A Democracy in Line with the Markets

The EU's complex non-hierarchic systems - "policy without politics" (Schmidt 2006) - with governing dispersed among multiple authorities challenges democracy's triad of public control, equality and justification. Different national governing traditions, systems of representation, control and accountability are cobbled together allegedly forming a proper system of representation. While there are good reasons to argue for a compounded system of representation, not the least democratic resilience, the crisis amplifies the executive in "who gets what when and how", and parliamentary exclusion in macroeconomic governance. The hopes for an emerging "parliamentary field" (Fossum/Crum) collides with the reality of "ins vs. outs", i.e. fiscally healthy members of the Eurozone vs. crises-states and states outside the Eurozone pitching parliaments and citizens against each other. The paper argues that without a proper cooperation regime between the EP and national parliaments amounting to proper representative system the EU's democratic legitimacy is bound to wither away.