Exacerbated Economic Governance in the European Union - Or When Did We Forget About Democratic Legitimacy?

Abstract

This paper explores how legitimate are the new governance mechanisms adopted in the context of the Economic and Monetary Union for addressing the economic crisis. To that aim, the relation between governance mechanisms and democratic legitimacy is explored, distinguishing between governance as effective implementation, governance as a complement of democratic legitimacy and governance as an alternative to democratic legitimacy. When compared against the original design of the Economic and Monetary Union in Maastricht, the new institutional arrangements and decision-making mechanisms, resulting either from a supranational strategy (the 'Six Pack', strengthening the coordination of national economic policies) or an intergovernmental strategy (the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union), seem to get the European Union further away from the theoretical assumptions of democratic legitimacy. In particular, concerns from a constitutional perspective, in both national and European levels, are raised.