Europe in Search of Its Legitimacy

How can the EU obtain legitimacy? On the basis of three logics of political integration we identify explicit strategies for how the legitimacy deficit of the EU can be remedied. The first strategy amounts to a scaling down of the ambitions of the polity-makers in the EU. It defines the EU as a problem-solving or special purpose organisation. Here the EU’s own legitimacy is held to be dependent on its performance and on the legitimacy of the Member States. The second strategy emphasises the need to deepen the collective self-understanding of Europeans, and thus defines the EU as a value-based community in a cultural sense. In this case legitimacy derives from a shared cultural identity. These first two modes of legitimation have become increasingly problematic. The third strategy concentrates on the need to readjust and heighten the ambitions of the polity-makers so as to make the EU into a federal multicultural union founded on basic rights and democratic decision-making procedures. In this case legitimacy relies on a set of constitutional and communicative presuppositions which ensure public deliberation. How robust is such an alternative and how salient is it, as opposed to the other two strategies, in the process of integration? Paper to be presented to the NOPSA Triennual Conference, Aalborg 15-17.August, 2002 Workshop on “The Statehood and Democractic Legitimacy of the European Union”.