Democratic deficit

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A democratic deficit is considered to be occurring when ostensibly democratic organizations or institutions (particularly governments) are seen to be falling short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation. The phrase was coined by UK Member of the European Parliament Bill Newton Dunn in a pamphlet in the 1980s.

The United Nations, United States, European Union and United Kingdom have been accused of having democratic deficits.

1 European Union
- 1.1 Proposed changes under the new constitutional treaty
2 United Kingdom
3 External links

[edit] European Union

Main article: democratic deficit in the European Union

Those who argue that the European Union suffers from a democratic deficit often attribute this to a number of factors:

The Council of the European Union, which is one half of the EU's bicameral legislature (the other half being the European Parliament), is made up of national ministers and meets in secret when agreeing legislation. As such, there is no parliamentary scrutiny of the Council's legislative decisions at EU level, and many last-minute negotiations are conducted by diplomats.

There is no requirement for national parliaments to scrutinise the performance of their government ministers in the Council, though most do this to some extent as a matter of course.

There are still some policy areas where codecision does not apply. In these areas, the European Parliament only has the power to approve or reject proposed legislation, or the right to be consulted before the Council takes its decision.

The European Commission is led by Commissioners who are proposed by national governments and approved by the European Parliament, rather than being directly elected by citizens. Although the Commission has no legislative power, it is essentially the executive of the European Union and is the only body empowered to draft legislative proposals. Many eurosceptics argue that Commissioners wield more power than is justified by their limited democratic mandate. Furthermore, detractors say that they are sometimes politicians who have failed in their native countries and have been "pensioned off" to the Commission, and that they have little control over the thousands of bureaucrats who are regarded as a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

[edit] Proposed changes under the new constitutional treaty

Successive revisions of the treaties that form the constitution of the European Union have increased the power of the directly-elected European Parliament in an attempt to reduce the perceived democratic deficit.

The proposed Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, if it had been ratified, would have made the following changes in this regard:

It would have extended the power of codecision to virtually all policy areas. This means that Parliament would become an equal legislative partner with the Council for virtually all EU-level decision-making.

It would have required the Council to meet in public when legislating.

It would have ensured that national parliaments receive information about new EU legislative proposals in enough time to mandate ministers on how to vote in the Council.

It would also have given national parliaments a new power to send any proposal back to the Commission for reconsideration if they believe the proposal lies outside the EU's competence (i.e. if they believe it covers a policy area for which the treaties do not allow EU-level decision-making).

It would have confirmed the principle of subsidiarity as a fundamental principle of the Union.

It would have created a new citizens' right of initiative, obliging the Commission to consider any proposal for legislation that has the support of 1 million EU citizens.

However, some commentators argued that the treaty did not go far enough in reducing the perceived democratic deficit. In particular, they pointed out that:

There would be no change to the principle that EU laws, and the terms of constitution itself, supersede national laws: "The Constitution and law adopted by the institutions of the Union in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the Member States" (Article I-6). The constitution specifically spelled out that, for those areas of policy where member states share competence with the EU, national governments may act at national level only where they have not already acted through the EU. In other areas, member states confer sole competence on the EU, i.e. they agree to act only at European level (Article I-12). In any case, the question of whether EU laws can reasonably be described as "national governments acting at EU level", when the European Commission has the sole right to propose those laws, is controversial.

The appointed European Commission would remain the sole initiator of legislative proposals. Other bodies (Parliament, Council, citizens) can only require it to consider drafting a proposal.

Similarly, national parliaments would acquire the right to send a proposal back to the Commission for reconsideration, but there is no explicit requirement for the Commission to make any changes to its proposal as a result.

The constitutional treaty failed after a rejection of the draft first by the French voters and days after, the Dutch voters in 2005. Each member state was required to accept the new treaty for it to become legal. Several states, including the United Kingdom, have yet to vote on the proposed document, however once France and the Netherlands vetoed it, there was no point in continuing the process. There are discussions now about whether to scrap the entire constitution or pick and choose from the treaty and create a new one based on those sections.

[edit] United Kingdom

The dominant characteristics of British democracy are its centralised, hierarchical and elitist nature (Kettell 2006). The late Lord Hailsham, a former Lord Chancellor and Conservative minister, famously described the UK political system as an 'elective dictatorship'. See the link to the Power Inquiry below for further crticisms and recommendations for change.

Some who argue the United Kingdom suffers from a democratic deficit point to devolution. Devolution was introduced in 1998 to appease Scottish and Welsh calls for independence. As there was no similar call for independence for England, devolution was not applied there (see West Lothian question). There are several proposed solutions:

The European Union and the United Kingdom Labour Party are in favour of devolution to Regions of England.
The Campaign for an English Parliament prefers devolution to the whole of England.
The Conservative Party prefers English Votes on English Laws.
The Liberal Democrats are currently reviewing their policies on this subject.