Less Bargaining – More Deliberation
The Convention Method for Enhancing EU Democracy

Andreas Maurer*  

_____________________________________________________________

Even if the citizenry of the EU polity is not fully aware of or interested in the way binding decisions about their way of life are taken, the system and its institutions must be aware of the risk that the public attitude towards it can shift from some kind of a permissive consensus or benevolent indifference to fundamental skepticism.
_____________________________________________________________

• First of all, the participants are free, they are only bound by the results of the deliberation and they supposedly can act on the results.

• Secondly, the deliberation is reasoned, no force is exercised except that of the better argument.

• Thirdly, parties are both formally and substantively equal - each person or party with deliberative capacities has equal standing at every stage of the deliberative process.

• Finally, deliberation aims to arrive at a rational, motivated consensus – “to find reasons that are persuasive to all who are committed to acting on the results of a free and reasoned assessment of alternatives by equals” (Cohen 1999, 74).

_____________________________________________________________
The majority ought not to push unilaterally for its own preferences since it has an obligation to discuss everything with the minority and should be ever ready to compromise - even when a simple majority is easily obtained. The basic principle is to continue debate until there is no other way forward or alternative than to take a vote.
_____________________________________________________________

At the same time, public discourse offers a means of overcoming the representativeness dilemma associated with formal electoral procedures. Indeed, voting is just one procedure of linking public preferences with governance, not its essence. As Dahl pointed out, „democracy cannot be justified merely as a system for translating the raw, uninformed will of a population majority into public policy“ (Dahl 1994, 30). He emphasizes that „each citizens ought to have adequate and equal opportunities for discovering and validating (within the time permitted by the need for a decision) the choice on the matter to be decided that would best serve the citizen’s interest“ (1989, 112). From this perspective, formal procedures of aggregating and projecting preferences into the political systems are little more than empty shells if citizens are not able to form an enlightened opinion about political affairs.

Turning the argument around, however, one may ask whether these deliberative elements alone can suffice? There are discernible differences between those who see the deliberative element as an essential part of a democratic society and those who want to stress that it is merely a supplement. Saward underlines: “Advocates often contrast deliberative and merely ‘aggregative’ traditional democratic theory; in the former, citizen preferences are forged through a process of structured debate focused on the need to realise the common good, while in the latter, unrefined and perhaps uninformed preferences are merely counted up to produce public policy” (Saward 1998, 64). However, the concerns of the „deliberationists“ are in fact rather narrow. No matter how much deliberation takes place, heads mirroring positions have to be counted – „aggregratively” – at some point if a democratic decision is to be reached. Clearly, no adequate model of democracy can fail to be aggregative in the end. In other words, the deliberative model of democracy does not already physically exist; it needs to be activated, constructed and visualised by those who participate in one of the EU’s arenas. Actors are not compelled to make an effort to increase public deliberation on policies within a larger „aggregative“ framework of constitutional democratic provisions (Saward 1998, 64-66).

The Role of Parliaments in EU Decision Making

The EU faces a permanent process of institutional change. The very system is structured by process – an ongoing oscillation between para-constitutional Treaty amendments and Treaty implementation. This kind of system change relates to the “extension to specific or general obligations that are beyond the boundaries of the original treaty commitments, either geographically or functionally” (Laursen 1992, 242). At Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs), “it typically entails a major change in the scope of the Community or in its institutions, that often requires an entirely new constitutive bargainig process among the Member States, entailing substantial goal redefinition among national political actors” (Laursen 1992, 242; see also: Genco 1980, 55-80). How is the European Parliament (EP) able to inject impetus into the process of system change? Of course, if we concentrate our view on the shorter phases of IGCs as “big bargain decisions” (Moravcsik 1993, 473-524; Hurrell/Menon 1996, 386-402; Moravcsik/Nicolaïdis 1999, 59-85), we could easily preclude that the direct impact of parliaments and citizens on the final outcome is symbolic and indirect or at best entirely dependent on Member State behaviour. The European Parliament would be identified as an actor able to steer political debates, to create tension on some parts of the agenda, to make issues public, but that it would never perform as a decisive player. On the other hand, the EP has constantly been one of the most demanding actors for institutional changes and constitutional proposals. The puzzle emerges, that despite the modest role of the EP, three Intergovernmental Conferences – 1985, 1991, 1996 and 2000 – have shown a constant image of the system-development role of the European Parliament and the EP being granted with more and more powers transforming the EU’s bilateral set up – Commission vs. Council and Member States – into a trilateral one.

During the negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference 1985, the involvement of the EP was limited. Although it monitored negotiations intensely and its then president Pierre Pflimlin and MEP Altiero Spinelli were invited to some ministerial meetings, their involvement in the end was only restricted, which meant that the EP accepted the Single European Act with limited institutional proceedings for the Parliament. However, it was also the Parliament which pushed the governments to initiate a treaty revision.  In the 1991/1992 IGC, the EP served as a supporting element to those governments and institutions pledging for substantial reforms. Neither the new policy areas, for example consumer protection, education and culture, nor the co-decision procedure would have come into force without the permanent pressure of the EP. The preparation of the 1996 and 2000 IGCs revealed considerable progresses for the European Parliament. In order to gain support and to succeed in system developing, the EP benefited from a partnership with national parliaments which evolved since 1989 under different formats (Conference of the national parliaments’ European Affairs Committees - COSAC, Joint Committee Meetings, Joint Parliamentary Hearings etc.). Second, it profited from alliances with certain national governments. Due to pressure from their national parliaments the Belgian as well as the Italian government connected their signature of the Treaty amendments to the vote of the EP. Both governments proclaimed that they would not accept the results of the IGC until the European Parliament had approved it. This proclamation put considerable pressure on the other European governments to take the view of the EP into account.

National Parliaments and the Development of the EU Decision-making System

Under Article 48 of the Treaty establishing the European Union (TEU), any amendment to the treaties on which the European Union is based shall only enter into force “after being ratified by all the member states in accordance with their respective Constitutional requirements”. This also applies if a Treaty amendment is required for the conclusion of an international agreement (Article 300.5 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, ECT). Article 49 TEU stipulates that a European state’s admission to the EU requires such ratification as well. Moreover, the member states must also adopt a Council decision on police and judicial co-operation in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements (Article 42 TEU). The same is envisaged for the uniform electoral procedure (Article 190.4 ECT). Article 269 ECT states that without prejudice to other revenue, the budget of the European Community shall be financed wholly from own resources. Under Article 269 ECT, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, shall lay down provisions relating to the system of own resources of the Community, which it shall recommend to the member states for adoption in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. All these norms identify the member states, and there the national parliaments, as the “masters” of the treaties. The concrete modalities by which national parliaments are involved into the ratification of treaty amendments and revisions, in transforming European Community (EC) directives or in dealing with other constraints like fiscal discipline are a matter of national constitutions and specific arrangements of member states. This „blindness“ of the EU treaties in view of national parliaments is the same for other constitutional bodies like regional states or second chambers and constitutional courts. It reflects the original approach of the EC founding fathers that the EC/EU treaties are agreements between states. Consequently, they leave the internal arrangements for coping with EC/EU politics to the sovereign decisions of member states. In other words, the treaties manifest some kind of a „constitutional subsidiarity principle“. This principle had - at least for some decades - its domestic equivalent: EC policy was considered to be part of „external“ affairs and as such an indisputable prerogative of the „executive“ - outside the legitimate claim for parliamentary participation.

_____________________________________________________________
The European Parliament could easily be identified as an actor able to steer political debates, to create tension on some parts of the agenda, to make issues public, but not as a decisive player. On the other hand, the EP has constantly been one of the most demanding actors for institutional changes and constitutional proposals.
_____________________________________________________________

 

However right from the beginning there was one exemption to this strict demarcation between these two games: a small group of national parliamentarians were delegated with a dual mandate to the European Parliament. Its powers were however minimal and its impact on national politics and policies marginal (Fitzmaurice 1978; Herman/Lodge 1978, 226-251; Herman/Van Schendelen 1979; Wallace 1979, 433-443). National parliamentarians were offered opportunity structures to get access to the EC/EU institutions. The end of the „delegated parliament“ in 1979 - the abolishment of a permanent structure of national MPs placed between two legislatures - did not result in a direct adaptation of interparliamentary contacts. Still after the Amsterdam Treaty, the overall record of their participation patterns within the Brussels/Strasbourg arena is bleak. Though several and different procedures were tested over the last forty years, none of them has led to a sufficiently intensive and efficient working relationship. The 1990’s Conference of parliaments (Assizes) in Rome remained a one event institution. Instead, the Convention to draft the Charter for fundamental rights was generally assessed as a more successful link between parliamentarians of several levels (Stechele 2001; Pernice 2001, 194-198). Other activities of national parliaments and the European Parliament - like the Conference of European Affairs Committees (COSAC), the regular meetings of their Speakers and joint sessions of specialised committees – now seem to attract greater interest (Maurer/Wessels 2001, Maurer 2002).

Interparliamentary Deliberation

The Conference of Speakers of Parliaments of the European Union is due to an initiative by Gaetano Martino, a former President of the European Parliament. The first conference took place in January 1963. It was to be 1975, however, before arrangements could be made for these meetings to be held at regular (two-year) intervals (Agence Europe, 2 October 1975, Thöne-Wille 1984, 184; Bieber 1974, 209). Formally, the conference may adopt resolutions. This has hitherto been done by consensus through the publication of a final communiqué at the end of the conference (Pöhle 1992, 73-76). The regularisation of these contacts resulted from the anticipated consequences of the first direct elections to the European Parliament and the separation of parliamentary mandates that became necessary in some member states. The discussion of initiatives to maintain the indirect and visible involvement of national parliamentarians in EC policy cycles began at a rather early stage. The Conference of the national parliaments’ European Affairs Committees (COSAC) as the only interparliamentary body mentioned in the Amsterdam treaty’s Protocol on the role of national parliaments in the EU (PNP) has developed into such an interparliamentary forum which enables both the EP and the national parliaments to deliberate on questions related to the EU’s institutional set-up and its reform (Maurer 2002, Maurer/Wessels 2001). Since the first COSAC was held in 1989, the meetings have been timed to coincide with those of the European Council. The emphasis of COSAC concentrates on general political topics and some kind of an introspection with regard to the roles of national parliaments in the EC/EU system. The MPs are members of the „horizontal“ EC/EU affairs committees, i.e. committees that consider general policy matters. COSAC performs as a “central” tool for communicating institutional issues in relation to the EU. “COSAC is seen as a channel for keeping […] parliamentarians informed about Europe“ (Laffan 2001). The COSAC meetings provide an arena for Members of EU Affairs Committees in national Parliaments on the one hand and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on the other to discuss general developments of the Union. Due to the regularity of the COSAC meetings, the involved members of national parliaments (MPs) develop a personal network, which also involves the applicant countries. The size of the delegations at COSAC (Six MPs per national parliament and Six MEPs) ensures that different political views from each country are represented. However, the effects of COSAC meetings do not go beyond the core network of its constituent members. Yet, most of the national parliaments see the Amsterdam Treaty’s provisions on COSAC as a pragmatic approach to an exchange of opinions and experience. COSAC facilitates informal exchange, but the overall majority of parliaments oppose any further institutionalisation (Hölscheidt 2001). However, COSAC was and still is the main joint body, where national parliaments and the European Parliament articulate views with regard to the Convention process. Remember that it was the Stockholm COSAC meeting in May 2001 that agreed on the call for using the Convention method in order to prepare the IGC in 2004.

The Empirical Reality of deliberative democracy

The idea of a European Union Bill of Rights has been discussed since the middle of 1970, mostly supported by the European Parliament. But it was not until 1999, on a German initiative, that the Charter process was launched with a decision of the European Council in Cologne. The purpose was to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights in the EU by making the already existing ones more visible to the EU citizens. Meetings of the Convention took place from December 1999 until the autumn of 2000. After agreement of a final text of the Charter, the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission proclaimed the Charter on the 7th December 2000 on the fringes of the Nice European Council.

The composition of the Convention and the working methods, as laid out in an annex to the Conclusions of the European Council in Tampere, in October 1999, were rather unique. The Convention was composed of 62 Members representing the Heads of State and Government (15), the President of the European Commission, the European Parliament (16) and the national parliaments (30). The European Court of Justice and the Council of Europe, including the European Court of Human Rights, participated as observers. The Convention and its Presidium, comprising members from each of the four categories of representatives, was assisted by a secretariat staffed by the Legal Service of the Council.

The drafting process of the Charter was a compromise taken without a formal vote. Compared with Intergovernmental Conferences, it was open and participative in nature. It “brilliantly combined representative democracy with more participatory forms of democracy and unparalleled access to the process of European decision-making” (Mc Crudden 2001, 10). However, this nature of the Charter’s Convention was also due to the fact, that the drafting of the Charter constituted a relatively narrow set of interests and arguments. Moreover, the secretariat clearly dominated the drafting process and facilitated the early drafting of the Charter. As de Búrca concludes, “this was not to be a genuinely participative process but one which, albeit deliberative in nature, was to be composed only of institutional representatives from the national and European level” (De Búrca 2001, 131). Moreover, “the secretariat to the convention body, which was drawn mainly from the General secretariat of the Council [...] was one of the less obvious but nonetheless significant influences on the drafting of the Charter” (De Búrca 2001, 134).

Members of the Convention submitted 205 written contributions and a total of 1406 amendments to the Charter’s draft. As regards initial contributions, the most active group were the governments’ representatives followed by the European Parliament and the national parliaments. MEPs and MPs arranged to submit two contributions jointly, whereas government representatives were able to agree three times on joint texts. The initial dominance of the government representatives is not confirmed when considering the relative proportion of amendments. Here, MEPs produced an overall of 405 documents against 400 by national parliamentarians and 356 by government representatives. Within these two last groups, the most active were MPs from Germany, Italy and Spain, and government representatives from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. As regards the European Parliament, the Party of European Socialists delegation proved to be the most active. The larger European People’s Party delegation did produce „only“ 78 amendments, whereas the smaller groups of the European Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the Union for Europe of the Nations and the European United Left submitted between 26 and 45 amendments.

____________________________________________________________
The Conventions mark another step forward in the move of the EU from an economic problem-solving arena to an original polity.

_____________________________________________________________

Compared with the MPs, the MEPs had some clear advantages in steering the Convention’s process. They already work together in one single parliament and they were accustomed to a degree of parliamentary working and party discipline. Outside the Convention, they had many opportunities to meet – either within the framework of their delegation meetings or within their preparatory meeting of the political groups. Finally, they could act on their home ground, work on the basis of input given by a joint administration and their own legal service. The situation of the MPs differed largely: Firstly, they were not put on an equal footing with the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, since the Cologne European Council conclusions only called the EU’s institutions to proclaim the charter. Moreover, MPs had to choose between their ongoing national obligations and their potential participation in the Convention. But most importantly, the MPs were not accustomed to working together, they did not have any feeling of acting on home ground and they could not rely on a joint secretariat.

Overall thus, the Convention featured some disparities both with regard to the „standing“ and the activity of its members. However, the Convention managed to agree on a final text without some kind of voting, but through a complex sequence of open debate and secretive steering. Hence, the Presidium and Secretariat played the key role in preparing the draft Charter. The European Council conclusions of Tampere mandated the Presidium to "elaborate a preliminary Draft Charter, taking account of drafting proposals submitted by any member of the Body." Indeed, the Presidium produced a series of papers which not only reflected the ongoing discussions and incoming proposals, but which also steered them by an authoritative process of anticipating large and convincing majorities. The absence of real voting clearly facilitated the deliberative method of the Convention, but it also hindered the transparency of the Charter’s drafting process. The price of consensus-seeking had been fixed outside the Convention’s plenary, where some kind of bargaining took place.

In this context, the European Parliament delegation was much more efficient than the MPs. The latter were more heterogeneous, and they needed to build larger alliances with either the EP or some government representatives in order to put their views across. The Socialist (PES) delegation of the European Parliament organised meetings in which MPs of the PES family did participate. Other national MPs, especially those from France and the United Kingdom, turned to their respective governments for support. The Charter was adopted without voting, thanks to the "iterative consensus-seeking" process (Deloche-Gaudez 2001, 23). Consensus-building instead of unanimity thus constitutes the fundamental difference between the Convention and the last Intergovernmental Conferences. If the IGCs’ possibility to veto a position enables each delegation to threaten deadlock, the Convention’s process of an ongoing deliberation among rather open-minded actors facilitated the agreement and – perhaps more important – the evolution of a system of mutual recognition of views and ideals. The Charter process thus constituted a challenge to the elite-oriented and secretive mode of fashioning system change through Intergovernmental Conferences. The process was deemed so successful that the Laeken European Summit in December 2001 decided to use the Charter mode as the basis for subsequent treaty changes, through establishing a Convention.

However, there were some considerable limitations on the liberty of the actors and the deliberative nature of the Charter process. Firstly, the European Council fixed a deadline; the Charter had to be drafted in order to be pronounced at the Nice Summit, in December 2000. Secondly, the mandate was formulated by the Heads of State and Government. And even if the Charter process was open, the drafting history of individual provisions (Stechele 2001) and the purpose of the incremental changes from draft to draft were far from transparent. “In some ways, tracking provisions of human rights conventions drawn up at diplomatic conferences under the auspices of the United Nations is easier” (Liisberg 2001, 18). Insofar, the Charter process was probably not better suited than traditional diplomacy for bringing about legal certainty of the end-result – especially when the work takes place under the kind of time pressure the Convention was subject to. In sum, the Charter’s process can be seen as an early trial-and-error-sequence for testing the method of consensus-seeking with some elements highlighted by the theoretical concept of deliberative democracy. However, the method was successful because the heads of state and government, the Presidium and the Secretariat acted as core catalysts and key aggregators of the actors involved.

The 2002/2003 Convention on the Future of the Union

Given the main reasoning behind the Convention on the future of the EU – the relative failure of the Nice summit, the non-answered questions regarding institutional reform and the „EU-XXL“ perspective - , its success will be measured by three criteria. First and foremost, the Convention must present innovative proposals to effectively overcome the deadlock on EU reform. It must prove to be more effective than IGCs. Secondly, the Convention’s process and its substantial results need to incorporate broad societal support and to secure political legitimacy for some kind of a constitutional treaty. Thirdly, and consequently, the Convention needs to adopt its result by consensus. Otherwise, the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference will by-pass the Convention’s result.

The 2002 Convention is composed of fifteen representatives of the governments of the EU, plus thirteen of the accession candidate countries governments, thirty national parliamentarians (two per Member State) plus similarly 26 of the candidate countries, sixteen members of the European Parliament, and two members of the European Commission. Moreover, the European Ombudsman, social partners, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee have official observers with speaking rights. On top of the 102 members and thirteen observers, the Laeken European Council appointed former French president Giscard d’Estaing as the Chairman, and former prime ministers of Italy (Amato) and Belgium (Dehaene) as vice-chairmen to lead the Convention. These three form the Presidium of the Convention, together with the two Commissioners (Barnier and Vitorino), with two representatives of the European and two of the national parliaments, and with the three government representatives of the member states that hold the presidency during the Convention (Spain, Denmark and Greece). Like during the Charter’s Convention, the Presidium plays an important and rather dominant role in the proceedings.

The principle of consensus-building that was developed during the first Convention was written in the Convention’s draft rules of procedure which state that representatives of the candidate states can not prevent such consensus. On the other hand, the draft rules give room for indicative votes. Compared to the Charter’s Convention, the number and strength of the EP delegation shrunk considerably. Hence, the EP still provides for sixteen MEPs, whereas the total number of „Conventionels“ has almost doubled. As MEP Ieke van den Burg notes, that “added to that the restricted role of substitutes is another loss of influence. In the Charter convention the EP substitutes were more actively and independently involved than other substitutes that acted more often only as alternates if the full member was not present. It’s to be seen whether the greater cohesion inside the EP section [...], will outweigh this numerical decline” (Van den Burg 2002, 2). The biggest difference with the Charter’s Convention is the addition of the members of the candidate countries. They do not have a single observer per country, but a government representative and two parliamentarians, at an equal footing with the present member states. Given the common disadvantages of MPs and representatives from the non-EU-members, the latter may ally with the national parliamentarians. Consequently, national MPs may now choose between allying with MEPs, governments and/or with the large group of non-EU-members. The tensions between the different groups might thus be more visible than during the Charter’s Convention. During the Charter Convention the MEPs brought together MPs along the lines of the political families. Given the positive outcome of this kind of alliance-building, both the Socialist (PES) and the European People’s Party (EPP) groups of the EP started to steer political family discourse right from the start of the Convention. Both EP group delegations organised joint preparatory meetings before each Convention’s plenary. Moreover, both the EPP and the PES organised summer seminars in 2002 bringing together their Convention delegates to discuss and draft some kind of constitutional draft text. Cooperation between MEPs and MPs along the lines of the political families demonstrate the importance attached to the Convention from national parties. However, it also entails the risk that national party leaders of parties in government attempt to control the interparliamentary process, and try to make the MPs in the Convention work along their national government lines.

The Convention also considers the role of national parliaments with regard to the further development of the EU’s para-constitutional nature and the very process towards the Intergovernmental Conference in 2004. The participation of national parliaments and of the European Parliament in the body responsible for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union was an original experience, which opened the way for a true innovation with regard to the role of parliaments in the development of the EU. Hence, the Charter exercise symbolised the recognition of shared responsibility in the exercise of some kind of „para-constituent power“, which had hitherto been reserved for governments alone. The European Parliament and the COSAC meeting in Stockholm in May 2001 thus proposed the activation of the Convention process. The idea was not only to parliamentarise the classical way of Treaty reform through IGCs, but also to find an essential and visible forum for discussing the future roles of parliamentary democracy in the enlarged Union. Remember that already during the Amsterdam IGC negotiations, the national delegations of France, the United Kingdom and Denmark tabled concrete proposals calling for a strengthened role of national parliaments in the EC/EU decision-making process. Given the strong reluctance of the majority of the member states’ parliaments and governments as well as of the EU institutions, the idea of institutionalizing COSAC seemed unlikely to perpetuate interparliamentary co-operation. The mainstream argument against such an increased role held that the further institutionalization of COSAC would have had the contradictory effect of distorting the democratic foundations of parliamentary control and law-making activities in the Community.

The Amsterdam IGC then led to the insertion of the “Protocol on the role of National Parliaments in the European Union” (PNP) into the Treaty. Besides the provisions on the improvement of unilateral parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms, the PNP also recognized COSAC as the main contribution for a more effective participation of national parliaments in EC and EU Affairs. Given these early experiences of parliaments in creating their own fora for interparliamentary debate, the 2002 Convention can be seen as a move towards assigning to the national parliaments and the European Parliament a specific kind of joint „para-constituent power“, i.e. a power to be shared with the national governments. This development would mark a new chapter in the role of parliaments in European integration. Of course, to build on the Convention and to give national parliaments access to the policy process of the European Union level makes the process dependent on the veto of the single unit. However, the first six months of the Convention clearly mirror a rather cooperative working style of both the EP and the national parliaments’ delegates.

____________________________________________________________
The Convention method features participative and inclusive forms of open deliberation, it respects and integrates the relative importance of minority positions, it offers open fora for parliamentary discourse and helps to include national parliaments at an early stage of system building, and it is conditioned by the method of consensus-building.
____________________________________________________________

Compared with the Charter’s Convention, the national parliaments’ group is by far the most active delegation among the four institutional „core groups“. Moreover, MEPs and MPs produce more multilateral contributions than during the first exercise. Whereas the government representatives are most active in the two working groups which consider substantial issues on the EU’s future competencies, national parliamentarians focus on two themes: the principle of subsidiarity and the definition of an early-warning mechanism in order to ensure the respect of the principle, and the future role of national parliaments in the EU’s institutional set-up. It might be too early to evaluate the deliberative sequences within these working groups. But according to the vast majority of working group members, both the subsidiarity and the national parliaments themes attract the two levels of parliamentary democracy to an original extent: Hence, both groups consider themselves as open fora with an original chance of clarifying and visualising the relationship between parliaments on the national and the European level. The idea of self-governance is thus emerging within the two working groups as well as within the parallel sequences of the COSAC working group on the future of the EU and the institutionalised contacts on the level of party families.

Hence, the very task of the Convention is the intensive debate about the right attribution of roles and functions of parliaments in the EU’s multi-level set-up. The realisation of a multi-dimensional net of interparliamentary contacts might thus help to effectively reduce the democratic deficit in institutional - parliamentary - terms. However, the Convention members should bear in mind that the new institutional mechanics are not self-evident for the end-users of public policy outcomes: To date, the Convention is not reflecting whether the improvements made to new forms of parliamentary participation will provide new ground for enhancing the legitimacy and proximity of European governance towards the citizens of the Union. However, it remains in the hands of the actors involved to offer appropriate means for the involvement of the Union’s “demoi” in shaping the conditions for their way of living. More precisely, the national parliaments are facing the difficult task to prove that they are able and willing to provide channels for communication across the boundaries of the EU’s member states. Any greater i.e. de facto institutionalised involvement of national parliaments in the EU’s policy cycles may help to render governments more accountable for what they decide in the Council of Ministers and its subordinated working mechanisms. However, the simple formalisation of COSAC, the creation of a congress or any other joint body incorporating MEPs and MPs within the realm of a new Treaty or constitution also renders the EU more complex and less understandable.

Conclusions: System Change Beyond the Convention

The Conventions mark another step forward in the move of the EU from an economic problem-solving arena to an original polity. However, even after the 2002 Convention, the institutional and procedural arrangements of the EU are likely to remain complex, fragmented and opaque.  Thus, it will remain up to the implementation of the new Treaty or Constitution - the “valley” between the IGC summits - and up to the actors then involved, to offer appropriate means for the involvement of the Union’s “demoi” in shaping the conditions for their way of living.

The Conventions can be seen as a new method that could strengthen the legitimacy of the European political system. Compared with Intergovernmental Conferences, the Convention method clearly features a much wider range of actors involved in identifying the common basis for transnational and supranational governance. The activation of the system-development function of national parliamentarians has positive effects. Instead of being restricted to simply rubberstamp results agreed upon on the level of governments, they are enabled to take ownership of the "Community  process" (Deloche-Gaudez 2001, 45). The Convention method could be used in future for other purposes, such as the investiture of the European Commission, the joint analysis of the Commission’s draft legislative programmes, new enlargement rounds and other para-constitutional issues. The theory of deliberative democracy highlights the equality and symmetry of actors as an underlying norm for participation; all participants should have the same chances to initiate speech acts, to question, to interrogate, and to open debate. Moreover, all participants should have the right to question the assigned topics of the conversation at any time; and all have the right to initiate reflexive arguments about the very rules of the discourse procedure and the way in which they are applied and carried out: “There are no prima facie rules limiting the agenda of the conversation, or the identity of the participants, as long as any excluded person or group can justifiably show that they are relevantly affected by the proposed norm under question.” (Mouffe 2000, p. 86). Clearly, the Charter’s Convention and the 2002 Convention do not fully meet these criteria. Hence, both exercises feature a predominance of the Presidium, a secretive steering by the Secretariat and some kind of „open debate under the European Council’s sword of Damocles“. Of course, the Convention remains in the hands of the heads of state and government. However, if both the national parliaments and the European Parliament want to give the Convention method a more independent role, they do have all opportunities in their hands to draft the relevant Treaty of constitutional provisions.

Literature

Bieber, R. (1974): Organe der erweiterten Europäischen Gemeinschaften: Das Parlament, Baden-Baden 1974.

Cohen, J. (1999): “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy”, in: Jamses, B./William, R. (eds.): Deliberative Democracy, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 74-75.

Dahl, R (1989): “Democracy and its Critics”, Yale University Press.

Dahl, R. (1998): “On Democracy”, Yale University Press.

De Búrca, G. (2001): “The drafting of the European Union Charter of fundamental rights”, in: European Law Review, No. 2.

Deloche-Gaudez F. (2001): La Convention pour l'élaboration de la charte des droits fondamentaux : une méthode d'avenir ? Groupement d'études et de recherches "Notre Europe", Paris, Etudes et Recherches, No. 15.

Eriksen, E. (2000): “Deliberative supranationalism in the EU”, in: Eriksen, E./Fossum, J. (eds.): Democracy in the European Union. Integration through deliberation?, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 29-42.

Eriksen, E./Fossum, J. (2000): Democracy in the European Union. Integration through deliberation, Routledge, London and New York.

Fitzmaurice, J. (1978): The European Parliament, Farnborough 1978.

Genco, S. J. (1980). “Integration Theory and System Change in Western Europe: The Neglected Role of System Transformation Episodes”, in: Ole R. Holsti (ed.): Change in the International System, Boulder: Westview, pp. 55-80.

Grimm, D. (1995): “Does Europe Need a Constitution?”, in: European Law Journal, pp. 282-302.

Habermas, J. (1976): “Legitimationsprobleme im modernen Staat“, in: Kielmannsegg, P. (ed.): Legitimationsprobleme politischer Systeme, Politische Vierteljahresschrift Sonderheft, Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 39-61.

Habermas, J. (1995): “Comment on the Paper by Dieter Grimm: Does Europe Need a Constitution?”, in: European Law Journal, pp. 303-307.

Habermas, J. (1998): Die postnationale Konstellation, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.

Herman, V./ Lodge, J. (1978): „Democratic Legitimacy and Direct Elections to the European Parliament“, in: West European Politics, No. 2/1978, S. 226-251

Herman, V. /Schendelen, R. (Eds.), (1979): The European Parliament and the Na­tional Parliaments, Westmead 1979.

Hix, S. (1998): “The study of the European Union II: the 'new governance' agenda and its rival”, in: Journal of European Public Policy, No. 1, pp. 38-65.

Hölscheidt, S. (2001): “The German Bundestag: From Benevolent Weakness towards Supportive Scrutiny”, in: Maurer/Wessels, National Parliaments on their ways to Europe. Losers or Latecomers?, pp. 117-146.

Hurell, A./A. Menon (1996): “Politics Like Any Other? Comparative Politics, International Relations and the Study of the EU”, West European Politics, No. 2, pp. 386-402.

Pernice, I. (2001): The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union, Walter Hallstein Institut, WHI-Paper 5/01, July 2001.

Jachtenfuchs, M. (1998): „Democracy and Governance in the European Union“, in: Follesdal, A./Kosloswki, P. (eds.): Democracy and the European Union, Springer, Berlin.

Jachtenfuchs, M./ Kohler-Koch, B. (1996): Europäische Integration, Opladen.

Kielmansegg, P. (1996): “Integration und Demokratie“, in: Jachtenfuchs, M./Kohler-Koch, B. (eds.): Europäische Integration, Opladen, pp. 47-71.

Laffan, B. (2001): “The Parliament of Ireland: A Passive Adapter Coming in from the Cold”, in: Maurer/Wessels, pp. 251-268.

Liisberg, J.B. (2001): Does the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights Threaten the Supremacy of Community Law? Article 53 of the Charter: a fountain of law or just an inkblot?, Jean Monnet Working Paper 4/01, Harvard Law School.

Laursen, F. (1992): “Explaining the Intergovernmental Conference,” pp. 229-248, in: Finn Laursen & S. Vanhoonacker (eds.), The Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union, Maastricht: European Institute of Public Aministration.

Maurer, A. (2002): Parlamentarische Demokratie in der Europäischen Union. Der Beitrag des Europäischen Parlaments und der nationalen Parlamente, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Maurer, A./Wessels, W. (eds.) (2001): National Parliaments on their ways to Europe. Losers or Latecomers?, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

McCrudden, C. (2001): The Future of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, Jean Monnet Working Paper No.10/01, Harvard Law School.

Moravcsik, A./K. Nicolaïdis (1999): “Explaining the Treaty of Amsterdam: Interest, Influence, Institutions,” Journal of Common Market Studies, No. 1, pp. 59-85.

Moravcsik, A. (1993): Preferences and Power in the European Community, A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach, Journal of Common Market Studies, No. 3, pp. 473-524.

Mouffe, C. (2000): The Democratic Paradox, Verso, London.

Risse, T. (2000): „Let’s Argue!: Communicative Action in World Politics“, in: International Organization, No. 1, pp. 1-40.

Risse-Kappen, T. (1996): „Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparitive Policy Analysis Meet the European Union”, in: Journal of Common Market Studies, No. 1, pp. 53-80.

Ross, A. (1967): Varför demokrati?, Tidens förlag, Stockholm.

Saward, M. (1998): The Terms of Democracy, Polity Press.

Scharpf, F. (1970): Demokratietheorie zwischen Utopie und Anpassung, Universitätsverlag, Konstanz.

Scharpf, F. (1997): Games Real Actors Play, Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research, Boulder, Oxford.

Scharpf, F. (1998): Governing Europe, Efficient and Democratic, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Stechele, C. (2001): Der Konvent zur Erarbeitung der EU-Charta der Grundrechte: Modell eines deliberativen Supranationalismus?, Thesis, University of Cologne.

Thöne-Wille, E. (1984): Die Parlamente der EG - Das Europäische Parlament und die nationalen Parlamente, Kehl am Rhein u.a. 1984.

Wallace, H. (1979): „The European Parliament: The Challenge of Political Responsibility“, in: Government and Opposition (special edition 1979), pp. 433-443.

Weiler, J. (1993): “After Maastricht: Community Legitimacy in Post-1992 Europe”, in: Adams, W. (ed.): Singular Europe: Economy and Polity of the European Community after 1992, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp. 11 - 41.

Weiler, J. (1993): “Parliamentary Democracy in Europe 1992: Tentative Questions and Answers”, in: Greenberg (ed.): Constitutionalism & Democracy, pp. 249-263.

Weiler, J./Haltern, U./Mayer, F. (1995): European Democracy and its Critique: Five Uneasy Pieces, EUI Working Paper No. 95/11, Robert Schuman Center, Florence.

Zürn, M. (2000): “Democratic Governance Beyond the Nation-State: The EU and Other International Institutions”, in: European Journal of International Relations, No. 2, pp. 183-221.