Is European Union suffering from an unavoidable Democratic Deficit?

Why does the no-demos argument create an inescapable democratic deficit in the EU?

Introduction

The democratic deficit is a term with a plethora of interpretations that you can easily hear in times of political crisis in modern-day western democracies. For many years it has been closely affiliated with nation-states in Europe and of course with the European Union (EU). In times of crisis between member states of the EU and inside European politics, it is commonly used as a term by many Eurosceptics, most of the times against the existence of the European Union or from other politicians to protest various issues from the lack of democratic legitimacy in EU institutions to the increasing bureaucratic matters. I think we should examine this term neither from an ideological perspective nor as a manifestation of political propaganda by Eurosceptic politicians. In my opinion, even for the most prominent advocate of the EU and even for those who romanticize a vision of a stronger EU with a more active role in the political and financial status quo of Europe. The research and the debate regarding the existence of a democratic deficit should not be treated as a theory that would harm their European vision. On the contrary, it should be carefully examined as a form of positive ‘self-criticism’ by and for the EU institutions and for the EU as a democratic entity.

In the EU glossary, the term democratic deficit does not only relate to the lack of shared identity or cultural homogeneity in EU citizens, which is the main fact for the no-demos argument. It also describes the lack of communication between the EU and its citizens as well as the inaccessibility of European citizens in some decision-making institutions of the EU, like the financial ones, due to an excessive form of a complicated bureaucracy (EUR-Lex, n.d.). Even though I will refer to many of these arguments in this essay. The democratic deficit will be described from a view, based on the no-demos argument and on the same sentence that Richard Bellamy used (Bellamy, 2012), delivered by Abraham Lincoln and which currently constitutes one of the most well-known definitions of democracy as ‘ government of the people, by the people, for the people’. In this essay, I will examine the three aspects of this definition and their implementation in the EU. I will argue for the existence of a democratic deficit, based in the no-demos argument, in which the lack of demos, means the lack of people sharing the same form of identification compared to regular citizens in democratic nation-states. In addition, I will examine theories which deny the no-demos argument as the inevitable cause for the democratic deficit, like Giandomenico Majone’s argument ‘democracy for the people’ (Majone, 1998) or the theory of EU as a demoi-cracy for all the people of Europe, based on the theory of Nicolaidis (Nicolaidis, 2003).

The no-demos argument

As mentioned earlier, I will argue in favour of the existence of a democratic deficit in the EU as an inevitable consequence of the no-demos argument. This argument describes the absence of a homogeneous people and in the case of the EU, the absence of people, voters or citizens who share a common identity. A fact that leads to an impossibility in the implementation of democracy (Bellamy, 2012), based in Lincoln’s definition of democracy as governance: ‘by’, ‘of’ and ‘for’ the people. In other words, the lack of a homogeneous demos with shared identity, goals and values makes it impossible for the governance to be ‘by’ and ‘of’ the people and hence it leads to an inevitable democratic deficit. Joseph Weiler describes it in his thesis of the no-demos argument as an illusion of democratic implementation due to the lack of two from the three main keys in the definition of democracy (Weiler, 1995). Meaning that we may have a democracy for the people as Majone will argue in his text (Majone, 1998), but we do not have a democracy ‘by’ and ‘of’ the people, hence the deficit is created. That’s also the main point in Bellamy’s argumentation (Bellamy, 2012), and it will also be my main point regarding the inevitability of a democratic deficit in the EU.

This form of deficit exist to such an extent inside the EU, that can be observed through issues of democratic legitimacy in the EU institutions and the lack of majoritarian rule. Owing to the fact that these ‘problems’, most of the time seem to be a consequence of the no-demos argument. The ‘so-called majoritarian’ rule has been replaced in the EU with the rule of unanimity, something that we usually witness in international organizations like the United Nations and not in democratic entities, e.g. nation-states. However, democracy is based and evolved by the majority rule (Bellamy, 2012), the rule of majority decisions, and not a unanimous rule that emerges from a committee, even if that unanimous decision may serve a so-called greater good of the people of Europe. This fact will also be examined further in the democracy ‘for’ the people argument (Majone, 1998). For now, I believe that this unanimous process is an aftereffect and inextricably linked to the absence of a European Demos, of a solid and singular form of citizens with shared identity and interests and thus a consequence linked to the no-demos argument. For this reason, we will examine an example of the EU’s function, which resembles more the function of an international organization rather than the function of a democratic entity or Union. A case which, constitutes one of the most recent examples of political and democratic crisis in the EU member states and more specifically, the case of Poland and the veto issued by Hungary. The EU was always standing for two main ideas, the protection of human rights and the separation of powers, not only as European ideals but also as mandatory criteria for the member states in order to join the Union. But in the case of Poland, things got a little bit different after the win of the right-wing, catholic-conservative party PIS in the Polish parliamentary elections with a clear majority. At that time the whole Europe witnessed a corrupted takeover of the judicial branch, the dismissals of 11,330 public servants for political reasons and the implementation of fines and hostile policies in any opposition media or news organization, that was not biased towards the governmental policies (Vox, 2018). When the EU and the European Commission decided to intervene by initiating Article 7.1, in order to suspend the fundamental voting rights of the government of Poland in the European Council. This ‘intervention’ reached a dead-end and could not be applied by the simple reason of the existence of the unanimity rule that we mentioned earlier this time implemented by another member state, which also faces democratic issues similar to those of Poland and specifically by Victor Orban’s government of Hungary (Vox, 2018). I believe this case here constitutes a key example of many things. Unfortunately, we do not have the ‘luxury’ to refer to an existential crisis of Europe’s democratic ideals, but we can clearly see the issues of the implementation of a unanimity rule, which as mentioned we rarely observe in democratic function and institution, compared to the majoritarian rule. But let’s exam further how this is connected with the no-demos argument and the lack of existence of a homogenous form of EU citizens. For starters, I referred to the case of Poland as a consequence of a non-existing European demos, and it can be easily observed by how both countries in the previous example did not operate as a demos not even as member states of a common democratic entity. Clearly not only they did not share the same values and ideals of the European Democracy, but their governments functioned in defence of allies and state interests with the approval and the consent of the people who voted for them. Even though we are not talking about demos but rather for representatives and governments, on the one hand, this is the basis of representative democracy, and on the other hand, we can understandably see the interests of nations states colliding with the common goals of the EU. Of course, anyone could imply that this could happen to a state parliament too, where a party would just function with the only goal of accomplishing their interests rather than the greater good. They may be right, but with this example, I specifically want to underline how difficult and maybe impossible it is to discuss a European demos and how this idea gets easily contradicted by the idea of the nation-states that constitute the EU. Raising the following query, it is discovered that maybe the discussion for an EU following the democratic model of a nation-state and thus having a homogenous demos in this form, is almost impossible, something that will also be discussed while examining Nicolaidis idea of Demoi-cracy (Nicolaidis, 2012). To put this question differently, is it necessary to draw the conclusion of the inevitable separation between a nation-state democracy and the existence of anything different, necessary operating as an international organization? Or can we believe and hope in the existence of a cosmopolitan democracy between nations states or another way to avoid the non-demos argument? These questions will also be examined and answered afterwards, but prior to that, I deem as necessary to refer to more evidence regarding the issue of non-demos in the EU.

It would be more than helpful to have a look at same consecutive researches, which are also quoted by Bellamy (Bellamy, 2012), from a research regarding the identification of citizens with an EU or European identity in general (Wallström & Sørensen, 2008). Some of these results show us such low levels of identification in some member states in the EU identity that Bellamy calls them rightfully as “prima facie evidence” of the no-demos argument (Bellamy, 2012). According to the following results, only 10% of the so-called EU demos possess a strong sense of EU identity, and the results become even more devastating with only 3% viewing themselves “as Europeans pure and simple” and maybe as an answer to the previous polish example only 7% “consider their European identity as more important than their national one” (Wallström & Sørensen, 2008). As appalling as these results may seem for a European Union advocate and probably for the EU institutions, who conducted the research, I believe they prove in the most obvious way that EU is facing a crucial issue regarding the identification and therefore even the existence of a demos, meaning the form of people that a democracy desperately needs in order to operate ‘of’ and ‘by’ the people. In my opinion, these empirical data work as a proof for the existence of a democratic deficit regarding the so-many times mentioned no-demos argument. The argument that describes the issue of the non-existence of a solid and homogeneous group of citizens of the EU, who identify themselves mainly as Europeans, and even if these citizens exist, they certainly constitute a small ‘minority’ in many of the member states.

Richard Bellamy also mentions the view of many EU advocates who believe that identification will be improved through participation (Bellamy, 2012). I personally think that this argument is illogical, since the lack of identification with a European vision and a common goal is the main reason that the participation remains extremely low, no matter the election process or how much the politicians ‘advertise’ the European elections as something of significant importance. So, participation cannot be succeeded without identification in the first place. The lack of participation is just one of the many consequences that exist through the lack of identification and the absence of a European demos. The results of another research that Bellamy uses in his text proves this time the fact of the low participation in the European elections for the representatives in the European parliament. (Bellamy, 2012). According to that research participation in European elections as an average usually runs below 50% and, in some countries, even 25% (Bellamy, 2012) If we check the participation results from the recent European parliamentary elections of 2019 we will see average participation of 50.56%, which may be higher from the previous European elections of 2014 (42.61%), but nevertheless still means that almost one in two European citizens does not participate in the elections (European Parliament, 2019). A percentage that would definitely be dramatically shocking for a national election. Other results are even more ‘shocking’ in member states like Croatia, where the participation percentage was 29.85% in Slovakia 22.74% or in Portugal 30.75% (European Parliament, 2019) These results stand as clear evidence of the lack of European identification in the sense of an EU demos or even a community.

These results also prove wrong some optimistic EU advocates like Hix, who believe that despite the cultural and the ethnical differences between people the left-right divide exists inside the European parliament as a common factor that can unite the voters and the European citizens, driven by different ideologies (Hix, 2008). Indeed, this is true, we can see many ideological divisions and unification between various parties of the member-states, but this does not necessarily mean that operates as a common factor or a reason for voters to be more active in the European elections or to start identifying themselves more under a common European identity. We can clearly see that not only from the participation results analyzed earlier but also from the fact that these ideological divisions exist in countries all over the world, e.g. the division between conservatives and liberals in the United States. These ideological divisions do not provide any foundation for the creation of a common European identity, or at least they do not have any significance, since they exist all over the world, in democratic countries with a representative parliamentary system. The same thing goes for those who might imply that the sharing of some standard principles regarding human rights or the environment could be the key to a common EU identity (Bellamy, 2012). Not only the participation results prove them wrong again. In addition, most of the time ‘abstract’ principles have different interpretations, and they are totally dependent on the constitution of each country. I do not deny the active role of EU in developing policies in favour of the environment or the implementation of fines to the member states that violate some of the environmental standards, but again I will underline that these policies are also shared by many non-EU countries like Canada or the United States. Also, we saw in the example of Poland that some governments violated human rights and fundamental democratic ideals like freedom of the press or judicial independence, something that would seem unthinkable for other EU member states, like Germany.

Last but not least, as Bellamy refers too, a crucial issue for the common identification of the EU citizens is also the ‘language barrier’ and even the geographical distance and position of the EU institutions (Bellamy, 2012). It is true that despite the informal use of English as the ‘unofficial’ language of Europe still the use of several different languages definitely acts as an impediment for the creation of a demos. Bellamy gives the example of a multilingual country like Belgium (Bellamy, 2012). In which the central government is weak, and the regional government is strong due to the language and the ethnical differences between Flemish and Walloons. As for the geographical distance and the position of EU institutions it is more than evident that some countries, which have a considerable number of EU institutions, will definetely identify more with the EU identity rather than any other country which has a significant distance from any of the institutions. The people of Belgium for example, have a more significant connection and understanding towards the EU institutions since many of the EU institutions are based on Brussels, this fact can be observed in the participation percentages between Belgium and Cyprus, In the recent 2019 European elections Belgium had a participation percentage of 88.47%, this could be due to the proximity of EU institutions in Brussels. On the other hand, the percentage of participation in Cyprus was 44.99%, a country that has a significant distance from every EU institution (European Parliament, 2019). Having examined many arguments and evidence, we see a lack of identification with the EU, which leads to the lack of an EU demos and thus to the existence of a democratic deficit in EU, according to the definition of democracy being ‘of’ and ‘by’ the people. We shall now examine some alternatives suggestions towards the deficit and its existence.

Democracy ‘for’ the people

The argument of democracy ‘for’ the people, even in the case of the EU, creates a form of priorities where the importance of a Union is focused on the policies that are being implemented for the people, without the need or at least by decreasing the need of these policies being ‘by’ the people (Majone, 1998). However this view does not necessarily deny that the government taking these policies can be ‘of’ the people. As Bellamy quotes the ‘for’ the people argument implies a form of depoliticization of some significant decision-making policies for the Union, in order for these policies not to emerge ‘by’ the people, but to be more effective and to serve the interest of the people in the Union (Bellamy, 2012). This means a decrease and a regulation in the decision making by the demos, in order for these policies to be more effective. The main justification for this argument might be the fear of the demos getting easily influenced by any sort of populist politicians or for the avoidance of aggressive policies in favour of any majority and against the interests of minorities. In a first glance, this argument may seem a little be ironic, in a sense that ‘we’ want to protect demos, the basis of democracy from itself. However, in the long term, we understand the importance of a regulative state or a constitution that ‘protects’ the state from any populist that may take over. Another way to avoid these kinds of democratic crises is also the separation of powers and the independence of Judiciary power, for example. Some can even say that the parliamentary democracy of representative politicians also serves the reason for more effective policies for the people. Until this point, the arguments make a lot of sense, because we are comparing the function of the EU with those of nation-states, but as we have examined, there is a big difference between those two in many ways. We have reviewed that it is almost impossible to have the same demos for the EU, like the demos we can find in most nation-states. The advocates of the argument of democracy ‘for’ the people argue for a more technocratic Union operating for the demos, but not by the demos as a solution to avoid the democratic deficit, in the sense that the policies for the people, do not need to be by the people in the first place. (Majone, 1998). I will examine if this can be a solution or even a logical suggestion for the EU and its deficit, and I will argue that the argument of Majone, regarding the solution of policies created ‘for’ the people without being ‘by’ them (Majone, 1998). As tempting as it sounds, unfortunately not only is not an alternative solution towards a deficit, on the contrary, it creates more ambiguities from the one that it tries to solve.

For starters, even the argument ‘for’ the people does not make any sense for the EU, at least not in the same way that it would have made for a nation-state. In the EU, as we have discussed repeatedly, we do not have a singular demos or people. Even in nation-states with some multicultural or multilingual variety, like Belgium, political issues are being controlled by different groups of people with different ethnical or cultural background, If we consider that in the case of the EU, which is constituted by different members states, with an excessive variety of people, with different ethnical backgrounds and interests, we can easily witness an evident confusion. A disarray emerges and creates the question of how all these policies can be effective for such a plethora of people with different interests? If someone answers that the policies will favour the countries with the majority of representatives in the EU parliament or the majority of people in general, we will be led to the same thing that the advocates of the democracy ‘for’ the people argument want so desperately to avoid. To a case of majoritarian tyranny, with policies that serve the interests of the strongest country members and ignore or even sacrifice the interests of other countries with a smaller group of representatives in the parliament, for example. A situation that many argue that happened after the financial crisis of 2008 with most of the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe, facing excruciating policies of austerity necessary to avoid, at that time, a complete and devastating crisis of the monetary system of the EU. Inside the EU we can observe different countries with different economies and different needs, and it would be irrational, if not naïve, to believe that the financially devastated economy of Greece, based on the tourist and marine shipping industry shares the same needs and characteristics with the strong German economy with enormous industrial productivity.

In the argument democracy ‘for’ the people, it is argued that more effective measures will be implemented for the people (Majone, 1998). But in order to justify why I said that this argument creates more ambiguities from the one that tries to solve, I wonder if a demos for the whole Europe exists, and even if it existed in some way, how is it possible to implement policies that will simultaneously serve the various interests of different economies and countries with several financial priorities and geopolitical characteristics? We can remember the refugee crisis that started between 2014 and 2015 with many Southern European countries having to deal with an enormous amount of refugee flows at the same time while their economies were shrinking, affected by the financial crisis of 2008. In the examples of Greece and Italy, the EU provided some financial support and some countries in Northern Europe like Germany agreed to take some of the refugees. But when the European Commission decided that all the countries should take some of the refugees, the reaction from some countries was immediately negative. Countries like Hungary denied taking any of the refugees since it does not ‘serve their interests’. Something like that, of course, could happen even in nation-states, with different regions getting more affected than others. But in a nation-state, the differences between people are not so significant. The government and the people decide to show some solidarity to those affected by any kind of crisis since they share a common national identity which in most cases is strong and solid. In the case of the EU, we saw from the percentages earlier that only a few people recognize themselves first as Europeans and then secondly with their nationality. We also witnessed the devastating participation percentages of the EU elections in some countries, that would have been considered as catastrophic for a typical national election. It is a fact that in nation-states, is easier for people to show solidarity with each other and even easier for solidarity policies to be implemented by the government. In the EU, any form of solidarity like financial bailouts or taking refugees has to be approved most of the time by the national parliament of each country.

Majone also commits the mistake of comparing the diversity between people in the EU with the diversity that exists in different states in the United States of America (Majone, 1998). We already know that the EU citizens do not share the same form of identification with citizens of the existent nation-states and especially with the U.S.A. For example, it is known that poorer states like Kentucky, are getting some form of state financial help through nation-wide taxation, In the case of the EU, it would be difficult and controversial for a country in Europe to raise its taxation to help the citizens of another country, no matter the circumstances. Even Majone in one of his later texts argues that EU’s monetary policy is not something purely financial in order to be controlled only technocratically and that the existence of different European economies requires a “pan-European democratic support’’ (Majone, 2011) (Bellamy, 2012)

These bring us to another ambiguity created by Majone, who argued, and I quote that “economic integration without political integration is possible if politics and economics are kept as separate as possible” (Majone, 1998). Of course, later on, he argued regarding the significance of pan-European support in monetary issues (Majone, 2011). Majone’s later realization however, proves that an economic Union is almost impossible to exist without being a political entity especially when it has a common monetary system for different countries with various economies that may need financial support, due to any circumstances going on. His conclusion of a “democratic deficit justified based in the depoliticization to preserve national sovereignty” (Hix, 2008) proves to be impossible and ambiguous by his later realization of the vital significance of some form of pan-European support and the need for political regulation that would take into consideration a plethora of conditions for different economies (Majone, 2011).

I also regard as essential to refer to Bellamy’s critic of the democratic legitimization of the EU institutions that will create all these policies ‘for’ the people. He cleverly criticizes the issue of the majoritarian approval of such institutions. Since there is no solid demos with a universally shared identity, the accountability for the actions of these institutions is almost impossible to be implemented, because there is no public sphere similar to nation-states, in which these institutions are going to be accountable for their actions (Bellamy, 2012). This produces the danger of the creation of a bureaucracy, that would be accountable to no-one for its policies. Regarding that, many have raised their scepticism towards the EU’s technocratic institutions and those who constitute them. Bureaucrats, that in some cases are not democratically elected to these sorts of positions but appointed through a confusing ‘Kafkaesque’ bureaucratic system. Bellamy raises, his concern regarding these institutions being “ subjects to distortions of their own” (Bellamy, 2012). In other words, the danger for these institutions to develop self-centred policies that eventually will not serve the ‘good’ of the people and will not operate ‘for’ the people, but rather for their own interest, either to ‘justify’ their existence or to serve the interests of some associated banks or even an ideological purpose.

In light of the above discussion, we can conclude that the ‘for’ the people argument can be proved to be eventually quite problematic, more that we could expect. From the point of the non-existence of any EU demos with shared interests to the point that all these ‘so-called’ policies for the people cannot guarantee that they will actually serve neither the will nor the good of the people and can be proved quite dangerous for some minorities interests (Bellamy, 2012).

Demoi-cracy

The term comes from the Greek word democracy, which is constituted by the word ‘demos’, meaning the people. Demoi is the plural form of demos, and philosophically the term describes a state of democracy that tries to overcome the no-demos argument and does not require necessarily a unite demos connected by the same identity, similar to the form of nation-states. Nicolaidis, one of the modern-day theorists with one of the most significant bibliographies in this topic, describes the concept of demoi-cracy in the EU, as the creation of a European community, which accepts the current pluralistic reality of Europe, constituted by various nation-states and approaches the possibility of democracy in a different way, a way that can overcome the non-demos argument (Nicolaidis, 2012). More precisely, Nicolaidis explains that the goal is not the creation of a “united Europe”; on the contrary, she welcomes the idea of separate states with multicultural characteristics. The advocates of this theory argue that the no-demos argument cannot be applied to demoi-cracy since singular demos is not necessary for its implementation. Nicolaidis even considers the idea of implying democracy to a nation-state level as a “conservative obsession” that should be avoided as something that sounds tempting but is realistically impossible (Nicolaidis, 2012).

Prima facie, it seems that this is the most significant advantage of the theory of demoi-cracy, the fact that its theorists argue that it can overcome the no-demos argument, in the sense that a nation-state demos is not required for its implementation. However, it should not be ignored the fact that this idea may not be so realistic as its advocates think. I believe that it is ignored as a fact by many of its advocates that democracy cannot exist without a solid and stable demos. Even if that demos is a pluralist one, like the one described in the theory of demoi-cracy, it would still need a basic form of identification. Nicolaidis argues that the state of identification currently existing in the EU is more than enough (Nicolaidis, 2012). Howbeit, from the participation in the European parliamentary elections, it is evident that not all the people of the state-members of the EU recognize themselves as citizens of the European Union, at the same level. We underlined, for example, the devastating difference between the participation results in countries close to the EU institutions and those that exist far away from them. We must be sceptical even if this existent European ‘demos’ if it can be considered as demos, is enough to carry out a system of demoi-cracy. The EU also witnessed serious identification issues in the recent BREXIT campaign or in the recent rise Eurosceptic movements all over Europe. Even though the approach of demoi-cracy sounds believable, ignoring the multicultural background of all the countries that constitute the European Union, is not something that can be achieved easily in order for the EU to be a democratic entity.

In addition, there is another issue that emerges from the fact that the theory of demoi-cracy is still in development. Nicolaidis argues for a transnational form of a Union that can serve the interest of all of its citizens through a very similar way that it is implemented today, through a common European institution or law (Nicolaidis, 2003). In the argument for the democracy ‘for’ the people, it was examined, how the EU institutions are almost unable in many cases to serve the interests of various countries and different economies simultaneously. Even if a way is finally found to serve all the financial interests of all countries simultaneously, still the problem of the realistic incompetence of solving political issues between countries exist. As long as political choices and responsibilities are left to a national sovereign level, a crisis will emerge, and issues between countries will be difficulty solved. The refugee crisis constitutes a great example of such a political problem. The national sovereignty that Nicolaidis argues about (Nicolaidis, 2012), eventually works as a barrier against the implementation of any possible solutions. The unanimous veto system, along with the national sovereignty, will still confirm the reality of a Union being unable to take transnational actions for the interests of all the peoples of Europe.

As Bellamy argues many of the demoi-cracy advocates, including Nicolaidis, “praise the complexity of EU’s institutions” and argue in favour of a complex multilevel system of governance, like the existing today (Bellamy, 2012) (Nicolaidis, 2003). This means that the issues of non-majoritarianism, accountability, trust an excessive bureaucracy, mentioned earlier, remain active. Even if the representative system of demoi-cracy find a way to overcome the no-demos argument, even though as we examined that is still debatable due to the difficulty in the creation of demos in an ethnically diverse and multicultural Union, still cannot avoid the issue off, if the policies will be ‘for’ the people’s interest (Bellamy, 2012). In addition, there is the issue if the institutions and the policies made by them will be ‘by’ the people (Bellamy, 2012)and if they will follow the majoritarian rule. In order to avoid cases that minorities apply a ‘veto’ and stop majorities from implementing the democratically decided measures. The same problem implies with accountability since even the acceptance of the EU being a transnational demoi-cracy does not justify the fact that there is no common public sphere (Bellamy, 2012), like the one in nation-states, which can offer the majoritarian justification and control the accountability of its institutions. Last but not least, the ‘trust’ issue has to do with the EU’s institutions and something that is already discussed in the democracy ‘for’ the people argument. Since the institutions are not held accountable by a public sphere or do not follow the majoritarian rule, the danger of their policies serving various reasons different than those that intend the ‘will’ or the ‘good’ of the demos, if that is even possible, still remains high.

Conclusion

As a theory, demoi-cracy may seem more than interesting in many ways, but the fact that it needs further research and development is evident. It is still debatable if the approach of overcoming the non-demos argument is possible and in what sense. It should not be ignored that in any kind of democracy a form of demos with a specific identification is needed, at least in the realistic modern-day circumstances in order for a political crisis to be avoided. As much as for both demoi-cracy and the argument of democracy ‘for’ the people, again the demos discussion is almost inevitable since we need democratic legitimacy, majoritarian rule and policies that will be implemented for some form of demos, policies that must be both effective and democratically justified. I agree with Bellamy’s opinion that the discussion of the no-demos argument is inevitable in order to understand the existence of a democratic deficit in the EU. However, I will adopt a more optimistic stance by arguing that even though the democratic deficit still exists, it does not necessarily mean that we cannot hope sometime to overcome it. We should not accept the deficit as something fated and completely unpreventable. On the contrary, the idea of a demoi-cracy is in the right path of accepting the non-demos argument and now must face the fact that the current institutional and operational form of the EU must be democratized more, and follow the basic principles: ‘of’, ‘by’ and ‘for’ the people, in order to overcome the existing democratic deficit.

Sergios Saropoulos

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