{"id":5572,"date":"2020-01-17T09:13:53","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T09:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/recuperar-el-control\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T06:45:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T06:45:21","slug":"recuperar-el-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/recuperar-el-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Back Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Brexit referendum was won on the slogan \u2018taking back control\u2019. The resonance of this slogan with British voters could be seen as confirming the longstanding complaint regarding the EU\u2019s democratic deficit. Yet, shifting democratic authority away from National Parliaments to the European Parliament might likewise be seen as a loss of control so far as the various peoples or demoi <\/em>of the member states are concerned. After all, similar reasoning has led national minorities within many of these states to voice demands for greater devolution of democratic authority and even secession. At the same time, in an interconnected world how far democracy can be realized in one country has become increasingly doubtful. The EU and its member states confront a dilemma, therefore \u2013 one that paradoxically the very formation of the EU was in part designed to resolve. On the one hand, interconnectedness renders it necessary for states to form multiple agreements with each other. Only then can their citizens, albeit through their elected governments, have any prospect of exercising some control over their inevitable interactions. The EU simply takes this unavoidable process a step further by forming a more comprehensive set of agreements among its member states. On the other hand, this situation poses multiple questions relating to the most appropriate locus of democracy. For example, can it remain possible for the citizens of these states to remain as in control as before once these agreements are in place? Is the only solution to place the citizens of the various states in direct control of the system of agreements? Yet, if so, how can that occur without these citizens losing control as a self-governing people of a particular state?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what follows, I shall argue that this dilemma can be resolved by seeing the EU as an association of democratic states, in which their agreements reflect the normative requirements of a two-level game. To do so, these agreements must meet the dual conditions of being both mutually negotiated and consented to by their duly elected governments and endorsed by their respective citizens. This account conforms to the arrangement that Kalypso Nicolaidis [1]<\/a>1 \u2014 Nicola\u00efdis, K. (2013). \u2018European Demoicracy and its Crisis\u2019, Journal of Common Market Studies, 51(2): 351-69.\n<\/span><\/span> has termed demoi<\/em>-cratic. In other words, it conceives of the EU not as a demos<\/em>-cracy in the making but as a form of co-governance by different demoi in which they exercise mutual control. Within such a system, the main problem is not that of a democratic deficit at the EU level but of what could be called a demoicratic disconnect [2]<\/a>2 \u2014 Lindseth, P. (2010). \u2018Power and Legitimacy: Reconciling Europe and the Nation-State\u2018.\n<\/span><\/span> between the various national groupings of citizens and EU decision-making at the member state level. Reconnecting the national demoi to EU decision-making involves enhancing the role of national parliaments rather than the European Parliament. This may lead to a more differentiated process of integration, yet that may be both more equitable and effective than promoting uniformity at the expense of diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Demos<\/em>-cracy to Demoi<\/em>-cracy<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The basic problem outlined above can be formulated in terms of what Dani Rodrik has called \u2018the fundamental political trilemma of the world economy\u2019 [3]<\/a>3 \u2014 Rodrik, D. (2011). The Globalization Paradox, Oxford: Oxford University Press: xviii.\n<\/span><\/span>: namely, the impossibility of simultaneously achieving democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization \u2013 one of these has to give [4]<\/a>4 \u2014 Ib\u00edd.: xix, 200-205\n<\/span><\/span>. As he explains, \u2018If we want to maintain and deepen democracy, we have to choose between the nation-state and international economic integration. And if we want to keep the nation-state and self-determination, we have to choose between deepening democracy and deepening globalization\u2019 [5]<\/a>5 \u2014 Ib\u00edd.: xix, 200\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given most (if not all) people regard national autarky as a non-starter, and unregulated free global markets unjust as well as likely to be inefficient and prone to failures, many have concluded that the only answer is to give up national self-determination and subsume national democracy and citizenship within some broader scheme for global democracy. Most federally-minded Europeans adopt this line of thinking, regarding the development of supranational democracy at the EU level as the first stage in such a process [6]<\/a>6 \u2014 Habermas, J. (2015). \u2018Democracy in Europe: Why the Development of the EU into a Transnational Democracy is Necessary and How it is Possible\u2019, European Law Journal, 21 (4): 546-57.\n<\/span><\/span>. However, the concern with the EU\u2019s democratic deficit enters at this point, with Europhiles joining in an unholy alliance with Eurosceptics to argue that in many core areas decisional authority has passed upwards to Brussels without adequate democratic oversight. By and large, proposals for addressing this alleged deficit have turned on the practicality and justifiability of enhancing the powers of the European Parliament (EP) and electing the Commission, be it directly or indirectly, and invariably get linked to arguments for further political integration. Unsurprisingly, the main counter-arguments have mirrored this reasoning. They come from those opposing the justifiability of the integration process on democratic grounds. These critics regard the shift of political authority from national to European political structures as at best diluting the democratic influence of each individual voter, and at worst indefensibly undermining the self-determination of sovereign peoples. Such arguments suggest that the EU could never be democratically legitimate \u2014indeed, that further empowering the EP or electing the Commission might deepen rather than lessen the democratic deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These concerns are further buttressed by the fact that the EU has the promotion of economic globalization largely hard-wired into its constitutional structure [7]<\/a>7 \u2014 Isiksel, T. (2016). Europe\u2019s Functional Constitution: A Theory of Constitutionalism Beyond the State, Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>. Initially, at least, the integration process was also deliberately pursued in non-democratic ways, in part to avoid potential resistance from the different demoi of the member states [8]<\/a>8 \u2014 M\u00fcller, J-W. (2011). ‘The Promise of Demoi-cracy: Diversity and Domination in the European Public Order\u2019, in: J\u00fcrgen Neyer and Antje Wiener (eds.), The Political Theory of the European Union: Oxford University Press: 128, 142\n<\/span><\/span>. Meanwhile, the rights that came to be associated with Union citizenship were largely tied to mobility and the exercise of the economic opportunities provided by the single market. As a result, they were exercised by less than 5% of the EU population. Of course, the exception is the right to vote for the EP, but the exercise of this right has steadily fallen since its inception and has stood at below 50% for decades, reaching a new low of 42.61% in the 2014 election. It has been a far weaker venue for the exercise of citizen preferences than that offered by EU law to economic enterprises and social groups seeking to challenge laws and regulations that have been negotiated at the national law [9]<\/a>9 \u2014 Isiksel, T. (2016). Europe\u2019s Functional Constitution: A Theory of Constitutionalism Beyond the State, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 143\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The transfer of allegiance to the EU has been correspondingly shallow. So long as it was associated with the post-war period of peace and prosperity, it has enjoyed \u2018output\u2019 legitimacy and sustained a broad degree of \u2018banal\u2019 identification for the security and economic benefits with which it has been credited [10]<\/a>10 \u2014 McNamara, K. R. (2015). The Politics of Everyday Europe: Constructing Authority in the European Union, Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>. But the euro crisis and the more recent association of the EU in many countries with widespread austerity policies and the reduction of public spending, especially on social welfare, have sorely tested the \u2018permissive consensus\u2019 of European citizens with the integration process. As Brexit indicated, those opposing the EU, who account for as much as a third of the electorate or more in many countries across the EU, are typically far more vocal and passionate than its supporters tend to be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The democratic legitimacy of the EU lies in its strengthening and legitimizing the democratic systems of the member states rather than by offering an alternative to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Again, many pro-Europeans have seen the obvious response as being the adoption by the EU of more socially integrative policies\u2014such as an EU wide basic income [11]<\/a>11 \u2014 Van Parijs, P. (2016). Basic Income And Social Democracy: Social Europe.\n<\/span><\/span>\u2014that might support a transfer of democratic political authority to the EU level. Yet, such a move begs the question of whether EU citizens desire greater social integration in the first place. To many, such a move would be yet another top-down imposition, with a very real risk of further undermining the incomplete, but nevertheless far superior, social welfare systems existing at the national level, along with the democratic systems that facilitated their emergence [12]<\/a>12 \u2014 Streeck, W. (2014). Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Londres: Verso.\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How might we avoid this impasse? As Rodrik notes[13]<\/a>13 \u2014 Rodrik, D. (2011). The Globalization Paradox, Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>, an alternative response to the global \u2018trilemma\u2019 involves collaboration between democratic states to collectively regulate globalization in \u2018smart\u2019 ways, as he believed Keynes\u2019s design of the Bretton Woods system achieved for the post-war period. From this perspective, the democratic legitimacy of the EU lies in its strengthening and legitimizing the democratic systems of the member states rather than by offering an alternative to them. However, that cannot be achieved by treating the national self-determination of one state in isolation from that of other states\u2014either morally or practically. The democratic decisions of almost all states affect, and are themselves affected by, the democratic decisions of other states, whether they are formally associated within a structure such as the EU or not. To the extent that democratically made decisions of one state undercut those of other states, or reduce the options available to them while being in their turn partially determined by these other states, all states risk losing democratic legitimacy. Meanwhile, as I noted above, domestic democracy is further diminished by its inability to tackle problems that require cooperation between states, either because these problems are by their nature global in character\u2014such as global warming\u2014or involve transnational activities and processes among multinational organizations, be it financial movements, migration flows or terrorism. Therefore, a domestic democratic deficit exists from the very fact of democratic states being part of an interconnected world in which autarky no longer offers a plausible or desirable option [14]<\/a>14 \u2014 Bellamy, R. (2013). \u2018An Ever Closer Union of Peoples: Republican Intergovernmentalism, Demoi-cracy and Representation in the EU\u2019, Journal of European Integration, 35(5): 499-516.\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting this challenge requires some regulation of the interactions between states and a mechanism for fostering cooperation among them. To achieve that purpose while still retaining meaningful forms of self-determination for the peoples of these states, we need to reconceive the purpose of supranational bodies. Instead of being superior and independent sources of democratic authority to their constituent states, we should see them as mechanisms that allow democratic communities to co-exist on mutually agreed and equitable terms. As such, these bodies have to remain subordinate to their constituent members as a delegated authority under their joint and equal control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I noted above, this proposal constitutes a \u2018demoi<\/em>-cratic\u2019 solution to the democratic legitimacy issue, whereby, in Kalypso Nicolaidis\u2019s felicitous phrase, the peoples of the EU \u2018govern together but not as one\u2019 [15]<\/a>15 \u2014 Nicola\u00efdis, K. (2013). \u2018European Demoicracy and its Crisis\u2019, Journal of Common Market Studies, 51(2): 351\n<\/span><\/span>. On my account, they achieve this result through a form of \u2018republican intergovernmentalism\u2019 [16]<\/a>16 \u2014 Bellamy, R. (2013). \u2018An Ever Closer Union of Peoples: Republican Intergovernmentalism, Demoi-cracy and Representation in the EU\u2019, Journal of European Integration, 35(5): 499-516.
\n— (2019). A Republican Europe of States: Cosmopolitanism, Intergovernmentalism and Democracy in the EU, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>, whereby decisions must conform to the normative logic of what Robert Putnam termed a \u2018two-level game\u2019 [17]<\/a>17 \u2014 Putnam, Robert D. (1988). \u2018Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games\u2019, International Organization, 42(3): 427-60.
\nSavage, D.; Weale, A. (2009). \u2018Political Representation and the Normative Logic of Two-Level Games\u2019, European Political Science Review, 1(1): 63-81.\n<\/span><\/span>. According to this argument, governments need both to agree amongst each other on an equal basis at the international level, while at the same time securing the long-term democratic agreement of their citizens. As such, within their negotiations, they must respect each other as the democratically authorized and accountable representatives of their respective peoples [18]<\/a>18 \u2014 Pettit, P. (2010). \u2018A Republican Law of Peoples\u2019, European Journal of Political Theory, 9(1): 70-94.\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Democratic Deficit to the Demoi<\/em>-cratic Disconnect<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The problem of democratic legitimacy thereby changes from being one of a democratic deficit at the supranational level to that of a demoi<\/em>-cratic disconnect between the peoples of the constituent states and the inter- and multi-national decisions their domestic representatives make in their name, including the creation and control of supranational regulatory bodies [19]<\/a>19 \u2014 Bellamy, R.; Weale, A. (2015). \u2018Political Legitimacy and European Monetary Union: Contracts, Constitutionalism and the Normative Logic of Two-Level Games\u2019, Journal of European Public Policy, 22(2): 257-74.\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If empowering the EP has provided the standard response to the EU\u2019s supposed democratic deficit, then empowering National Parliaments (NPs) provides the obvious route to overcoming the demoi<\/em>-cratic disconnect. As Sandra Kr\u00f6ger and I have argued elsewhere [20]<\/a>20 \u2014 Kr\u00f6ger S.; Bellamy, R. (2016). \u2018Beyond a Constraining Dissensus: The Role of National Parliaments in Domesticating and Normalising the Politicization of European Integration\u2019, Comparative European Politics, 14.2: 131-53.\n<\/span><\/span>, the aim of such empowerment is to promote a demoi-cratic reconnection of the EU through the \u2018domestication\u2019 of EU politics, by relating it to the everyday concerns of citizens, and \u2018bringing it back home\u2019, by placing EU decision-making in a context that is closer to citizens and that they understand. At the same time, EI decision-making needs to be \u2018normalized\u2019. The current politicization of the EU is mainly along the axis of \u2018pro-\u2018 or \u2018anti-\u2018, \u2018in\u2019 or \u2018out\u2019. Instead, it needs to be polarised along the \u2018left\u2019 or \u2018right\u2019 and other cleavages\u2014\u2018green\u2019, \u2018feminist\u2019, \u2018multicultural\u2019 etc.\u2014which inform domestic politics. Political debate about the EU can thereby be shifted from \u2018should the EU exist at all?\u2019 to a more nuanced \u2018what is the best way for it to do the useful things it does?\u2019, and \u2018what should those things be?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steps in this direction have already been made. The Lisbon Treaty mentioned the NPs as participants in the EU\u2019s decision making for the first time. Since then, the role of NPs in EU affairs has been greatly strengthened. All NPs established European committees to scrutinize EU proposals and the actions of their own representatives in the various European Councils of heads of government or ministers where EU policy is largely made. NPs can also send \u2018reasoned opinions\u2019 highlighting issues to the Commission. Additionally, NPs obtained certain negative powers that allow them to challenge whether an EU measure is truly necessary or not, or might be better undertaken by the member states \u2014the so-called Early Warning Mechanism. This is not an individual veto as at least one-third of national parliaments must raise an objection for it to be reconsidered (a \u2018yellow\u2019 card) or 55% to be withdrawn (an \u2018orange\u2019 card). Collaboration between Parliaments is facilitated through COSAC \u2014the French acronym of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs. There is also an Inter-parliamentary Committee comprising representatives of all national parliaments and the European Parliament to foster cooperation in Common Foreign, Defence, and Security Policy and in Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These measures have provided an incentive for some national politicians to become more informed about EU affairs and has prompted the EP and Commission to interact more with NPs so as to be alert and responsive to potential opposition. They have also encouraged cooperation and the sharing of information among NPs \u2013 not least in Brussels itself, where almost all NPs now have an office and a representative. However, two major problems stand in the way of their further and more positive involvement as mechanisms for the \u2018normalization\u2019 and \u2018domestication\u2019 of European politics. First, the main center-left and center-right parties have felt inhibited about politicizing EU affairs. Part of the reason lies in their belonging to the grand coalition of governmental parties within the EP. As a result, they feel they cannot criticize policies that they have played an indirect role in bringing about. Worse, they fear that to politicize the EU opens up a Pandora\u2019s box from which the anti-EU Left and Right-wing parties have more to gain than them. As a result, the main EU political debates tend to be between those in favor of the European project and those opposing it, rather than about different policy options that the EU might adopt. Second, the establishment of the Single Market and the austerity measures associated with the Euro crisis have led citizens to feel that the EU undercuts political debate and constrains policymaking at the national level, creating a domestic democratic deficit. Governments cannot act responsively with regard to their voters. Rather, they must act responsibly and simply implement the public spending cuts demanded by the guardians of the Eurozone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have suggested we achieve control through collaboration among European democracies, not by creating an EU-level democracy. Both the Eurosceptic and federal Europhile alternatives involve losing control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Two proposals have recently emerged that potentially address each of these problems respectively. The first proposal is for a \u2018Green\u2019 Card or Parliamentary Legislative Initiative whereby a third of MPs in a quarter of national parliaments may make a legislative proposal for the Commission to put forward (for details see Kr\u00f6ger and Bellamy 2016). This proposal seeks to address the first problem by providing incentives for political debate among all national parties to be about which policies the EU should pursue rather than simply whether it ought to exist at all. The aim here is to allow national parties to have different positive policies on the EU to argue and campaign for rather than being reduced to simply accepting or rejecting whatever is put to them. The comparatively low threshold allows opposition party groups the possibility of putting forward proposals, perhaps with the support of certain rebels from the governing party(ies). Otherwise, the danger might be that the Green card would never be used, as governments could be assumed to have already agreed with current EU policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The second proposal is a variation on the proposal of Hennette, Piketty, Sacriste, and Vauchez [21]<\/a>21 \u2014 Hennette, S; Piketty, T.; Sacriste, G.; Vauchez, A. (2017). Pour un Trait\u00e9 de Democratisation de l\u2019Europe, Par\u00eds: Seuil.\n<\/span><\/span> for democratizing the Eurozone by developing the Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination, and Governance into a Parliamentary Assembly to oversee the European Stability Mechanism. A number of commentators have argued that the only adequate way to manage the Euro and avoid a further crisis is to move towards both a fiscal and a deeper political Union, that effectively turns the EP into a European legislature and the Commission into an elected EU government with tax and spend powers. Yet, others argue that such a move would simply compound the Euro crisis with a political and economic crisis as the different demoi of the member states continued to block redistributive policies from one state to another. Moreover, the common policies that might be adopted could risk imposing inappropriate \u2018one size fits all\u2019 regulations on the highly diverse economies of the EU in ways likely to benefit the richer more developed states at the expense of the poorer and less developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My version of this second proposal argues for a banking union but not a fiscal union and attempts to address the second problem by giving NPs a key role in overseeing an EU Banking Union and leaving fiscal policy a member state competence. Completing the banking union would allow fiscal policy to be returned to national governments by reducing the danger that fiscal mismanagement in one country could spread to others and potentially upset the banking system. If governments make bad decisions and over-spend they would need to restructure their debts rather than receiving a bail out from other states. A genuine European Monetary Fund would replace the ECB and European Commission as lender of last resort, able to ensure liquidity, providing for a European debt-restructuring program. The fund could be overseen by a Parliamentary Assembly based on the Interparliamentary Conference on Economic and Financial Governance of the European Union that was set up under Article 13 of the TSCG. As a result, the process of granting an emergency loan could be given ‘demoi-cratic’ legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St\u00e9phanie Hennette and her colleagues have suggested that the proposed Assembly to oversee the European Stability Mechanism would consist of 400 members, 320 from national parliaments based on the population of the member state and 80 from the European Parliament. As they note, any positive policies for additional funding and investment need the support of national taxpayers. As they note, any positive policies for additional funding and investment need to support of national taxpayers. The reason the EU has turned to austerity policies rests on limited solidarity between states, itself the product of a perceived lack of control. Empowering national parliaments in this area enables them to take back control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Unity to Differentiation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The demoi<\/em>-cratic view of the EU naturally allows for differentiated integration within the EU, in much the same way that liberal egalitarian commitments to multinationalism and multiculturalism allow for differentiation within most democratic states [22]<\/a>22 \u2014 Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
\n— (2001). Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship, Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>, including the member states of the EU. Procedurally, that means ministers in the Council should be responsive to their respective national parliaments. Likewise, parties in the EP should be linked more strongly to their national parties, with national parliaments gaining a more direct and collaborative role in EU policymaking. Substantively, it allows for a more differentiated system of integration\u2014one in which, on democratic grounds, states may collaborate more or less than other states, depending on the greater or lesser stake they have in pursuing collective policies at the EU level; opt-out when collective policies infringe domestic constitutional and cultural norms; and insist common rules treat them as equals by taking into account relevant differences [23]<\/a>23 \u2014 Bellamy, R.; Kr\u00f6ger, S. (2017). \u2018The Demoi-cratic Justifiability of Differentiated Integration in a Heterogeneous EU\u2019, Journal of European Integration, 39(5): 625-39.\n<\/span><\/span>. Of course, all states have a moral obligation to participate in those collective policies necessary to secure such basic rights as are to be found in conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) [24]<\/a>24 \u2014 Christiano, T. (2016). \u2018Replies to David A\u0301lvarez, David Lefkowitz, and Michael Blake\u2019, Law, Ethics and Politics, 4: 221-36.\n<\/span><\/span>. Similarly, they have to guard against such clear collective harms as global environmental catastrophe and to assist what John Rawls called \u2018burdened societies\u2019 [25]<\/a>25 \u2014 Rawls, J. (1999). The Law of Peoples, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press:90, 106)\n<\/span><\/span>\u2014that is, societies so burdened by extreme poverty, a lack of natural resources and low human capital that basic rights cannot be secured and they lack the means to order themselves effectively in a democratic manner. Yet, the vast majority of the EU\u2019s competences operate beyond the morally obligatory. Here, it is appropriate to seek to protect the variety of capitalisms and related welfare systems of the member states[26]<\/a>26 \u2014 Hall, P. A.; Soskice, D. W. (eds.) (2001). Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span>, while allowing cooperation to ensure greater efficiency and equity in their interrelations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To a large degree, the EU already operates in this way [27]<\/a>27 \u2014 Bellamy, R. (2013). \u2018An Ever Closer Union of Peoples: Republican Intergovernmentalism, Demoi-cracy and Representation in the EU\u2019, Journal of European Integration, 35(5): 499-516.\n<\/span><\/span>. After all, the EU prides itself on seeking to achieve Unity in Diversity. Indeed, it derives much of its legitimacy from this fact, rendering many of the criticisms of its democratic deficit simply misplaced [28]<\/a>28 \u2014 Moravscik, A. (2008). \u2018The Myth of Europe\u2019s \u00abDemocratic Deficit\u00bb\u2019, Intereconomics, November\/December: 331-40.\n<\/span><\/span>. The intergovernmental processes of the EU and the forms of differentiated integration it produces can and should be regarded not as pragmatic compromises but as matters of principle, whereby the EU seeks to achieve equality of concern and respect among the peoples of Europe [29]<\/a>29 \u2014 Bellamy, R.; Kr\u00f6ger, S. (2017). \u2018The Demoi-cratic Justifiability of Differentiated Integration in a Heterogeneous EU\u2019, Journal of European Integration, 39(5): 625-39.\n<\/span><\/span>. Moreover, the free movement of persons among these peoples further legitimizes the Union by ensuring no individual is dominated by such a system through having been born in one state rather than another [30]<\/a>30 \u2014 Bellamy, R. (2015). \u2018A Duty-Free Europe? What\u2019s Wrong with Kochenov\u2019s Account of EU Citizenship Rights\u2019, European Law Review, 21.4: 558-65.
\n— (2019). A Republican Europe of States: Cosmopolitanism, Intergovernmentalism and Democracy in the EU, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, cap. 5\n<\/span><\/span>. It gives all citizens an equal opportunity to choose where to live and work without discrimination on the basis of nationality, while at the same time preserving the possibility for the different states of Europe to pursue and experiment with different social and economic arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Against the Eurosceptic proponents of Brexit, I have argued we can only exercise control through bodies such as the EU; against some Europhile proponents of political union, I have suggested we achieve control through collaboration among European democracies, not by creating an EU-level democracy. Both the Eurosceptic and federal Europhile alternatives involve losing control. By leaving the EU, the British government and those who voted for this proposal have committed a moral and political wrong against themselves and others. They have placed themselves in a situation where they will inevitably be controlled and dominated by other states and organizations and can only respond by seeking, largely vainly, to control and dominate them in turn. In terms of Rodrik\u2019s trilemma, they have delivered a formal fa\u00e7ade of national sovereignty, symbolized by certain immigration controls against the poor and powerless that disregard their moral obligations to assist those in dire need, combined with total openness to global economic processes over which they will have little or no democratic control. By contrast, attempts to turn the EU into a demos<\/em>-cracy imperil the cultural and socio-economic heterogeneity of the member states. Yet such pluralism deserves protection not for purely pragmatic reasons but for normative reasons\u2014it allows for what J S Mill called \u2018experiments in living\u2019 [31]<\/a>31 \u2014 Mill, J. S. (1977). On Liberty, ed. J. M. Robson, Toronto: University of Toronto: 261\n<\/span><\/span> and a variety of valuable modes of social life. The demoi<\/em>-cratic view conceives the EU as providing a mechanism for enabling the different political and socio-economic cultures of the member states to co-exist in terms of mutual recognition and respect. The EU becomes in this way a means for them retaining rather than losing control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brexit referendum was won on the slogan \u2018taking back control\u2019. The resonance of this slogan with British voters could be seen as confirming the longstanding complaint regarding the EU\u2019s democratic deficit. Yet, shifting democratic authority away from National Parliaments to the European Parliament might likewise be seen as a loss of control so far as the various peoples or demoi of the member states are concerned. After all, similar reasoning has led national minorities within many of these states to voice demands for greater devolution of democratic authority and even secession. At the same time, in an interconnected world\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2384,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-5572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracia-i-legitimitat-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTaking Back Control – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/recuperar-el-control\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking Back Control – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Brexit referendum was won on the slogan \u2018taking back control\u2019. The resonance of this slogan with British voters could be seen as confirming the longstanding complaint regarding the EU\u2019s democratic deficit. Yet, shifting democratic authority away from National Parliaments to the European Parliament might likewise be seen as a loss of control so far as the various peoples or demoi of the member states are concerned. After all, similar reasoning has led national minorities within many of these states to voice demands for greater devolution of democratic authority and even secession. 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