Europe needs more integration. But does it also need a different kind of democracy?

 

Modern constitutional government can no longer be understood exclusively within national borders. Economic integration, geopolitical insecurity, climate change, migration, digital infrastructure and financial instability create dependencies that individual states cannot manage effectively on their own. European institutions therefore form a supranational legal order that supplements, constrains and corrects national systems while organizing collective action.

The European Court of Human Rights⁸²⁶ provides an external safeguard for fundamental rights. Individuals can challenge national violations after exhausting domestic remedies, while the Court’s evolving interpretation of human rights allows protection to respond to social and technological change. Its margin-of-appreciation doctrine preserves room for national diversity, balancing common European standards with legitimate differences between societies⁸²⁷.

The European Union has a broader role⁸²⁸. EU law is integrated into national legal systems and regulates fields including trade, competition, data protection, environmental policy, and aspects of social protection. The Union also protects democracy, fundamental rights, and the rule of law through instruments with different legal functions. Article 7 TEU addresses serious threats to Union values; infringement proceedings enforce specific obligations; Article 19 TEU and the Charter support judicial protection within the scope of EU law; the annual Rule of Law Report is preventive and dialogical; and budget conditionality protects the Union budget where rule-of-law breaches affect or seriously risk affecting its sound financial management. These mechanisms complement one another, but they are not interchangeable and do not create a general federal power over every national constitutional dispute.

Further integration is increasingly necessary because many contemporary problems exceed national capacity. European cooperation can generate the scale required for defence, energy security, climate action, digital regulation and economic stabilization. This does not require an immediate transformation into a centralized federal state. A more realistic model is gradual and functionally differentiated integration: authority is strengthened at European level only where collective action demonstrably produces better results⁸²⁹.

Several forms of integration can coexist. Defence cooperation may expand through common investment, strategic planning, compatible equipment and greater European capacity within existing alliances⁸³⁰. Climate and energy policy require shared infrastructure, investment funds, binding objectives and solidarity between countries with different economic capacities. Digital autonomy demands common regulation of platforms, data and artificial intelligence, alongside public or hybrid infrastructures that reduce dependence on a small number of private technology corporations.

 

The eurozone also requires a stronger institutional foundation⁸³¹. Monetary policy is centralized, while most fiscal and economic policies remain national, creating vulnerabilities during financial crises. A permanent European investment capacity could absorb economic shocks and finance infrastructure, innovation and the climate transition. Coordinated minimum taxation of capital and multinational corporations could reduce harmful tax competition and avoidance while preserving national freedom to impose higher standards.

Greater European capacity must be accompanied by stronger democratic legitimacy. As of August 2026, the European Commission retains a near monopoly over legislative initiative, while Parliament may request a proposal under Article 225 TFEU and has limited direct initiative in specific fields. A general autonomous right of initiative would normally require treaty change⁸³². Likewise, transnational electoral lists⁸³³ remain a reform proposal rather than part of the operative European electoral system. Both ideas may strengthen European political contestation, but their legal and political status must be made explicit.

Transparency is equally important. Legislative negotiations, especially within the Council, should become more open so that citizens and national parliaments can see the positions taken by their governments. Clear and accessible explanations of who proposed, supported and decided particular policies would reduce the ability of national and European actors to shift responsibility onto one another. Political accountability requires not merely formal openness but information that citizens can understand and use.

Subsidiarity should operate as a rebuttable allocation test⁸³⁴. European action requires a stated cross-border problem, evidence that national or regional action is insufficient, a proportionality analysis, and an explanation of how local implementation knowledge will be retained. The chosen level should be reviewed when technology, capacity, or spillovers change. Authority may move upward, downward, or become shared; integration should not be presumed irreversible merely because coordination was once necessary.

National parliaments should participate earlier in European policymaking instead of reviewing proposals only after their main direction has been established. Stronger information rights, longer assessment periods and interparliamentary cooperation could make subsidiarity and proportionality meaningful democratic tests. Cities and regions should also be involved where they possess essential implementation knowledge, particularly in climate policy, mobility and social cohesion.

Differentiated integration can permit willing states to cooperate more closely, but it requires safeguards: a lawful treaty basis; transparent membership and decision rules; openness to later entrants that meet objective conditions; protection of non-participants’ rights; parliamentary scrutiny at each participating level; and periodic review of distributive effects⁸³⁵. Differentiation should solve a functional blockage, not create an opaque inner union or allow participating states to externalize costs.

European governance must also be capable of learning from mistakes. Legislation should be periodically evaluated not only for effectiveness but also for its effects on rights, inequality, implementation and public acceptance. Review and sunset clauses⁸³⁶ are especially valuable for emergency measures and rapidly changing fields such as digital technology. They prevent temporary powers from becoming permanent without renewed justification and allow experience to inform revision. At the same time, predictable procedures are needed to prevent constant change from undermining legal certainty.

Every expansion or return of European authority should be tested against four questions: does the chosen level have the capacity to address the problem; can citizens identify and contest the responsible decision-makers; are rights, solidarity, and affected minorities protected; and can the arrangement be evaluated and revised? European integration remains legitimate when collective capacity and democratic accountability advance together, not when either is treated as sufficient on its own.

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824  European Convention on Human Rights, arts. 1, 19, 34, and 35.

825  European Court of Human Rights, Guide on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and relevant thematic guides; Steven Greer, The Margin of Appreciation (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2000).

826  Treaty on European Union; Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

827  Brigid Laffan, ‘Europe’s Union in Crisis: Tested and Contested,’ West European Politics 39, no. 5 (2016): 915–932; Frank Schimmelfennig, Thomas Winzen, and others on differentiated integration.

828  Treaty on European Union, art. 5; Protocol No. 2 on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and Proportionality; Consolidated Treaty texts, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/collection/eu-law/treaties/treaties-force.html.

829  Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, arts. 119–144; European Central Bank, legal framework and Economic Bulletin analyses; Paul De Grauwe, Economics of Monetary Union, 15th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024).

830  European Parliament Research Service, Parliament’s Right of Legislative Initiative, EPRS_BRI(2025)767211; Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, art. 225.

831  European Parliament, ‘The European Parliament: Electoral Procedures,’ Fact Sheets on the European Union, updated 31 March 2026, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/21/the-european-parliament-electoral-procedures.

832  Andreas Føllesdal, ‘Subsidiarity,’ Journal of Political Philosophy 6, no. 2 (1998): 190–218; Protocol No. 2 to the EU Treaties.

835 Frank Schimmelfennig and Thomas Winzen, Ever Looser Union? Differentiated European Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

836 Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on Better Law-Making, OJ L 123, 12 May 2016; European Commission, Better Regulation Guidelines, SWD(2021) 305 final, as updated.