The crisis of legitimacy of the European Union from the constructivist perspective

Abstract

The article is an attempt to analyse the legitimacy of the European Union, taken from the perspective of moderate constructivist theory. First, the author presents the constructivist assumptions about the legitimacy of the European Union. Then he emphasises the importance of discourse for the development of the EU and describes categories occurring in the multi-level political system. It is argued that strengthening of the discourses (their scope and communicated content) at European level in addition to the national discourses would promote the process of enhancing the legitimacy of the European Union. These discourses are relevant for the development of European identity that allows citizens to recognise the European political system as “their”, which will be – according to the author – the result of the processes concentrated on political activities, institutions and legal system embracing pluralism of opinions, attitudes and behaviors. The result would be “a common space of existence for the European citizens”.