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- W2187053762 abstract "This thesis pursues two main goals. The first is to evaluate the EU’s co-decision procedure for its putative democratic qualities. The second is to contribute to the operationalisation of deliberative democracy by developing an analytical framework/evaluative scheme that can be applied to co-decision in particular and to public policy-making procedures in general. Deliberative democracy states that democratic decisions are those that have withstood testing and critique in a publicly accessible manner. Since the people are never present to make decisions, the realisation of this claim can only be redeemed if the decision-making procedures fulfil certain democratic qualities. Democratic decisionmaking cannot be realised without elected politicians as the main decision-makers. Only they can establish the necessary link to citizens. From a deliberative perspective, it is, however, not enough to be elected. The link between politicians and citizens must also be visible in between elections and not just during election campaigns. Politicians can only claim to speak on behalf of citizens if they regularly justify their positions in public so that citizens can actually know what decision-makers are up to. In short, democracy is understood as a justificatory and reason-giving process where citizens are brought in and can hold politicians to account through public debate. Also experts have a legitimate place in decisionmaking, but their job is to provide technical and scientific expertise and should not make choices and take decisions on politically salient issues. The procedural conditions framing public policy-making processes should therefore seek to approximate the following procedural criteria: (1) democratic deliberative meeting places, (2) inclusion of affected and competent parties, (3) openness, (4) neutralisation of asymmetrical power relations and (5) decisionmaking capacity. The co-decision procedure is evaluated against these criteria. The main conclusion is that there is a tension between the formal provisions and the established practices of the co-decision procedure. In the thesis it is shown that the formal set-up of the co-decision procedure has many democratic qualities: the main decision-making bodies (the EP and the Council) have a popular anchoring; the procedural set-up ensures an intelligible decision-making process with up to three readings where there is time for deliberation prior to final decision-making; the EP provides publicly accessible settings where the citizens can follow the MEPs’ discussions and decisions; legally the co-decision set-up respects the principle of separation of powers; and the ECJ and the Ombudsman represent ex post accountability mechanisms where citizens can file complaints if they find that co-decision acts violate their rights. In other words, the democratic potential of the formal co-decision set-up is definitely there. The problem is that the co-decision-makers have established practices that work against rather than in accordance with the formal provisions. In this way, the democratic qualities are effectively rendered passive due to so-called informal and secret ‘trialogues’. The scope and scale of these meetings between a limited selection of participants from the EP, the Council and the Commission run counter to and are largely incompatible with democratic decisionmaking. This problem is also exacerbated by the internal organisation of the Council where decisions are formulated and basically decided in camera by unelected officials. The procedural incentives for decision-makers to justify their positions are hence not encouraged under such procedural conditions. From a deliberative democratic perspective the problem is that both the extensive use of trialogues and the undemocratic character of the Council’s internal organisation have resulted in a situation where codecision-making largely take place behind closed doors. In this regard also the EP is affected for even if it formally conducts its legislative work in openness, the salience and scope of the trialogues interrupt and curtail the parliamentary process of opinionand willformation. This contributes to empty the EP committees as the place where positions are discussed and formulated. In sum, the democratic legitimacy of the co-decision procedure suffers from two main deficits: Firstly, the relationship between elected politicians and unelected experts is biased towards the latter in the sense that codecision acts are to a large extent made by experts and bureaucrats. Secondly, the trialogues move the policy-making process behind closed doors where only a limited number of participants are present and of which only a half is elected politicians. In sum, the established practices of co-decision-making lead to a situation where politically and publicly salient issues are canalised into closed settings. A privatisation of politics has never been compatible with democratic decision-making." @default.
- W2187053762 created "2016-06-24" @default.
- W2187053762 creator A5071131506 @default.
- W2187053762 date "2010-01-01" @default.
- W2187053762 modified "2023-09-27" @default.
- W2187053762 title "Co-decision - the panacea for EU democracy?" @default.
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