European Democracy: A Manifesto
Edited by Mark Leonard and Tom ArbuthnottBetween December 2001 and July 2003, Europe’s great and good were convened to find a way that the European Union could ‘be brought closer to its citizens.’
These six essays outline a somewhat different picture of democracy in Europe to that of the Convention. They argue that the problem of democracy will not be solved by constitutional reform alone.
Successful European democracy will allow strong national and regional identities to be combined with the effective policies that European citizens demand. Citizens will feel that they have some kind of control over the whole set of issues that can no longer be dealt with by national governments working alone, and which are best dealt with in Brussels. These essays, written by a wide range of leading academics and practitioners from across Europe, abound with ideas about how this can be made to happen – with or without constitution.