The Democratic Deficit in the European Union

According to Maastricht Treaty, the purpose of European integration is to create an increasingly close union between European nations, in which the decisions will be taken closely to the citizen. However even the most optimistic supporters of the EU admit that the integration process was mostly an elite initiative rather than a people’s movement. This problem of the electorate’s difficulty to directly influence the EU activity is labeled “democratic deficit”, and hadn’t been surpassed, despite the EU’s efforts to give increased powers to the single institution chosen directly by the European citizen, the European Parliament.