Term Paper on European Council Is Council a Democratic Body
The political structure of the European Union is unique in its nature
because European Union is built on the institutional system. In the
institutional system, the Member States delegate sovereignty for certain
matters to specific independent institutions, whose duty is to look after
and represent the interests of the European Union as a whole, its Member
States and its citizens. The function of the European Commission is to
represent the interests of the Union as a whole, the interests of each
national government is represented by the European Council and the European
Parliament.
The Council
The European Council is the main decision making body of the European Union.
The Council meets regularly to solve the matters of foreign affairs,
finance, education, telecommunication etc. in different compositions. The
council of ministers consists of the leaders and foreign ministers of the
Member States with the Commission president and vice president. The
decisions of the council are taken using the system of “Qualified Majority
Voting”. The Council of Ministers is the similar body dealing with the
sectional affairs such as agriculture, transport etc. but are much less
effective than the European Council.
Some of the basic responsibilities of the Council are:
1. European Council is the legislative body of the European Union; it is the
duty of the council to exercise that legislative power in co-decisions with
European Parliament
2. The Council coordinates to economic policies of the Member States
3. It is the duty of the Council to conclude agreements with Member States
and with international organization on the behalf of European Union
4. The Council and the European Parliament shares the budgetary authority
5. It is the responsibility of the Council to take necessary actions to
frame and implement a common foreign and security policy
6. It also coordinates the activities of Member States and take necessary
actions for the police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters
Democratic Deficit
Democratic deficit is a term used to mention the gap between the power and
authority of European institutions. It is often said that there is a lack of
public accountability in the European Union. The politicians started to feel
the issue of democratic deficit seriously from 1992 when Danish voters
failed to ratify “The treaty of European Union”.
The issue of democratic deficit has gained the most publicity where the
relation between European Union institutions is concerned. Now such powers,
which were used by the governments to govern, have been transferred to the
institutions of the European Union and so the unaccountable institutions
have taken over the powers and responsibilities of the accountable national
governments of the Member States. The main problem of the system is that,
Council cannot control and legitimize the activities of the Commission, the
groups set by the Council to control the work of the Commission are consists
of the individuals who themselves involved in the work of the Commission.
John Major in 1994 said, “the European Parliament sees itself as the future
democratic focus for the Union. But that is a flawed ambition, because the
European Union is an association of States, deriving its basic democratic
legitimacy through national Parliaments, it is national parliamentary
democracy that confers legitimacy on the European Union”. (John Major, 1994)
But this is not true, the Parliament, which is the only institution, elected
by the votes of the citizens has no authority to ratify appointments and
have no influence over the selected candidates of the Commission. Hence the
people of the Europe can be affected by the bodies and measures over which
they have no direct control.
Conclusion
This democratic deficit can only be resolved if the right balance between
the different institutions of the European Union is achieved. The task to
resolve the issue of democratic deficit cannot be performed without
listening to the citizens of the European Union, not to the European Union
institutions. If one wants to maintain the balance between the institutions,
the whole framework of the European Union has to be modified. The Democratic
deficit will never be resolved without admitting that the national
parliaments are the most democratic institutions in Europe.
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