Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

78 Richard Münch
remedy the ‘legitimation deficit’ that is linked to the so-called democracy deficit?
To say it right from the start: none of the models developed for this purpose does
justice to the structural conditions that deviate so strongly from nation-state politics.
All of them suffer from a far too strong orientation to the usual nation-state
representative democracy (Wildenmann 1991; Joerges 1994; Jachtenfuchs and
Kohler-Koch 1996). Let us list the models briefly: first of all, there is the model of
a Europe of market interests which limits the European Union to the role of an
economic association designed to ensure free economic circulation within Europe,
whilst everything else remains a matter of nation-state politics (Behrens 1994). This
model is no longer applicable, especially since the organisation of the single market
and the economic and monetary union strongly affect other political areas so that
there is a basic restructuring of social conditions in such a way that the nation-states
can no longer play their traditional role of political control and formation of society
on the basis of a representative democratic formation of will. Meanwhile, politics
takes place on a variety of levels and in many arenas above, within and below the
nation-state formation of will, so that it can no longer be legitimated with a reference
to such a centre of will formation.
There is no improvement with the model of legitimation through the competence
of experts (Ipsen 1972; Majone 1989, 1994a, 1994b). According to this model,
European politics is a matter of experts acting on behalf of the national governments
and deciding on purely factual aspects. Once again, the procurement of legitimation
is first and foremost a matter of representing the national electors’ will
in the Council of Ministers. On the one hand, EU politics draws its legitimation
from the factual knowledge of experts and, on the other hand, from the intergovernmental
cooperation of sovereign governments legitimated by representative
democracy. This model also fails due to the variety and differentiation of political
arenas above, within and below the nation-state democratic formation of will.
The model of a dual structure of a supranational and inter-state decision-making
procedure is as unworkable as the models outlined before (Weiler 1981). It is based
on the combination of two representative democratic procedures of the political
formation of will, even so, reality keeps moving away from it more and more. Politics
takes place on too many levels and in too many arenas to be able to be forced into
such a straitjacket.
Just like the models of legitimation of EU politics and EU law, the proposals on
the EU’s democratic new formation – possibly through the creation of a European
constitution – also fail as a result of their too close connection with the traditional
nation-state representative democracy. This goes both for the model of a federal
state and for the model of a confederation of states or the model of a nationality state.
The federal state model sees its hopes for democratisation backed by the European
Parliament and by the wish that the European Commission be transformed into a
government responsible to the Parliament, whilst the Council of Ministers works as
a second chamber (Reif 1992, 1993a; von Bogdandy 1999). This is a parliamentarydemocratic
version of the federal state. Another, presidential-democratic, variety
puts a president at the head and attaches greater significance to the second chamber.
The model of a confederation of states is more obliged to the status quo, considering