Assessing the Democratic Legitimacy of EU Climate Policy Making

Achieving the European Union’s (EU) aim to reach climate neutrality by 2050 requires fundamental economic, political and societal transformations, with potentially profound distributional effects. EU-level policy making will play an important role in this process but has been widely criticised for its lack of democratic legitimacy or its ‘democratic deficit’. This raises the question if EU climate policy making has the necessary democratic legitimacy to drive Europe’s transition, particularly when taking into account the transboundary and transgenerational challenges climate change poses to democracy. Against this background, this paper assesses the democratic legitimacy of EU climate policy making. To do so, it first develops and operationalises ideal-type criteria for democratically legitimate EU climate policy making. The ideal-type criteria are derived from the model of representative democracy and comprise the equal consideration of interests, majority voting, transparency of decision-making, the accountability of decision-makers, and the quality of policy outcomes. Additionally, the ideal-type criteria consider the transboundary and transgenerational challenges climate change poses to democratic governance. Second, these ideal-type criteria are empirically tested on an illustrative case study of EU climate policy making, namely the 2018 revision of the EU Emissions Trading System. Drawing on process tracing, policy documents and expert interviews, the case study explores to what extent the ideal-type criteria are reflected in the policy making process. The findings indicate that all ideal-type criteria are fulfilled in principle, but significant differences exist. Challenges arise regarding the accountability of decision-makers vis-à-vis the European electorate and the reflection of the democracy-climate nexus. These findings highlight the need for further societal and scholarly discussion on the democratic legitimacy of EU climate policy making. The paper concludes by exploring policy implications and potential solutions to the issues identified.