Over the span of the past thirty years, the European Union has brought about some of the most important economic transformations, large amounts of territorial expansions, and immense amounts democratic revivals. As of more recent times, however, the European economy has been largely in crisis and as a result, its enlargement has been in limbo and democracy as we know it, under pressure. Arguments continue about the most fundamental of points: The economy in Europe headed deeper into recession, democracy stalled at the European Union level due to various stays in the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty and had become increasingly unstable at the national level due in part to the EU economy itself.
In the European Union, the relationship between democratic politics, identity, and economics is more complex, due to its multiple leveled nature that is split amongst both European Union and national levels. Over the years, tensions between the levels have grown, as decision-making has increasingly moved towards the EU level while the identity and politics have for the most part stayed within the national level.
Today, at the beginning of a period of borderline economic depression, the themes of identity and democracy in Europe may be tested. The European Union must respond effectively and united to the oncoming economic crisis, or the European project itself could very well be jeopardized. Thus, one might be led to mull over a few of the deeply rooted concerns of EU economic integration and their implications for European Union identity, democracy, and the economy as a whole.
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Today many question how democratized the economy really has become, given the rise of certain inequalities since the beginning of the 1980s, as rich have gotten even richer and there is an even larger growth in concerns about the erosion of national welfare states, social justice, and economic precariousness. However, despite the previously held notions on the democratization of the current EU economy, most would have little doubt that in creating the European market, EU institutions have effectively moved decisions on national democracy to a more global level.
As others have argued elsewhere in literature, the problem for the democratization of the EU is that it has split and divided the four basic democratic validating processes between national and supranational levels. These processes are political participation, citizen representation, and governing effectiveness with the people. The European Union level is mainly summarized as governance for the people via proper policy-making strengthened by accountability. This usually takes the form of a regulatory state and through the ‘Community Method’ or an overwhelming interest of the people. The national level maintains a government by the people and of the people through citizen representation and through individual political participation (Scharpf, 1999).
The split within the validating processes does not necessarily mean that the EU is wholly illegitimate as a democratic body. Factually speaking, the opposite is true since the European Union benefits from the legitimacy of the national governments via the indirect representation provided by the national executives within the Council and their implementation of EU policy throughout their respective national administrations as well as by the direct representation provided by the European Parliament. (Menon and Weatherill, 2008)
It can also be a well-supported argument that the EU’s power for the people serves as a more efficient promoting function, as the EU can make a way to carry out and implement new regulations for the Member states that they cannot produce or manage on their own, like the creation of a protected internal market, taking control of international trade negotiations for the member states , and establishing an international European currency to streamline the monetary policies between member states , including how to respond to the impending meltdown of the international economy (Caporaso and Tarrow, 2008).
