A European Union of, by and for the Citizens: How Can Europe Provide for better Participation of its Citizens?
A European Union of, by and for the Citizens: How Can Europe Provide for better Participation of its Citizens?

Summary/Abstract: Since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty two decades ago, we have witnessed intense debates on the future of democracy in Europe, mostly fuelled by the hope and expectation that we would sooner or later figure out how democratic processes could function in the European multi-level system, and how they should be institutionalised. Under the impact of the financial crisis however, the confidence in such perspectives has been shaken. Rather than institutionalizing ‘more democracy’, Europe’s crisis management system has established authoritarian modes of economic governance, executed by an administrative-governmental compound. Thus it remains all the more important to keep democratic aspirations alive and to search anew for firm constitutional grounds for implementing more democracy. At present, the prospects for such efforts are anything but encouraging.

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