The European Union is in the middle of a democratic crisis. Many Europeans have lost faith in representative democracy both at national and European levels. On the one side, critics against parliamentarism are becoming more and more vocable. Some of their representatives have managed to conquer the power and are now challenging basic democratic principles such as liberty of press or judiciary independence. On the other side, old mainstream political parties have lost some legitimacy and their supporters tend to remain passive towards these attacks on their values and principles. To understand such issue, a study on national and European representative democracy systems is necessary.
This book looks at the current democratic crisis through the evolution of the relationship between national and EU democratic institutions with a strong emphasis on the role of Parliaments. It provides an extensive overview of Europeanisation of representative democracy within Member States. The publication also evaluates the current state of EU representative democracy at large, its theoretical basis and its practical mechanisms. Each chapter starts with a short summary, and reader-friendly highlights of the key messages appear throughout the book.
Within this publication, you will find WiseEuropa’s contribution drafted by Wojciech Białożyt and Romain Le Quiniou alongside with Jacek Kucharczyk and Filip Pazderski from the Institute of Public Affairs on Polish political discourse on Europe, focusing especially on the nature and the evolution of Polish representative system, Polish European policies and public opinion towards EU.
Representative Democracy in the EU: Recovering Legitimacy is part of the ‘Towards a Citizens’ Union‘ project and is the product of collaboration with 20 renowned think tanks from the European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN). It is the second of three publications that also cover the state of direct democracy in the EU and the accountability of democratic institutions.
Edited by Steven Blockmans, Senior Researcher and Head of the Europe in the World and Institutions units, CEPS, and Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam. Sophia Russack is Researcher at CEPS Institutions unit.
Publications series: CEPS & RLI paperback
Source: CEPS
