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transparency does not seem to have led to
de facto
transparency on
the Council. Moreover, the legislative pattern of the European
Parliament has gravitated toward the Council, making informal
decision-making in seclusion increasingly the norm in the
European Parliament as well.
Democratic representation, thus, has functioned as intended
neither at the European level nor at the national level. That said,
the EU can at least draw output-oriented legitimacy from the
realization of policies not achievable by Member States individually.
In other words, “so long as the common project produced evident
benefits in the form of prosperity, economic opportunities and job
creation, voters would accept it, and even come round to
welcoming it” (
“
An ever
-
deeper,” 2012). According to this view,
the EU is a regulatory regime with power delegated by Member
State governments to solve problems associated with globalization
and interdependence. This regulatory regime is tasked with finding
solutions for trans-border problems of a technical-economic nature
that do not invoke moral claims or affect identities. Its legitimacy is
consequentialist, based on its ability to produce substantive
Pareto-optimal outcomes for technical problems (Eriksen &
Fossum, 2011: 157-158; Scharpf, 1999).
1
Contrary to the view that as long as the EU delivers, citizens
will consider the EU democratically legitimate, studies have shown
that satisfaction with EU democracy is an important predictor of
public support for EU governance. In other words, when citizens
believe that they are poorly represented, their support for the EU
decreases regardless of perceptions of economic performance
(Rohrschneider, 2002: 463). Public opinion, therefore, appears to
be something policy-performance-minded bureaucrats can neither
1
Here, the legitimacy of the Union is thought to be “based on its ability to
produce substantive outcomes in line with the principle of Pareto optimality,
which states that only decisions that no one will find unprofitable and that
will make at least one party better off, will be produced, and hence lend
legitimacy to international negotiations”
(Eriksen & Fossum, 2011: 157).