{"id":1655,"date":"2013-03-13T10:15:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T10:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hum.port.ac.uk\/europeanstudieshub\/?page_id=1655"},"modified":"2017-04-18T09:33:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T09:33:24","slug":"democratic-deficit","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hum.port.ac.uk\/europeanstudieshub\/learning\/module-1-understanding-eu-institutions\/introduction-to-study-of-the-european-union-institutions\/democratic-deficit\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, over the last years, another particularly strong criticism related to the democratic deficit <\/b>has emerged\u00a0(Follesdal & Hix, 2006)<\/a>. \u00a0The argument is that the EU has been driven by political elites and the citizens’ preferences have not been included. As a result, the legitimacy of the decision\u2013making process has been challenged and the European leaders had to respond to it (Nello, 2009, p.43).<\/p>\n

Granting the directly elected European Parliament (which primarily represents European citizens) equal legislative powers with the Council of the European Union (which primarily represents member states) was one of the most significant developments of the EU\u2019s attempt to address the accusation of democratic deficit. Same goes for the introduction of the institutional framework and independent funding for European political parties<\/a>, whose main purpose is to help filling the gap between EU\u2019s institutions and its citizens.<\/p>\n

However, the accusations of democratic deficit have resurfaced stronger than ever since the start of the eurozone crisis in late 2009, whose handling has seen the unelected European Commission and European Central Bank, as well as the informal Eurogroup (which consists of the finance ministers of the eurozone member states), imposing structural policies with significant economic, social and political consequences on countries such as Greece, Spain\u00a0 or Portugal. (Armingeon & Guthmann, 2014<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n

Let\u2019s then see how the EU institutions have been reformed over the years and whether the reform aimed to bring the EU \u2018as close to citizens a possible\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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  Nevertheless, over the last years, another particularly strong criticism related to the democratic deficit has emerged\u00a0(Follesdal & Hix, 2006). \u00a0The argument is that the EU has been driven by political elites and the citizens’ preferences have not been included. As a result, the legitimacy of the decision\u2013making process has been challenged and the European<\/p>\n

Read More<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":1647,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1655","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocratic deficit - European Studies Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hum.port.ac.uk\/europeanstudieshub\/learning\/module-1-understanding-eu-institutions\/introduction-to-study-of-the-european-union-institutions\/democratic-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democratic deficit - European Studies Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Nevertheless, over the last years, another particularly strong criticism related to the democratic deficit has emerged\u00a0(Follesdal & Hix, 2006). \u00a0The argument is that the EU has been driven by political elites and the citizens’ preferences have not been included. 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