The European Parliament and the Authority-Democracy Crises

Since its inception, the European Parliament has stimulated integration and the transition to a European Union based on liberal democratic principles. Its Draft Treaty establishing the European Union remains the benchmark for a new constitution. Institutional change and the alteration in the balance of power between the Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament are useful indicators of the transition of the European Community (EC) to a federal union whose flexible parameters remain contested. The European Parliament, as the chief advocate of democracy, efficiency, accountability, and openness in the EC, continues to play a constituent role and to seek means of redressing the EC's democratic deficit, which exists not only in the legislative sphere but also on a horizontal and vertical plane within the union. New legislative practices and the Committee of Regions alone will not close the gap.