The first section of the paper uses Eurobarometer data to establish several baseline measures of the extent to which there was a lack of democratic legitimacy accorded by the European public to the institutions and policy-making processes of the EU prior to the economic crisis that began in 2008.
In the second section, the paper examines the extent to which and ways in which the crisis eroded the democratic legitimacy of the EU and, in so doing, increased the extent to which the European public believes there is a democratic deficit.
Over the past three-plus years, the eurozone and EU have responded to the debt crisis by strengthening some of the existing institutions, rules and procedures associated with EMU and creating new ones. There has been a growing recognition that the initial design of EMU was flawed and that “more Europe” is needed.
But however much and to whatever extent the EU moves toward “more Europe,” it will need to rebuild the democratic legitimacy that has been so severely eroded by the eurozone crisis. The third and concluding section of the paper examines that challenge, how it might be addressed, and whether it is likely to be addressed.
