Political representation, parliamentarism and the “crisis” of democracy in Europe: How the constant crisis in the EU conceptually shapes policy-making

It is commonplace to talk about crisis in the EU context. It is also frequently argued that the EU is need of leadership. Leadership refers to the authority of the European Commission and the negotiations between national governments of member states in the European Council. The paper argues that, as focus is on EU leadership and not on political representation, the role of the European Parliament vis-à-vis the European Commission is being sidelined. In this way, the paper proposes a more conceptually-minded approach to the crisis discourse about the EU and a rehabilitation of parliamentarism as a key theory to understand controversies and conflicts. It discusses both historical and more contemporary examples of the “crisis of democracy” talk in order to assess to what extent the EU policy-making is shaped by it. The paper contributes to scholarly debates about studies on populism and democratic deficit in Europe.