingly  challenged by those who claim that it suffers from a "democratic deficit" because it is driven by some kind of an unelected bureaucracy; because this elite follows its own elitist, cosmopolitan interests; and finally, because it is too detached from real life of the people and its documents have become too difficult for the average citizen to understand.

These three challenges to democratic legitimacy of the EU can thus be labelled as (1) as a charge of exercising unelected power; (2) a charge of elitism; (3) a charge of detachment and unintelligibility. I will proceed to deal with them one by one.

“Democratic Deficit” of the EU

The charge related to a perceived lack of legitimacy in terms of elections - the one of a "democratic deficit" in the narrowest sense of the word - should not be easily dismissed. Of course, the Council represents the democratically elected governments of the Member States; but it could be argued that the legitimacy of the European Parliament is of a more direct nature. As we know, in the first decades of its existence, the European Parliament was not directly elected, and its role has remained rather symbolic until the last two decades. Even today, there are still many important policy areas where the decision is taken by Council in unanimity, with the Parliament being merely consulted. And indeed, some of these areas are linked to fundamental rights of European citizens (for instance the rights to equal treatment without discrimination based on sex, race or ethnic origin, disability, age, religion or belief and sexual orientation, enshrined in Article 13 of the Treaty), which means - at least to me - that future implication of the European Parliament would be desirable.

On the other hand, once we accept the premise that democratic legitimacy has something to do with the powers and responsibilities of the democratically elected European Parliament, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there is a gradual but inexorable increase in democratic legitimacy of the European institutions over time. Yet the most vociferous critics of an alleged "democratic deficit" obviously do not see it that way. Indeed, they tend to oppose the increased implication of the Parliament through co-decision procedures requiring a qualified majority in Council, presenting these changes as something that allows "Brussels" to overrule their particular Member State.

It is perhaps time to state clearly and unequivocally what is obvious from this development, but often hidden behind hollow clichés that aim to accommodate everyone and no one at the same time. Namely, that either the trend to increase of the functions of the European Parliament will continue, resulting in growing democratic legitimacy for the EU as a whole (but also in a growing likelihood that particular Member States will be overruled by "Brussels"), or else it will be discontinued, which will mean that democratic legitimacy will stagnate or decrease (but Member States will not risk being overruled). This is a contradiction which cannot rationally be overcome by the alleged defenders of national interests who simultaneously complain of a "democratic deficit".

Of course, there is also a potential for the increased involvement of Member State parliaments, but that is at best complementary. I do not envisage that anyone could seriously propose reducing the functions of the European Parliament in favour of those of the national legislatures. That, again, would look like going into reverse, to the time when the European Parliament was a mere mosaic of deputies from the Member State parliaments.

However, it is the European Commission  which is most often challenged with being "unelected". Here I believe that the charge needs to be rejected in its entirety, with full conviction. The Commissioners themselves are nominated by Member State governments, whose legitimacy nobody is challenging (least of all the nationalists) and approved by the European Parliament in what is increasingly becoming a tough, open-ended process, demonstrated by the case of Rocco Buttiglione. Moreover, Member States are increasingly appointing career politicians who have held elected office, not career public servants, as Commissioners.

But what about the "bureaucrats" in the strict sense of the word, i.e., the European public servants who work in the General Secretariat or in the various Directorates General? Are they not powerful and unelected at the same time? Indeed they are; and there are good reasons why they should be. There is incontrovertible evidence that the professional quality and transparency of any public service are inversely proportionate to the degree to which that public service is liable to become part of a party-political "spoils system". In the USA, public administration posts were "democratically" distributed to the winners after every election until 1881, when President James Garfield was fatally shot by a disgruntled person who had expected a public administration job and failed to get one. As it took Garfield several weeks to die, he still managed to introduce useful legislation after being shot, abolishing the "spoils system" in favour of a professional public service, a meritocracy. The EU requires such a clear separation of political appointees from the professional public services with transparent rules also from its Member States (and some, like the Czech Republic, are delaying the necessary changes in this direction). It would be absurd not to defend the same principle in the Community public service itself - the more so that there is no single "winner of elections" on Community level.

The answer then is "no, public servants should not be elected, nor should they be appointed on party-political grounds". In a liberal democratic system, the judiciary does not lack legitimacy, although it is appointed, not elected, and neither does the public service. As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, in most democracies these unelected bodies (such as the Supreme Court in the USA) tend to enjoy a much higher degree of trust than the elected ones.

By contrast there are many non-liberal democracies in the world - regimes with elected leaders who exercise their power in an arbitrary way, disregarding the rule of law, violating human rights or using the instruments of the state to brainwash their citizens. From the viewpoint of liberal democratic values, such regimes cannot be regarded as legitimate; and indeed, electoral success is not the only source of legitimacy. After all, we should be reminded that Hitler participated successfully in several democratic elections while Jean Monnet never held elected office. No populist rhetoric can hide the fact that Monnet was both a legitimately appointed public servant and a true democrat, while Hitler was neither…

Cosmopolitan elitism

How about the second charge - that of cosmopolitan elitism? It would be futile to deny that European public servants are, by and large, competent and well-paid ("elite") and that by working in a multi-national environment they acquire cosmopolitan characteristics rather than seeing issues from a strictly national viewpoint. But is there anything wrong about it? Would we prefer a less competent, worse paid, more politicized and more narrow-minded European public service? No, certainly not.

In fact, many of the charges against an alleged lack of democratic legitimacy boil down to the conclusion that the EU is not lacking in democracy, but it is "lacking" in populism. This applies particularly to the European Commission, which has for decades developed a way of communicating politely with the Member States rather than their citizens. True, over the last years we have started communicating more directly to the citizens, but we continue to be very cautious and diplomatic when it comes to Member State politics. This has produced a bizarre situation in which even politicians representing Member State governments (let alone those who do not have such responsibility) feel free to blame the EU or the Commission for their own failures, while we hardly ever talk back to them in the public arena. In this context, we might ask the provocative question whether the European Commission should not consider being more "populist" in some way or other. Not, of course, by spreading false fears as so many politicians are doing - for instance by not hesitating to talk back publicly to national politicians who use the EU as a comfortable scapegoat.

EU’s Detachment from People and Unintelligibility of EU Documents

The third claim is, after all, the only one that I find truly worrying - that "Eurocrats" are somehow lacking in democratic spirit due to their disregard for the real world, being self-absorbed in technocratic processes which produce documents that only they can understand. It could be argued that it is linked to the charge of elitism (and indeed it is also part and parcel of the populist vocabulary). In my view, however, there is a fundamental difference here. Democracies need elites, and not all elites can or even should be elected; but they should not become self-absorbed. The history of human civilisation is full of examples which show that self-absorbed elites are indeed in danger of losing their legitimacy, whether it stems from tradition, meritocracy or electoral processes.

Of course, it could be argued that even in this respect, the populist opponents of European integration present to their audiences a caricature of the standard "Eurocrats" rather than a realistic picture; but the sheer scope and complexity of contemporary EU agendas do create a real risk of technocratic self-absorption. The problem is real. Some steps have already been made with the aim to make the EU more understandable to the outside world, for instance the creation of "citizens' summaries" in documents; but there is still a long way to go in order to make the documents themselves more readable, free of annoying insider jargon. Also the existing communication of EU institutions with social partners and civil society organisations could still benefit from more openness and less formalism.

Moreover, the Commission (and possibly even other EU institutions) might need to re-evaluate the rules of recruitment so as to bring new ideas and approaches to its ranks. Indeed, the Commission sponsors and supports various events on "diversity promotion" in the corporate world; it should also use the medicine which it prescribes to others. There certainly is space for more flexibility in recruitment rules which would allow for increased participation of persons from different professional backgrounds (academics, researchers, managers, NGO activists) as well as of people whose life experience might be different from the mainstream (persons of immigrant or ethnic minority origin, people with disabilities). None of this, it seems to me, should be seen as incompatible with keeping high professional standards. On the contrary, such new flexible approaches could be of considerable benefit to the institutions by increasing their representativeness.

Summing up

To sum up, I am convinced that there is no reason to doubt the European Union's democratic legitimacy - but there might be a case for actively promoting a new institutional culture which puts a premium on openness.