No way out for the beast? The unsolved legitimacy problem of European governance

The European Union (EU) has developed into a new type of political system which lacks many of the features associated with democratic governance. When calling for the democratization of the EU, however, it is important to remember that democratic decision-making at the European level is only one source of its legitimacy. Another is technocratic-utilitarian: the efficient and effective tackling of political challenges on the basis of its general problem-solving capacity. The third source is the indirect democratic legitimacy accorded by member states, and their parliaments, as signatories to the European treaties. As these three sources of EU legitimacy exist in uneasy tension, European governance is faced with a 'legitimacy trilemma': strengthening the one weakens the others. The quest for reforms to bestow greater legitimacy on the multi-layered European system thus appears to be a zero-sum game: the multidimensional legitimacy problem can be reconfigured, with concomitant costs and benefits, but it cannot be solved completely.