This is the season for the European Parliament Office to be swamped with urgent requests for information for transition-year projects on the EU. One of the most frequent topics on which information is requested is the democratic deficit. What is it? The democratic deficit is a phrase used for the fact that many decisions that were formerly taken by national governments, responsible to national parliaments, are now taken at a higher level, where national parliaments are no longer able to influence them. Since 1970, the EU budget has been financed from the EU's own resources, and is no longer passed by national parliaments. For this reason, the European Parliament was given budgetary powers in 1970.
In legislation, the increase in majority voting in the Council, agreed in the mid1980s, meant that national ministers could be outvoted, and so their national parliament lost control of the outcome of their meetings. As the European Parliament had little power, there was little democratic input to balance the ministers' decisions.
In 1993, when the Maastricht Treaty was ratified, the European Parliament was given equal powers with the Council over some legislation. Once this principle was admitted, Parliament complained much less about the democratic deficit. When the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, co-decision between Parliament and Council will be the general rule. The remaining question mark is over the European Parliament's democratic credentials: if turnout in the European elections is lower than in national elections, does that mean that the legitimacy of Parliament's input is somehow less?
Parliament points to the fact that turnout in the American presidential election is lower than in European Parliament elections, but that is not great comfort. That is why Parliament would like to see a higher turnout in the June 1999 EP elections.