Making Sense of the EU

In the pages that follow, the Journal of Democracy for the first time addresses in a sustained way the issues of democracy raised by the development of the European Union (EU). It is an especially appropriate time to address this question, as the EU is in the midst of what many see as a transformative moment. In May 2004, it will officially expand from 15 to 25 member states. (A set of articles on "enlargement" will appear in our next issue.) Moreover, a Convention chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing recently completed a draft treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, and beginning in October 2003 an Intergovernmental Conference will meet in Rome to amend and adopt this draft. There is considerable disagreement about how much the adoption of this document would really change the EU, but there is no denying that this explicit attempt to "constitutionalize" the European Union marks a significant step in its evolution.

Despite its importance for international politics, there is relatively little knowledge about the EU among non-Europeans. This is due not only to its inherent complexity but also to the specialized and sometimes impenetrable vocabulary with which it is typically discussed. To help our readers surmount this hurdle, we begin with an essay by Marc F. Plattner that seeks to provide the most essential information about the history and current structure of the EU and to elucidate some of the terms and references found in the contributions that follow.

Next come essays by Yves Mény and Philippe C. Schmitter that, from rather different perspectives, discuss the new draft constitution and assess its implications for the future of the EU. Within Mény's essay are two editorial inserts that provide additional background: 1) excerpts from the report by Giscard d'Estaing presenting the draft to a meeting of European heads of government in Thessaloniki on 20 June 2003 (pp. 60-61); and 2) a brief description of the basic structure of the draft itself and a few excerpts from it (pp. 66-67). Schmitter's essay also examines the EU's impact on the condition of democracy at the national level among its member states.

This collection closes with translations of recent writings by philosopher Jürgen Habermas and sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, two of Europe's leading political thinkers and influential participants in the debate over the EU. After devoting the opening sections of his essay to a broader discussion of "globalization," Habermas concludes by drawing out the implications of this analysis for the European Union. Dahrendorf's more skeptical reflections focus on the challenges involved in trying to take democracy beyond the nation-state. As all these essays reveal, serious discussion of the EU cannot avoid grappling with fundamental questions about the nature and limits of democracy.