The Challenges faced by the European Union
This paper discusses two specific challenges that the European Union (EU) is facing currently. One is the democratic deficit and the second challenge is the euro crisis.
The ‘democratic deficit’ can be defined principally as the disagreement regarding the lack of democracy in the European Union as well as in several of its other bodies. It is apparently claimed that due to this democratic deficit, the European Union and all of its other bodies are unapproachable to the common people as their functioning methods are extremely complex in nature. At each and every single stage of the process of integrating the European Union, there was a constant interrogation about the democratic legality and this debate transformed into a highly sensitive issue with the passage of time. A number of treaties like for example, the Maastricht, Amsterdam and the Nice Treaties had played a pivotal role in enhancing the democratic legality of the established system by strengthening the Parliamentary powers in relation to the employment and regulation of the Commission and consecutively outspreading the room for the decision-making process.
While all these treatises strengthen the powers of the European Parliament in matter related to legislations and budget on one hand, they also simultaneously empowers the European Parliament it to exhibit increasingly effective political control with the help of engaging the President of the European Commission. In addition, to this, there is also a constant endeavour to enhance the participation and involvement of the general public in the European Union’s democratic life by way of creating a right of initiative of the citizens and also by being aware and cognizant of the significance of negotiations between the various establishments of the Union as well as the European civil society.
This largely criticized democratic deficit is actually being claimed to be one of the prime reasons for the irrelevance and triviality of the European citizens, implying that the citizens have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the European Union, which is consequently implied to be inequitable and rather autocratic in nature. This eventually is said to be resulting in the alienation of the citizens from various institutions of the European Union. They tend to disregard the fact that the estrangement of citizens from various political issues is not unusual to either the European Commission or the European Union; however, the same characterises virtually all of the typical democracies, where a majority of the percentage - in a few nations a massive portion- of citizens withhold themselves from participating in the elections of their country.
This democratic deficit, which the European Union has been dealing with for quite some time now got worsened as a result of the Euro crisis. There is no rule of thumb that can all of a sudden increase the admiration for the European Union amongst its citizens. Its various establishments/bodies are geographically detached and aloof, making it difficult and complex for the citizens to understand and more often than not, even deal with the myriad range of incomprehensible and vague technicalities with which they function. Unless the leaders of the European Union can become more trustworthy and sincere in the eyes of the citizens, few of the portions of the European Union cannot being to disentangle.
The second challenge of the European Union that is being addressed in this paper is the Euro Crisis. With the creation of geographic identity for the European Union by the consent of its member states, the next logical step to promote unity of trade identity as well as removal of budgetary disparities between nations, it was vital that all the members of the European Union accepted a common monetary denomination. In hindsight, this turned out to be the Euro, and it has had its share of troubles. Probably, the biggest challenge Euro faced since its inception was that of the Greek tragedy and also the global recessionary trend following the 2008 American recession.
The global economic downturn and the financial crisis of the year 2008 had an intense impact on the European Union along with all other economies of its member states and even the Euro. The subsequent public debt crisis that was an outcome of the 2008 global economic catastrophe exposed the Euro as well as quite a few economies of European Union member states to a myriad range of structural flaws, like for instance, unmanageable or untenable levels of public or private debt or diminishing effectiveness and attractiveness.
References
Europa. (2014). Democratic Deficit. Retrieved from Europa : http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/democratic_deficit_en.htm
Europedia.moussis.eu. (2011). The so-called democratic deficit of the EU. Retrieved from Europedia.moussis.eu: http://www.europedia.moussis.eu/books/Book_2/4/09/05/index.tkl?all=1&pos=115
Eurozone Portal. (2014, June 30). The EU's response to the crisis. Retrieved from Eurozone Portal: http://www.eurozone.europa.eu/euro-area/topics/the-eus-response-to-the-crisis/
Grant, C. (2013, June 10). How to reduce the EU's democratic deficit. Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/how-to-reduce-eu-democratic-deficit
References
Europa. (2014). Democratic Deficit. Retrieved from Europa : http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/democratic_deficit_en.htm
