The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 60 strength and effectiveness and will enjoy great- er understanding and support among citizens. The intergovernmental institutions: the European Council and the Council of the EU The first source of the EU’s legitimacy are the states that make it up as full members, as they are the signatories of the treaties that constitute it. The existence of a supranational political en- tity was only recognised with the signing of the TEU in Maastricht in 1992 and was concluded with the recognition in the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) that the EU has its own legal personality. Until Maastricht, the European Communities were purely intergovernmental and that legacy still weighs on the current institutional function- ing of the Union and occasionally obstructs the functioning of the Community institutions. As Article 15 of the TEU says, the chief re- sponsibility of the European Council, as the Union’s maximum institution, is to give the Union the necessary impetus for its development and to define its general political directions and priori- ties. The Treaty explicitly says that it will not exer- cise any legislative functions. It does not fall to the European Council to represent the members states in legislative functions. That is the function of the Council, acting as a territorial chamber in a bicameral parliament, as we have defined it. It should not intervene in any specific matter of the Union’s daily life beyond the previously men- tioned general directions, except when they are matters that affect sovereignty, such as the ad- mission of new members, the signing of interna- tional treaties or defence issues. That is the theory. In practice, many national governments of the member states, particularly the more powerful ones, have no interest in leaving matters that affect their interests in the hands of the European Commission and the Parliament, in the face of the risk that the result may not favour them, and prefer to deal with them through the intergovernmental method in the Council or in the European Council. This is what has happened during the crisis that began in 2008. The European Council has gradually taken on more and more responsibilities, some- times starting from conversations between two heads of state or government and even on the initiative of just one, to the detriment of the competences of the Commission, which has be- come a mere auxiliary to give shape to the deci- sions taken by the European Council. That completely distorts the balance be- tween the two sources of legitimacy that we mentioned earlier and subverts the institution- al framework, since the European Council adopts decisions of an executive nature. And it is not only on economic matters, which could be justified on some occasions owing to ur- gency, but on other matters such as immigra- tion, which should be taken by the European Commission, as it is in a better position to act neutrally. The intergovernmental method is not transparent and has a democratic deficit. The European Council is not subject to the control of the Parliament and does not always act eq- uitably. There are governments that have more economic and political power and they wield it to further their own views. Nor is it accounta- ble to European citizens. Instead, each head of state or government is accountable to the elec- toral body of their own country. Citizens, then, have no opportunity to choose or control most of those who have had a hand in decisions that profoundly affect them, such as many of those taken during the crisis. Moreover, the consensus rule means that most decisions are very difficult to reach, through long and arduous negotiations that