‘No integration without representation!’ European integration, parliamentary democracy, and two forgotten Communities

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article demonstrates that constitutionalization has been high on the agenda of political élites since the early days of European integration in the 1950s. The inclusion of representative institutions – parliaments with budgetary, legislative and control powers – was central in the negotiations of the two ‘forgotten’ Communities: the European Defence Community (EDC) and the European Political Community (EPC). It is argued that it was not federalist ideology which prompted policy-makers at the time to allot a prominent place to a European Parliament in the institutional structures of those Communities; it was the intended transfer of sovereignty to the supranational level which prompted a ‘democratic spillover’ process whereby political élites came to reflect on the direct repercussion of supranational integration for domestic parliamentary competences. Overlooked by federalists, neofunctionalists and intergovernmentalists alike, this democratic ‘self-healing’ mechanism of European integration is one of the most remarkable features of the European integration enterprise.