As in the article I published yesterday, one of the major (legitimate) issues people have a problem with when it comes to the EU is the democratic deficit. Most EU decisions are not taken democratically, not voted on, and not even put into motion by the only democratically elected body in the entire system. Only in 2014, was the Commission President finally ‘elected’. And even then in a quasi-constitutional-monarchy-esque method, where by the Spitzenkandidat with the most support in the European Parliament is invited by the European Council (to continue the analogy, standing in for the queen) to form a government. Of course this needs to change, but to understand why we are where we are, we need to take a look at a little history.

And yes, it comes back to that word in European politics that no one wants to hear at the moment – integration. In a lecture I had last week, the lecturer spoke of two main forms of integration; positive, and negative. That isn’t to say that one is bad and the other isn’t, but that they involve to opposite ways of integrating economies (and politics). This lies at the heart of the democratic issue.

For as long as European integration has been going on, the type of integration that has been pushed has been negative. This basically involves the removing of barriers; barriers to trade, to business, to the movement of the factors of production, money and people. It doesn’t involve building anything new, so much as to allow things to flow amongst each other and intermingle. Every European treaty has involved some sort of negative integration, from Rome, to Schengen, to Maastricht. Removing barriers has naturally been the major focus in the creation of the single market. Even the creation of the Eurozone had the removal of a barrier to trade at it’s heart.

Positive integration has been a much less present part of the creation of the EU. Up until the past couple of decades, real talk on positive integration has for the most part been ignored. Positive integration is the building up of social institutions which control the market and force it to achieve the social objectives we want it to. Beyond that it is the creation of real, integrated and unified pan-EU governing systems, whereby people from across the continent are protected and included. Of course, some social directives have been pursued by the EU; the working time directive, equality of workers and so on. However when it comes to real social protections, institutions and measures that bring the people of the EU closer together, it’s noticeable in its absence.

There is a major reason for this disparity between positive and negative integration, and as you’d expect it’s mainly political. Negative integration in the most part is very easy to implement – though apparently more difficult than EU leaders were willing to consider when they created the Eurozone for example. There are quite a few free trade areas across the globe now (Mercosur and ASEAN). Removing barriers to trade involves a lot less work, coordination and most importantly, giving up sovereign rights, than positive integration. Positive integration involves things like unified fiscal regimes, taxes, increased powers to supranational institutions (such as the European Parliament and Commission), collective insurance on debt, institutions to protect workers, commonly implemented regulation – things that undermine national sovereignty, uniting people instead on the European level and empowering them. These things ensure that the EU guarantees social protections and objectives are achieved and enforced by the EU, not left to the whims of local government. A common social standard across Europe. A common expectation of rights, living standards and wealth.

As I said, the main issue here is the loss of sovereignty. A common theme of European integration is that it has only occurred when it has suited national governments, and to think that giving up sovereignty in the negatively is far less obvious and far reaching than positively. An EU constitution was pushed for in the early 2000s was one example of an attempt at positive integration, failing ratification when two of the original six lost the vote in national referendums. The prospect of a common EU army has come up before and been rejected. Although the army provides less benefits to the individual, the constitution was supposed to set up an official standard to which all citizens of the EU could look to and recognise as their own. It is this kind of integration that we are now looking at, and national politicians are staring at grimly wondering whether they really have to or not. Things which force out the old regime of intergovernmentalism in favour of federalism. Why does the EU have a democratic deficit? Because the kind of integration that this demands is not what the national governments signed up for. It is a wonder whether any of them thought they’d ever get here. Well here we are, and we’re all expecting you to realise that the regime you’ve constructed is only going to build tension until you go that extra step into the unknown. We’re all waiting; it’s coming closer to that time to take the plunge.