The emergence of a European political class

In public debate, it is often taken for granted that the European democratic deficit derives from the insufficiently democratic character of the European Union and of its characteristically supranational institutions, primarily the Commission. Such a picture is in fact highly misleading. The European polity (assuming at this stage that it actually exists or is emerging) is not and cannot be coextensive with the European Union supranational institutions. Insofar as the Union is, among other things, a union of democratic polities, the European polity has an irreducibly multi-level character. As shown by the previous chapter, this is a very familiar point with respect to patterns of policy-making. It however tends to be neglected when discussing democratic legitimacy. It follows that the democratic character of the European polity requires assessment from three perspectives – each member state, the EU supranational institutions, and the relations between the 25+1 political entities (see also Giorgi in Chapter 2). Whether or not there is a distinctively EU institutional dimension to the deficit, or to perceptions of it, it is clear enough that the politics of Europe within member states, as well as the politics of multi-level European relations, raise equally important problems of democratic legitimacy.