A plea for a European semi-parliamentary and semi-consociational democracy

Article abstract:

The paper describes the status quo of government in Europe as (slightly) less democratic than the real state of democracy in the Member States and stresses the transparency-deficiencies. It examines the extra-legal factors of a functioning democracy and argues that they are present in nuce and can evolve in interaction with the legal institutions. It points out limits of performance of both majority and unanimity voting and pleads for a mixed system. It argues that the size of the Union is no democratic problem as such, and finally draws the attention to the global dimension of the problem, which - in the opinion of the author - forecloses the 'resignative' option of renouncing on further democratisation of the Union. Against this background, the prospects for the EC/EU are that of a semi-parliamentary and semi-consociational democracy.