Composite democracy in Europe: the role of transparency and access to information

Abstract The European Union (EU) is a "composite' democracy which features diverse forms of democratic legitimation: vertical legitimation through parliamentary representation in the European Parliament; executive representation through delegates of democratically elected governments in the Council of Ministers; horizontal mutual control among member states; associative and expert representation (delegation) in policy networks; and, finally, individual rights-based legitimacy. The argument developed in this article will proceed in four steps: first, the various strands of democratic legitimation are described while locating transparency, and access to information in the overall context of attempts at democratic legitimation in the EU. In the second step, the programme to increase transparency is specified in more detail. In the third step, a discussion gauges the compatibility of the relationship between access to information and transparency, on the one hand, and the central components of European democratic legitimation, on the other. In a fourth and final step, normative conclusions will be drawn with respect to the possible functions that access to information and transparency - bearing in mind the compatibility of the individual components - serve in the context of Europe's composite democracy. Keywords: Access To InformationComposite DemocracyDemocracyEuropeTransparency