OPINION:The really big problem facing the EU is not a perceived democratic deficit but the public's willingness to believe wild rumours about Brussels, writes Dan O'Brien
ONE DOES not have to be a paranoid Europhobe to fear that what politicians and officials get up to in Brussels is bad for democracy. Such fears were much in evidence in Ireland during the recent referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. They have not been assuaged by the subsequent reaction to the vote across the continent.
To see whether a democratic deficit really exists at the heart of the EU, a long view is needed. If European political history has a central theme, it has been the slow and unsteady circumscribing of the exercise of state power. In the past, monarchs and despots ruled their subjects arbitrarily and absolutely. Today, government is limited and accountable, and rulers are constrained by a tangle of checks and balances.
The democratic system of government enjoyed by the peoples of west and central European states today - though far from perfect anywhere, and better in some countries than in others - is the happy product of centuries of evolution. But in those same states that long process of evolution has in recent decades undergone one of its most significant mutations ever. The creation of a layer of government above the state, otherwise known as the European Union, is a historically unique development.
Debate about this development and its implications usually creates more heat than light, dominated as it is by uncritical pro-integrationists on the one hand and opponents on the other who attribute to the EU all manner of ills.
Such polarised views are one reason why the EU and its works are not scrutinised as any other layer of government (another is that much of what it does is detailed, technical and indescribably tedious).
Such a lack of scrutiny is unhealthy, not least because any change to the infrastructure of government of the magnitude seen in Europe in recent decades needs to be understood and accepted by voters if it is to have a firm foundation of legitimacy. Because this does not happen as it should, suspicions abound that opportunistic politicians and "faceless eurocrats" are up to no good and, at worst, are working to reverse the long trend towards making the wielders of power more accountable to the people.
Such suspicions are well founded in principle. It is always unwise to assume politicians and officials have noble intentions, even if many do much of the time. Healthy scepticism about the motives of those driving the integration project is warranted, just as it is about all those who exercise power in any context.
But even if one assumes the worst - that politicians support deeper integration because it allows them to operate with less scrutiny and officials because it increases their power - examining motives alone is insufficient to determine whether an EU democratic deficit exists. Most important is what the EU actually does.
Though the EU has many flaws, a democratic deficit is not among them. The proof is easily demonstrated. If you are on the sharp end of a democratic deficit, be it in today's Russia, the Northern Irish state of yesteryear or countless other examples, you do not have to be a political scientist or legal theorist to know it. Your rights are ridden roughshod over and woe betide you if you attempt to do anything about it.
This is patently not the case in Europe today. Over a half-century of European integration one will not find any country or group who has suffered such a fate, even among the smallest and most powerless countries, Ireland included. And it is not mere happenstance that the EU functions as it does. The reason is simple: manifold checks and balances. The most important is the hawk-like manner in which 27 member countries look out for their interests and watch the actions of the other 26. Ministers in national capitals spend much time shuttling back and forth to Brussels to push their interests and protect their patch. Swathes of national civil services and their entire diplomatic corps support them, scanning the radar screen for anything that threatens their national interests or those of a constituency in their countries.
When alarm bells ring, even the smallest countries can veto, block, hinder and delay regardless of motive. Tiny Luxembourg has long prevented changes to EU-wide banking laws to protect its financial services industry, and this in the face almost all of the other members wanting such measures to curb tax evasion.
At the other end of the continent, little Cyprus has wildly disproportionate and often pernicious influence on the entire bloc's relations with Turkey, a country of real strategic importance for the union.
The manner in which countries conduct their affairs in the EU is in many ways little different from most other international organisations.
But the EU differs in that it has a second layer of checks and balances that entities such as the UN have not. Where most intergovernmental organisations have toothless institutions, the EU's are anything but. The commission, parliament and the court of justice all have significant powers in the limited areas where they can act.
They are in an endless struggle for influence, unceasingly seeking to prevent each other and the member states from encroaching on their turf, and each is permanently poised to spring on the others if there is the slightest suggestion that the mark is being overstepped. Though this endless squabbling among institutions is sometimes petty, it ensures everyone is kept in check.
The EU's most urgent task is not to deal with an illusory democratic deficit, but to close its yawning legitimacy deficit whereby voters are willing to believe wild and often baseless accusations against it.
As recent referendums in Ireland, France and the Netherlands have shown, this is not easy. Unless it can be addressed more effectively, the union's long-term future may be in doubt.
Dan O'Brien is a senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit