Demokráciadeficit, föderalizmus, szuverenitás. Az Európai Unió politikaelméleti perspektívából
Democracy-Deficit, Federalism, Sovereignty . The European Union from the Perspective of Political Theory

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses three problems of the EU from the perspective of political theory. The first one is the question of democracy-deficit in the EU. It is a consequence of the fact, that political leadership and governance of the Union are institutionally and procedurally not connected to and independent from the democratic elections of the European Parliament. Neither the European Council nor the Commission depends on the political composition of the EP. The author argues, that this democratic deficit of the Union is connected to a substantial weakness of the European unification, namely to the lack of a European demos, the European political community. There is neither a European public opinion, nor a European party-system. The latter is clearly visible in the electoral competition for the seats in the EP, which is taken place separately in national political arenas. Secondly, the author analyses the question, whether the notion of federalism is suitable to characterise the political structure of the European Union. He argues, that although the EU is not a state, it can be regarded a quasi-federation, a federal political system. Thirdly the article focuses on the highly debated issue of sovereignty. The author differentiates between two concepts of sovereignty. While accepting a quantitative concept of sovereignty, the transfer of more and more public-policy functions from the member states to the Union means at the same time a gradual transfer of sovereignty to the European Union. Sovereignty in this sense is a synonym for the aggregation of the state functions, and therefore it is divisible between the members states and the Union, according to the various policy-areas. But there is a narrower, a qualitative concept of sovereignty, based on the theory of Carl Schmitt, where sovereignty means the final political authority, a final decision power, like waging war, announce a state of emergency, adopting a constitution, define the public enemy or choosing allies. Sovereignty in this sense is not very much visible in normal circumstances, it appears and prevails only in crises or extraordinary situations. Taking this qualitative notion of sovereignty, sovereignty stays at the member states of the European Union.

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