Will the Reform Treaty Combat the Union's Legitimacy Crisis?
DIE LEGITIMITAT VON SUPRANATIONALEN INSTITUTIONEN DER EU, pp. 112-129, J.C. Merle, ed., Münster, LIT Verlag, 2012
11 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2012
Date Written: February 13, 2012
Abstract
The Constitutional Treaty (CT) and the Reform Treaty (RT) does take several valuable steps to ensure that the European Union becomes more trustworthy and comes ‘closer to the people’ – though I register some ambivalence. Section 1 provides some fragments of the history of the European Union, to justify the diagnosis that it needs increased levels of trust and arrangements for trustworthiness among Europeans and their political leaders. Section 2 argues that the European Union has certain federal elements that require four peculiar forms of ‘balancing’. Section 4 discusses the increased need for trust among Europeans. Section 4 addresses the role of the Charter on Fundamental Rights as a trust building mechanism. Sections 5 to 7 address how the CT and the RT contribute or detract from each of these three forms of balancing. The conclusion is that certain elements of the CT and of the RT would help European institutions create and maintain their own support among European citizens and officials.
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