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The Democratic Deficit and EU institutions after Crises: Improvement or Deterioration?

Research Paper by Alexandros Kyriakidis

18.10.2022


Abstract

EU measures during crises weakened democratic governance, making changes necessary to enhance democracy.

The European Union (EU) has undergone a variety of crises in the last decade, with the main ones in terms of financial measures being the Eurozone financial crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic. To effectively address the consequences of each of these, a number of changes in the modus operandi of the EU – primarily in relation to its institutions – have been adopted. This has, inevitably, impacted the way democracy operates at the EU level as well. The aim of this research is to examine this impact using the conceptualization of the EU democratic deficit, in order to assess whether democratic governance within the EU has improved or has been adversely impacted by these changes. It is found that the measures adopted by the EU during crises have had a largely adverse impact on EU democratic governance. Improvements are necessary to strengthen primarily the participatory and inclusionary aspects of democratic policy-making, to which end policy suggestions are provided in the concluding section, based on the findings of the research.

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About the author

Dr. Alexandros Kyriakidis is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and the Head of Operations and Research at the Center for Research on Democracy and Law of the University of Macedonia (Greece). He holds a PhD in International and European Studies (with distinction) from the University of Macedonia (Greece), an MPhil in Politics from the University of Sheffield (UK), an MSc in Global Politics from the University of Southampton (UK), and a BA in Political Science from the College of Wooster (Ohio, USA).


#democracy #crisis #EU #COVID-19 #Eurozone


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