Демократско versus бирократско у институционалној структури Европске уније
Democratic Versus Bureaucratic in the Institutional Structure of the European Union

Author(s): Radomir Lukić
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Governance, EU-Legislation
Published by: Правни факултет Универзитета у Источном Сарајеву
Keywords: Democracy deficit; Democratic legitimacy; Consent of elites; Technocracy; Democracy in supranational entities; Citizen; Nation state;
Summary/Abstract: The modern-day European Union has been taking incrementalistic approach in its development for the past 60 years starting from classical international organisation through to present-day mixture of elements inherent to international organisation, confederation, federal state and some sort of supranational organisation. The mixture of such elements and the authority of the European Union have resulted in the increase in importance of democratic establishment of authorities of EU, its bodies and its democratic legitimacy. The consent national elites reached on the necessity of European Union, its organisation and decisions have become insufficient to justify EU’s existence and decisions which deeply affect its citizens/citizens of member states.This paper presents a modest attempt to evaluate and compare proportion of democratic and bureaucratic principles in EU institutions, as well as to work out the ratio of democratic over bureaucratic elements and instruments in organisation and performance of EU bodies. Due to limited space we were forced to constrain our study to general estimates, excluding analyses and assessments of details with regard to democratic and bureaucratic instruments and elements.This paper puts forward a view that the democratic deficit and excessive bureaucracy is a consequence of the ambivalent nature of the European Union – as such different from nation state and that, despite decades of incrementalistic empowerment of democratic components in Union’s institutional structure, it is still overpowered by bureaucratic element epitomized in national bureaucracy and eurocracy.

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