Original scientific paper

Concepts of Democracy in the European Union

Andrej Lukšić ; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Maja Bahor ; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract

The authors outline the period of democratisation and introduction of diff erent concepts of democracy in the Proposal for the Treaty on Constitution for Europe. The fi rst emergence of various concepts of democracy took place during the Convention, held from February 2003 to June 2003. In the course of the Convention, a confl ict between the leading actors of diff erent concepts of democracy fl ared up for their proper place in the Programme and in the Proposal for the Treaty on Constitution for Europe. The article points out that in 2005 and 2006 the key institutions of the EU developed documents in which they primarily advocated their concepts of democracy and thus engaged in a political confl ict and battle for gaining a broad support for their concepts. In this period, some open problems concerning the fate of the Proposal for the Treaty on Constitution for Europe had to be solved, as well as the problems of development of a democratic life in the EU. During the ratifi cation, however, in France and the Netherlands the unwanted refusal of the proposed Constitution took place, activating a renewed debate regarding the democratic arrangement of the European Union. At the Spring meeting of the European Council in 2006, the “period for rethinking” was extended until the end of 2008.

Keywords

Proposal for the Treaty on Constitution for Europe; participatory democracy; deliberative democracy; direct democracy; representative democracy; electronic democracy

Hrčak ID:

38268

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/38268

Publication date:

15.5.2007.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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