372 / 450
372
E
UR
A
MERICA
B. Empowered EP and Law-Making
(A) Logical Evaluation
Under ordinary legislative procedures, the European
Parliament and the Council must agree on exactly the same text for
the adoption of a proposed EU law. A legislative proposal is
adopted at the first reading if the Council and the European
Parliament agree on the document at that stage. If the two
legislative bodies fail to reach an agreement at the first reading, the
Council must adopt a “common position” that provides reasons for
rejecting any European Parliament first reading amendments. In
case of a disagreement between the Council and the Parliament
after the second reading, a Conciliation Committee will be
convened.
One of the essential functions of a parliament in any
democracy is the public forum function. Deliberative democracy
posits that “the modern conception of representation is ultimately
parasitic on deliberation,” and that “democratic legitimacy derives
from the public justification of the results to those affected”
(Eriksen & Fossum, 2011: 167, 169). Even before the co-decision
procedure came to be used widely and early legislative conclusions
strongly preferred, the public forum function of the European
Parliament was already extremely weak. Among the factors that
made the EP an ineffective public forum were the language
problem and media disinterest (Weiler et al., 1995: 8). The
expansion of co-decision making, and new provisions for ordinary
legislative procedures, have further undermined this function by
encouraging the EP to legislate in ever less open and public
settings.
5
5
In the democratic deficit debate, the question of whether it is “fair”
or
“adequate”
to compare what democracy can function at the national level to
what can be achieved at the EU level frequently emerges. Whether such
comparisons are “fair”
to the EU is given no consideration in this article.
Taking the existence of the democratic deficit as a given, the article focuses