Chapter 6 - The Civil Dialogue – A Magic Cure for the Democratic Ailments of the Community Method?

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Among the many channels of influence arising from the fragmented nature of EU law-making, the Commission is oft en chosen as the foremost venue for interest representation. This preference mainly stems from the lead the Commission takes in agenda-setting through the use of its exclusive power to initiate legislation. Interest groups knock on an open door, for the Commission has a long tradition of consulting interest representatives. DG Employment, in particular, has developed early on a dense relationship with social CSOs which it sees as agents contributing with support, expertise and knowledge, to the development of its policies.

Nevertheless, since the first European social policy forum held in 1996, DG Employment and supportive networks of social CSOs have hedged their bets and undertaken to establish ‘a strong civil dialogue at European level to take its place alongside the policy dialogue with the national authorities and the social dialogue with the social partners’. This political commitment went mainstream with the 2001 White Paper on European Governance (White Paper), leading the Commission to portray civil society's participation in European governance as a chance to get citizens more actively involved in achieving the Union's objectives, thereby contributing to participatory democracy in the EU. The normative appeal of this discourse became such that, eventually, the Lisbon Treaty has elevated participatory democracy to the rank of a legal principle which European institutions are now bound to implement.

The White Paper conveys the belief that wide participation is indubitably good, for it enhances democratic governance and, at the same time, improves the effectiveness of EU law-making. Yet, it might be misleading to present participation as the new magic cure for the democratic ailments of the old CM. There is, as Dahl noted long ago, a democratic dilemma between citizen participation and system effectiveness:

[i]n very small political systems a citizen may be able to participate extensively in decisions that do not matter much but cannot participate much in decisions that really matter a great deal; whereas very large systems may be able to cope with problems that matter more to a citizen, the opportunities for the citizen to participate in and greatly influence decisions are vastly reduced.