La question du dissensus au Parlement européen : le contre-discours de l’opinion minoritaire

Abstract

In the current system of “consensus democracy”, negotiated agreement seems to be achieved through a shared vision, a sort of “communitarian ethos” that can overcome any ideological rifts. The minority opinions contained in the European Parliament non-legislative reports show however that the institutional discourse is fundamentally based on controversy. This paper examines the role of minority opinions in the negotiation of a consensus through the analysis of some examples borrowed from the Committee of Foreign Affairs and from the Committee of Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the current Parliament. The differences between two kinds of opinions - individual or in-group - show that, in addition to a dissenting discourse, the in-group counter-discourse opposing values and ethè produces an alternative discourse that nourishes the European democratic space.

Keywords

• communitarian ethos
• consensus process
• institutional discourse
• European Parliament
• minority opinion