It is commonly assumed that the European Union is indirectly legitimated by its member states where it exercises power with the consent of those member states. In contrast, I argue here that indirect legitimacy should be considered a matter of obligation, and not just of consent. Moreover, it should be a matter of the obligations of democracies, not the consent of states. What matters for indirect legitimacy is not so much that the powers of the Union have received the consent or authorization of its member states. Rather, the EU should be taken as indirectly legitimate where it helps its member state democracies meet their own obligations to their own publics, including obligations to secure rights, as well as core political values of democracy, justice, and freedom from arbitrary domination. The paper aims to consider in depth where it will be hard to secure those rights and values within member state democracies without some framework such as the European Union for managing positive and negative externalities between member state democracies.
