EU LAW

ESSAY
The EU and the so-called democratic deficit
Demids Tjulkins LB

Discussions on the democratic deficit in the European Union are being held for many years by
now. The increasing bureaucracy of the EU executive power and its removal from the citizens is
the main allegation. Various abolition concepts of the situation have emerged. The existing
upgrade programs usually exploit the democracy approaches that have been developed for nation-
state requirements. The consequences of globalization remain in the background of the disputes.
The position of the state has been changed drastically. Regional structures (the EU among others)
and transnational corporations have been established. The power reallocation towards local and
transnational levels has been evolved. The limits of the state power have ceased to be clear. The
power abilities of the state have been significantly reduced and its responsibility for the
performance effects has been increased. The influence of globalization processes on the
functioning of the modern state has been highlighted. Against this background, the quality of
democracy in the European Union has been shown. Within the framework of presenting
improvement schemes the concepts of deliberative democracy have been chosen. Its essence
amounts to ensuring the EU citizens both the freedom of decision-making and their development.
The communication between governing bodies and citizens seems to be the key element here. It is
essential for creating the European civil society that would be prepared to put a common interest
above a particular, national one. It remains an open question this is referred to in numerous
publications whether to modernize the EU institutions and mechanisms or rather, in the age of
globalization, to reconsider the tasks and functions of the state and, in consequence, the
characteristics of democracy if that would not be the first change in this respect.

Interference of the EU organizations in the country’s position

I want to start my argumentation with an example of EU relations with Greece after the economic
crisis in 2008. Greece has repeatedly ceded exclusive rights to manage its own economic policy to
organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the
European Central Bank. And this has little to do with democratic legitimacy. The compromise
between participation in the European Union and the transfer of part of state functions into the
hands of the European bureaucratic elite has always been part of the deal. But the fact is that earlier
the spread and enlargement of the EU was combined with sustainable economic growth, which
allowed senior officials to argue that participation in the European project was beneficial to both
parties. In Greece, the orders of European politicians led to disaster. A quarter of the Greek
economy simply melted away. Unemployment has reached 25%. This is the largest economic
disaster among advanced economies since the Great Depression (apart from the collapse of the
USSR). And all the economic and social hardships did not lead to anything, they did not allow to
remove the tax burden and reduce the external debt. It still accounts for almost 170% of GDP.
Hypocrisy in idea

Second(in my opinion the most disappointing) that you should notice in the EU that even their
main Idea of the union is based on the hypocrisy. The EU defines itself as an example of democracy
for all other countries and unions. They decided that reached such level of democracy on their own
land, that they can solve or judge problems with democracy in other places. However, in EU
countries democracy works only when it is profitable for the elite in the EU in other situation
Union starts to protect different types of values. The events of the summer of 2016 showed that
democracy is not the highest value for many politicians, officials and part of the population of the
EU countries. Demands to ignore the results of the referendum on leaving the EU on the part of
the pro-European residents of Great Britain, social racism towards supporters of Brexit,
falsification of the results of the presidential election recognized by the Austrian Constitutional
Court, designed to prevent the victory of an extreme-right candidate - these events have shown
that in modern Europe is afraid of a majority vote. An indicator and consequence of the EU crisis
are that the majority are increasingly voting for the ideas that were considered marginal for many
years and radical politicians who openly speak about Europe's problems and offer the electorate
bold solutions to these problems that the moderate ruling elites cannot or do not want to offer.
In the Austrian presidential elections in the year 2016, the systemic political parties were
sensationally defeated, and the candidate from the far-right Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer, who
received 36% of the vote, and the candidate from the far-left Green Party, Alexander van der
Bellen, who received 20 % of votes. Forced to choose between two marginalized, the political
class of Austria considered the ultra-left candidate the lesser evil: the main political forces of the
country in the second round of elections supported the "green". As a result, Alexander van der
Bellen received 50.35% of the vote in the second round, while his opponent Norbert Hofer received
49.65%. Following the announcement of the official election results, the losing Freedom Party
challenged the results in court, citing numerous violations during the voting. The victory for the
leftist candidate was ensured by a vote by mail: the right-wing candidates presented evidence to
the Constitutional Court that this vote had been falsified. For about 700 thousand voters who
expressed a desire to vote by mail, 766 thousand ballots were printed, and all of these ballots were
used. As a result, in the city of Waidhofen, a total of 147% of voters voted for the two candidates,
in Linz - 598%. Such precedents citizens’ confidence in the democracy in the EU countries and
Union in total. Also asks the question “can we judge others while we didn’t reach absolute in such
thing as a democracy?” For the past several years, United Europe, from the position of “teachers
of democracy”, has condemned such scandals in Georgia, Ukraine or Russia. The conclusions of
European observers were considered in the West as a key condition for the recognition of elections
and, as a result, recognition of the democratic nature of the political regime. A priori, it was
believed that European countries are infallible in matters of adherence to democratic procedures.
But after the Austrian incident, it will be much more difficult for the governments of European
countries to teach someone about democracy: a precedent has been created proving that they do
not consider democracy to be the highest value and are ready, if necessary, to manipulate the results
of the popular will.
The fact that democracy is not a “sacred cow” for Europeans is also evidenced by the reaction of
part of the UK population to the decision of the majority of participants in the referendum on UK
membership in the EU to vote for Brexit. The pro-European liberal urban population of London
and other large cities in England not only called the results of the referendum a victory for the
populists but also displayed real social racism, declaring the supporters of leaving the EU as poorly
educated, incompetent lower classes of society who had no right to decide their fate and determine
the future of the United Kingdom.

Supporters of Brexit were convicted of xenophobia, racism and intolerance towards immigrants
by the defenders of the UK's European choice: Euro-optimists demanded to ignore the results of
the referendum, not to recognize its results and to re-vote. It is characteristic that from the entire
international community, only figures from Eastern Europe have joined such calls. Latvian Foreign
Minister Edgar Rinkevich said that from a legal point of view, the referendum "does not matter"
and the British government can block it. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed the hope
that the UK will ignore the results of the referendum and remain in the EU. Earlier, the Dutch
authorities have already ignored the results of the referendum on the ratification of the Association
Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, in which 62% of voters spoke out against Ukraine's
European association, it was stated that the referendum was "advisory in nature" and its results are
not binding. However, after the majority of Britons voted for leaving the EU, the Dutch leadership
returned to the topic of the April referendum on Ukraine in their country: Prime Minister Mark
Rutte said during the June EU summit that the results of the referendum in the Netherlands hinder
Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
This is one more proof of the relativistic attitude of the European elites to democracy: when they
need it, the "voice of the people" is declared the highest value, and when this "voice" is unprofitable
for them, its results are neglected, justified by legal nuances.

Conclusion

I do not think that it is possible to reverse European integration and continue living in a quasi-
union. Once you start counting down, you can't stop. The problem with liberal values is not that
they are bad. The problem is that liberal democracy, which for a long time ensured the protection
of the rights and interests of every member of society, is gradually losing this function. Liberal
freedoms, taken to extremes, turn into their opposite, creating fear among citizens at the national
level and engendering populist nationalism. Overcoming the crisis of liberal democracy, which is
the main challenge to the European Union, although not identified among such by the European
Commission, is the main task of the EU. The preservation of the established order of things in
modern Europe for the elites and the population of European countries means the need to make a
choice between democracy and political correctness: to recognize the vote against the EU in
referendums and the victory of ultra-left and ultra-right radicals in elections, or to turn European
democracy into a "democratic dictatorship."