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Democracy at the EU level: Folly or necessity? More work for a directly elected European Parliament
Author(s) -
Lord Christopher
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european law journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.351
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1468-0386
pISSN - 1351-5993
DOI - 10.1111/eulj.12402
Subject(s) - parliament , legitimation , european union , democracy , state (computer science) , political science , member state , law , work (physics) , economic justice , european union law , law and economics , public administration , political economy , member states , sociology , economics , politics , international trade , mechanical engineering , algorithm , computer science , engineering
It is often argued that the European Union needs legitimation by its Member State democracies. However, there is also a reverse dependence in which Member State democracies need some kind of European Union if they are to manage externalities between themselves in ways that are needed to deliver their most fundamental obligations to their own publics to secure rights, justice, freedom from arbitrary domination and democracy itself. I argue that reverse dependence provides an additional justification for a directly elected European Parliament: namely, as an aid to national democracies in their oversight of Union decisions. The future of Europe debates should consider a directly elected Parliament as a means of connecting national democracies to the Union and not just of building representative institutions at the European level.