Introduction

Steven Blockmans & Sophia Russack

1.1 Identity crisis

The state of democracy in the European Union is a subject of constant debate. While some have argued that concern about the 'democratic deficit' is misplaced, the prevailing sense is nevertheless that the EU has a democracy problem.

This sense of a problem is compounded by recent figures about the decline of electoral democracy and the protection of civil liberties, including freedom of expression and backsliding on the rule of law in a growing number of member states. In Europe's patchwork of political cultures, languages, national memories and diverse press channels, the algorithms behind social media are polarising people in a way not seen since the creation of the EU. The seismic shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets by nativist and Eurosceptic parties across the continent show that, in the EU too, "all politics is local".

Paradoxically, half a billion people living in a Union that has advanced the notion of 'citizenship' since 1991 have never before shared such an intertwined destiny. The single market, free movement and the Erasmus student exchange programme have all helped to break down cultural boundaries. But these achievements risk being reversed by political narratives that drive citizens into ever more divided national mindsets. The popular anger that populists feed on seems to be deliberately channelled towards a growing list of targets: from the single currency and austerity policies attached to it, to EU trade agreements with third countries (mainly the US and Canada), refugees and economic migrants. Now, the radical right is encouraging Europeans to turn against each other.

At the grassroots level, citizens' perceptions have drifted a long way from the European 'demos' imagined by the architects of modern Europe. European integration is often perceived as an elite-driven project that is too remote from ordinary citizens. The 'polycrisis' that has plagued the EU for the past few years has led to a cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the European integration project.

Insofar as such proposals exist, they have been developed by elites, either "as damage limitation to placate a restless populace" or as an effort to reduce EU institutional interference at the national level. Examples of the former include the aim to create transnational lists for the European Parliament elections and to revive the lead candidate ('Spitzenkandidat') system pioneered in 2014. An example of the second category is the renewed call from Central and Eastern European governments to arm national parliaments with a red card to shoot down the European Commission's unpalatable legislative initiatives. Emmanuel Macron's proposal to organise civilian assemblies to debate the future of Europe may be more in tune with the mood of the masses, but a self-declared 'Jupiterian' president seems hardly the right person to push for its implementation.

While the leaders of the EU institutions and member states increasingly invest their hopes in reviving 'output legitimacy' by delivering on policy objectives (e.g. shoring up security and defence cooperation, reform of the eurozone and the Schengen area, striking up progressive trade deals), the democratic legitimacy problem has in effect been left to fester. The (perception of) nontransparent decision-making continues to feed into popular frustration about how governments and EU institutions operate. The risk of an even greater negative feedback loop is therefore real.

1.2 Towards a Citizens' Union?

Against this backdrop, 20 renowned think tanks from the European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN) have joined forces in a three-year research project supported by the European Commission under its Erasmus+ programme. The 'Towards the Citizens' Union (2CU)' project is concerned with the two-pronged question of i) how the relationship between citizen, state and EU has changed, and ii) whether and how direct democracy (this volume), representative democracy (volume 2, forthcoming in 2019) and the accountability of democratic institutions (volume 3, forthcoming in 2020) can be improved in a multi-layered EU. As such, 2CU uses the phenomenon of populism not so much to engage with policy, but as a research handle to assess process and polity.

Building on the notion of increasing social, economic and political interdependence across borders, this first volume asks whether and, if so, how a sense of solidarity and European identity can be rescued from the bottom up by politically empowering citizens to 'take back control' of their EU.

This first 2CU book on the state of direct democracy in the EU presupposes a common understanding of the semantics of direct political participation. Some clarifications may nevertheless be in order.

The EU is founded on the principle of representative democracy (Article 10(1) TEU). Citizens are thus directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament. The functioning of...