Abstract :
One of the most discussed aspects of the so called democratic deficit
of the EU is the lack of a European public sphere. The union’s democracy
is perceived by its citizens as Schumpeterian in nature and
this perception corresponds to a large extent to reality. Schumpeter
described democracy as the rule of the politician, who gains decision
making power in the free competition over votes. The parliament’s
role is of minor importance; it decides more by acceptance than by
initiative. Citizens can neither bring up the issues nor decide them.
The European union is indeed an ideal platform for such a model, because
it is elitist, technocratic and rather complicated for the ordinary
citizens. European integration was and still is an elite-dominated project,
where citizens do not have many possibilities to intervene during
legislation-periods. Over many years, the consensual behaviour of the
political elites hindered the emergence of broad debate and of conflict
in a European public sphere. As a consequence, scepticism towards
the integration process became stronger in the Member States. At the
beginning of the new millennium, politicians tried to turn the table by
stressing the importance of the involvement of the citizens. A convention
was installed to work out a Constitutional Treaty. But once again,
the debate remained elite-dominated. The heads of governments finally
signed another elitist compromise without the broad involvement of the
citizens. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France and the
Netherlands in 2005 can thus be considered as the result of an elitist
and Schumpeterian model of democracy which is perpetuated by the
new reform treaty of Lisbon. Thus, the claim for a European public
sphere remains relevant, although scholars differently define such a
sphere. The argument of this paper is that besides the often claimed
Europeanization and transnationalisation of European debate, the notion
of broad conflict is of high importance for the emergence of a
European public sphere.
