Bulletin n. 3/2006
December 2006
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Rittberger Berthold
    ‘No integration without representation!’ European integration, parliamentary democracy, and two forgotten Communities
    in Journal of European Public Policy , Volume 13, Number 8 / December 2006 ,  2006 ,  1211 – 1229
    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.
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