Abstract
Plato’s admonition to ‘know thyself’ appears to be most appropriate for the EU in the twenty-first century. For decades, the EU has cherished a deliberate ambiguity concerning the nature of the Union and the future of Europe. This carefully maintained deadlock, however, has prevented the EU and its academics from accounting for its evolution from an internal market into a European democracy. The present contribution finds that the Lisbon Treaty constructs the EU as a democratic international organisation. The EU is neither a state nor an association of states but has evolved into a union of democratic states which also constitutes a democracy of its own. Faced with increasing challenges from political parties eager to dismantle European democracy from within, the EU has to embrace its democratic identity and to replace its traditional ambiguity with the firm determination to defend its constitutional achievements.
Keywords
Introduction
The recent award of the Charlemagne Prize to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen 2025) presents a fine occasion for congratulating the EU on establishing itself as the first-ever democratic union of democratic states. At the same time, however, the EU must be criticised for its inability to protect its democracies. Thus, it must be asked whether the EU can claim to be a democratic union of democratic states if one member state purposely and consistently undermines the values of the Union.
The transformations of Europe
Against this backdrop, the initiative of the Martens Centre to address the challenges posed by the surge of political extremes is most timely (Welle and Reho 2025). The collection of essays and analyses published at the start of 2025 merits a wider discussion than it has caused so far. The present article aims to give the debate an extra dimension by emphasising the need for a conceptual rethink of the EU. It is triggered by the observation that the EU is currently experiencing a second ‘transformation of Europe’. The first one saw a patchwork of bellicose nation-states become an internal market. It has been meticulously described and analysed by Weiler in his seminal essay ‘The Transformation of Europe’ (Weiler 1991). The second transformation has been brought about by the introduction of EU citizenship in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the inclusion of the values of the Union in the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. From a philosophical perspective, the EU has replaced the utilitarian vision of human beings as ‘market people’ enjoying economic freedoms with the Aristotelian idea of people as political beings (Hoeksma 2023a). In line with this approach, Article 10(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) stipulates that every citizen has the right to participate in the political life of the Union, while Article 10(4) underlines the contribution of political parties at the European level to forming a European political awareness and to expressing the will of the citizens of the Union.
A democratic international organisation
The conceptual consequences of the EU’s metamorphosis from an internal market to a transnational democracy should not be underestimated. In the process, the EU has outgrown the Westphalian system of international relations and has established itself as a democratic union of states and citizens. As the EU has surpassed the Westphalian paradigm, it can no longer be identified in terms of that outdated template. In its present form, the EU is neither a state nor an ordinary association of states but forms a union of democratic states which also constitutes a democracy of its own (Hoeksma 2023b). As the EU is the only international organisation which functions on the basis of a transnational model of constitutional democracy, it can be identified as a democratic international organisation. From the perspective of its citizens, the EU may be described as a democratic union of democratic states. From their point of view, the hallmark of the Lisbon Treaty is that respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law are no longer exclusive obligations of the member states but are also concerns of the Union.
The EU can only thrive if its democracy thrives
Translated into practical politics, these treaty provisions imply that the institutions of the EU and their representatives are bound by the values of the Union in the same way as the member states and their leaders are. In her acceptance speech for the Charlemagne Prize, President von der Leyen embodied this spirit by underlining that the EU ‘can only thrive if its democracy thrives’ (von der Leyen 2025). At the same time, however, she continues to present the EU in her communications as a simple union of states. According to the European Commission’s current description, the EU is no more than ‘a unique economic and political union between 27 European countries’ (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication 2022, 7). As it is obvious that the EU cannot present itself as an ordinary union of states and simultaneously pretend to be a democracy, the president would be well-advised to take the lessons of the Court of Justice of the EU to heart. Interpreting the law as laid down in the treaties, the Court has established in a number of verdicts that the EU has evolved from an ordinary union of democratic states into a European democracy. In plain language, the Court finds that the EU is a union of democratic states which also constitutes a democracy of its own. These findings do not only solve the age-old conundrum concerning ‘the nature of the beast’ but also create conditions for the EU to defend itself against threats from within and from abroad.
The threat to abolish European democracy
In view of the rise of the political extremes during the 2024 European Parliament elections, the crucial question for the survival of the EU as a democratic polity of states and citizens can be reformulated as follows: Can the EU work as a democratic union of democratic states if a member state ceases to be democratic? Does the EU have the means to defend its democratic identity against autocrats determined to undermine the EU from within?
The threat is real. After a decade of successfully challenging the values of the EU in his home country, the Hungarian prime minister, Victor Orbán, has ventured to go continental by launching a transnational party under the misleading name ‘Patriots for Europe’. His main goal is to destroy European democracy and to dismantle the European Parliament. At present, the EU’s toolbox contains two instruments: the twin procedures laid out in Article 7 TEU aim to address serious breaches of the values of the Union by member states. In addition, the EU institutions have introduced a conditionality mechanism linking the disbursement of EU funds to respect for the values of the Union. While the procedures of Article 7 have hardly had any significant effect, the withholding of funds appears to have bite—though not sufficient to convince Orbán to restore democracy in Hungary.
Recommendation to leave the EU
So, what strategy is most advisable for the EU after the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Schuman Declaration? First, the institutions should stop sending diffuse signals about the nature of the beast and instead start to embrace the democratic identity of their Union. Second, ‘Brussels’ must make clear that the EU does not envisage abolishing the member states but wants to include them and their citizens in the construction and functioning of the Union. Finally, the Commission has to accentuate the message that the EU and the member states must combine efforts to defend the accomplishments of the polity. They should emphasise that the Union is built on trust. Member states trust each other to the extent that they share the exercise of sovereignty in a supranational organisation. As the desire to create an ever-closer union is no longer destined to lead to the proclamation of a federal European state, the question must be addressed as to how to deal with disloyalty and to preserve the democratic identity of the EU as a whole.
In contrast to the Statute of the Council of Europe, the EU treaties do not permit the Union or its constituent parts to forcibly expel from the polity a member state violating its values. In addition, the Court of Justice of the EU has established that accession to and withdrawal from the Union are both expressions of the sovereign will of the member states (arts. 49 and 50 TEU). As Article 7 TEU and the conditionality mechanism demonstrate, this does not preclude the EU as a polity from defending its values against erosion by backsliding member states. Faced with an unforeseen challenge, the Union therefore needs a new instrument for the protection of the polity as such.
Since Orbán’s policy is to enjoy the benefits of the Union without bearing its burdens, the aim of the EU’s strategy should be to deprive disloyal member states of the fruits of membership. This can be done by broadening the scope of the conditionality mechanism to include all EU payments made to dissident member states in combination with making a recommendation for them to leave (consilium abeundi). The experience of the Council of Europe, which applied this procedure in the cases of Greece, after the coup d’état of 1967, and Russia, after its invasion of Ukraine, indicates that the addressed state prefers to accept the consequences over being publicly humiliated. In the case of the EU, the recommendation to leave should be combined with a freeze on all payments to the member state in question and the suspension of voting rights in the relevant councils. In this way, the EU can make dissent so unattractive that autocratic leaders will think twice before resorting to the practice of undermining the Union from within.
Conclusion
While Article 7 TEU envisages the restoration of the values of the Union in a member state, the rationale of the current proposal is to preserve the identity of the EU as a whole, to protect its functioning as a democratic polity of democratic states. Obviously, results will not be accomplished overnight. The practice of European integration shows that important innovations have been achieved by initiatives outside the treaties, as epitomised by the establishment of the European Council. The message of the proposed initiative is that moral hazard will not pay off and that member states unwilling to carry the burdens of EU membership will not be allowed to reap the fruits thereof.
