The EU's 'Internal Market Detour' for Defending Democracy

This article examines the EU’s recent approach to defending democracy through Internal Market legislation. It analyses three central instruments – the European Media Freedom Act, the Political Advertising Regulation and the Transparency of Foreign Interest Directive – to show how their political presentation as democracy-defending contrasts with the market-centric justification of their legal basis in Art. 114 TFEU. The article argues that this ‘Internal Market detour’ is legally sustainable, but normatively ambivalent. While it enables the EU to act in areas where it lacks explicit competences, the approach of channelling the defence of democracy through the language and logic of the Internal Market also comes with adverse effects, such as reducing democratic actors to market participants. Drawing on deliberative democracy theory, the article frames the ‘Internal Market detour’ as a “tragic choice” for the European legislator: a path that allows proactive regulatory action in defence of democracy, but at the cost of transparency and democratic expressivity.