THE SOURCES OF EU DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN THE POST-NICE PHASE, FROM THE PROJECT OF THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION TO THE LISBON TREATY
THE SOURCES OF EU DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN THE POST-NICE PHASE, FROM THE PROJECT OF THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION TO THE LISBON TREATY

Summary/Abstract: This article seeks to identify the main sources of EU’s democratic deficit in its daily functioning, from the moment when the famous European Constitutional Treaty (rejected in 2005, through the equally famous referendums in the Netherlands and France – EU’s founding members) was drafted and put to a referendum of the European citizens. Most elements and ideas on the structure and institutional functioning of the EU from the contents of the Constitutional Treaty were taken up, with very few amendments, sometimes changing certain expressions (discarding the ones considered “sensitive” for the pro-sovereignty trend), in the Treaty of Lisbon (2009). The result was the reality of a European federalist conception (the content of the 2005 Constitutional Treaty) wrapped in a Westphalian clothing (the Lisbon Treaty, as an international treaty concluded between the EU Member States).

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