A New Parliamentary Assembly for the Eurozone: A Wrong Answer to a Real Democratic Problem?

Abstract

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2018 3(1), 83-91 | Overview | (Table of Contents) I. A crucial European debate. - II. The nature of the democratic problems of the European Union and the Eurozone. - III. Five limits of the proposed new Parliamentary Assembly. | (Abstract) The Overview aims to analyze merits and limits of the book Pour un traité de démocratisation de l'Europe (Seuil, Paris, 2017). In the first section, the author argues, in agreement with the theses presented in the first part of the book, that the facile formula of the "democratic deficit" is a misrepresentation of the real democratic problems of the EU institutional system. In the second part, the author takes issue with the proposal to establish a new parliamentary assembly for the Eurozone, composed of four fifth of national MPs delegated by national parliaments from the Eurozone and of one fifth of MEPs, formulated in a new "Draft treaty on the democratization of the governance of the Euro area" (T-Dem), and expounded in the second part of the book.

Keywords

• european parliament
• eurozone
• democracy
• european union
• national parliaments
• assembly