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National parliaments and the limits of transnational democracy in European Union

• Γιαννής, Νίκος

The political dimension which the process of European unification has attuned during the last period, starting from the Single European Act up to the Treaty of European Union, as well as the lack of transparency in the decision making mechanisms, the crisis of the European ideal and the criticism towards European integration, the so-called “Europessimism”, led to a revision of the role of national Parliaments within the institutional framework of European Communities and the European Union. During the last decades, the actual tendency as far as the political system of western democracy is concerned, appears to be more in favor of the executive rather than legislative power, this factor also playing a crucial role in the well-known European democratic deficit.As a consequence, there are four factors which nowadays define the role of national Parliaments: (a) the national and European Parliament interacting notion of deficit, (b) the original structure of democratic legitimacy, which is considered to be the outcome of the process of the phenomenon of European integration, pretty original itself, (c) the emergence of citizen society as a substantial criterion for constructing Europe, and, (d) the ability of producing institutional alternatives concerning a modern role of legislative power vis-a- vis a more powerful executive one, this being achieved through a continuous overcoming of national sovereignty.Promotion of democracy, safeguarding of national identities and deepening of European integration are the three dimensions which in the European Union today constitute a triple target that has to be served by a new definition of equilibrium and constructive compromise.

• Political Science

• Πολιτική επιστήμη

Ο Νίκος Γιαννής είναι δρ. πολιτικής επιστήμης, ειδικός επιστήμονας στο Γραφείο του Ευρωπαϊκού Κοινοβουλίου της Βουλής των Ελλήνων