The crisis of European federalism : democracy or legitimacy ? (1)

The sovereign debt and single currency crises have highlighted the fragility of European integration as a political project based on the assumption that the economic interests of nations will converge within a liberal framework. The ensuing debates concern the political class, the technostructure, public opinion and intellectuals. The question of the "legitimacy" of supranational institutions and their pseudo-federal form of government is at the forefront of these debates. Jürgen Habermas, in particular, has argued that this can only be achieved if Europe's "democratic deficit" is finally overcome, and has made several quasi-constitutional proposals to this effect. In the present paper, which forms part of a more general project to re-examine the construction of Europe, in terms of both facts and principles, we propose to approach the question from both sides at once: what makes it possible to think that the legitimacy of a system of institutions can only be of a democratic nature? What type of democracy is likely to produce legitimating effects, and under what conditions? And consequently: to what extent, by what means and with what objectives should the peoples of Europe envisage their incorporation into a common demos through a process of democratization of democracy?