Abstract

MICOLTA PORTOCARRERO, Ma. Catalina. The Legislative Process in the Lisbon Treaty: Privilege of Effectiveness in Detriment of Democracy. Pap.polit. [online]. 2014, vol.19, n.1, pp.237-263. ISSN 0122-4409.

The democratic deficit in the European Union proposes a series of questions about democratic legitimacy in decision-making processes at the community level. Although there are different factors involved which configure this democratic deficit, this study only focuses on the analysis of two aspects: on the one hand, the institutional weakness of the European Parliament against the Council predominance in the process of legislative approval in the EU, and, on the other, the opacity of this legislative process, which hinders the correct information of EU citizens and also prevents the implementation of accountability mechanisms. To address these questions, the Lisbon Treaty makes a number of reforms and new additions that seek both to strengthen the European Parliament into the legislative process and the public deliberative processes within it; however, this study shows how the development of a series of negotiation mechanisms of an informal nature into the legislative process not only make insufficient the additions of the Lisbon Treaty to overcome the problem of the democratic deficit, but also deepens the democratic deterioration in the EU.

Keywords : European Union; Lisbon Treaty; democratic deficit; legislative process.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )