If the European Union Doesn’t Democratize, It Will Crumble
After a decade that produced a series of shocks, the European Union seems to have weathered its worst moment of crisis. Yet the EU still suffers a fundamental lack of democracy — and the Left should be in the forefront of demanding its reform.
European Parliament president Roberta Metsola (at the rostrum) speaks during the conference on the Future of Europe in the European Parliament on December 2, 2022 in Brussels, Belgium. (Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Today, the politics of the European Union don’t offer the Left much cause for hope. From the creation of the Eurozone at the end of the 1990s, to the failed ratification of a European Constitution, to the extortion of Greece by the so-called troika in 2015, being a left-winger in Europe has typically meant fighting against whatever has been implemented under the banner of “Europe.”
Yet the question remains as to how the Left should relate to EU institutions, whose decisions affect hundreds of millions of Europeans, or indeed to the European Parliament, which can meet and deliberate but not produce legislation. Should we reject and ignore the EU? Or should we avoid abandoning the field to neoliberals and the Right, and try to use the EU to give visibility to socialist alternatives?
Founded in 2004 and now home to more than twenty national parties, the Party of the European Left (EL) has opted for the latter approach — either from within governments, such as currently in Spain and Slovenia, or from parliamentary opposition or the streets.
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