“Built To Keep Voters Out?” The Fight Over How Democratic the EU Really Is

The accusation landed like a grenade in Strasbourg. German MEP Christine Anderson, from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, took the floor and called the European Union not just undemocratic, but antidemocratic. She went further: in her view, this is not a bug of European integration, but it’s very design.

According to Anderson, the EU was deliberately created to sideline citizens, bury decisions in obscure procedures and shield its leaders from accountability. The message travels well on social media and fits a familiar mood: that “Brussels” is distant, technocratic and unresponsive.

But when this claim is put in front of people who study European politics for a living, the reaction is very different. “That doesn’t make sense to me”, says Paul Taggart, professor of politics at the University of Sussex and a leading expert on Euroscepticism. “The EU wasn’t designed by anyone. It evolved over time.”  

Conspiracy or a convenient myth?

Taggart stresses that there was never a single master plan or architect behind the Union, no hidden blueprint to lock citizens out. Instead, it has grown treaty by treaty, crisis by crisis, as governments bargained and compromised. At the University of Antwerp, political scientist Peter Bursens is equally blunt in rejecting Anderson’s narrative. “I think the EU is a very democratic system”, he says.

For Bursens, the real story is less about a secret antidemocratic project in Brussels and more about what national governments and parliaments choose to do with the powers they already have. So why do accusations like Anderson’s feel so convincing to so many people? To answer that, it helps to unpack what “euroscepticism” means — and what it does not.

EU criticism comes from a desire to improve the system

In everyday debate, “eurosceptic” is often used for anyone who complains about EU policies. Farmers angry about agricultural rules, students frustrated by high prices or voters convinced that Brussels is too distant are all at risk of being thrown into the same basket.

Nino Maisuradze, a legal researcher at the Institute of International Justice and Diplomacy in Georgia, argues that not every critic is eurosceptic.

Someone can be unhappy with how EU migration rules work, or with the way the Green Deal is implemented, and still believe that European cooperation is necessary. That is criticism. Euroscepticism starts when the target is the entire idea of pooling power at EU level.

A survey of the European Commission called Eurobarometer was conducted between early January and February among more than 26,000 residents of all 27 Member States.

Taggart suggests that to understand euroscepticism properly, it helps to see that not all sceptics are alike. He distinguishes between hard and soft euroscepticism.

At one end is hard euroscepticism. This position rejects EU membership itself. It is not about fixing policies or reforming institutions but about leaving. Hard eurosceptics see membership as illegitimate or harmful and build their political project around exit. This stance is rare, but Brexit showed that it can win.

More common is soft euroscepticism, which accepts EU membership in principle but fiercely opposes certain directions or powers of the Union. Leaders like Marine Le Pen in France or Viktor Orbán in Hungary often use tough language about Brussels, its values and its rules. Yet they do not campaign to leave outright. Instead, they try to reshape the Union from within, limiting its reach and bending its rules.

According to Belgian MEP Pascal Arimont, the European Union needs to move further forward through new treaties:

In southern European countries, there is often a striking contrast. Citizens remain symbolically attached to the idea of Europe – the flag, Erasmus, the promise of peace – but are deeply unhappy with how the system works day to day. Their opposition is mostly “soft”: angry at the way decisions are made and implemented, not yet ready to abandon the project itself.

Behind all this lies the big question raised by Anderson’s speech: how democratic is the EU? Maisuradze agrees that the phrase “democratic deficit” captures a real problem, but insists the picture is more nuanced than the idea that the EU was intentionally built against citizens. The Union’s institutions rest on treaties that member states signed and ratified. These treaties were approved by democratically elected governments and, in some cases, by referendums. “Decision-making can appear overly bureaucratic, which creates the perception of a lack of accountability”, she says.

Hanspeter Kriesi, a political scientist at the European University Institute in Fiesola, Italy, pushes the critique further.

One example he gives is the so-called Spitzenkandidat system. Before the 2014 and 2019 European elections, each major political group in the European Parliament nominated its preferred candidate for President of the European Commission. In theory, voters were supposed to feel that their ballot was connected to the choice of Commission President.

Governments often strike deals in Brussels and then come home to blame “Europe” for unpopular decisions they themselves agreed to. This makes it easy to present the EU as a distant, unelected force, even when national leaders are deeply involved in shaping outcomes.

At Princeton University, political scientist Andrew Moravcsik offers another angle. He defends the EU’s democratic credentials by stressing indirect control. Citizens elect national governments and parliaments, which then negotiate EU laws, appoint commissioners and approve treaties. The Union also specialises in technical fields such as trade, banking and competition policy – areas that are often insulated from day-to-day electoral pressure in national systems too. From this perspective, what looks like distance is often the result of the kind of policy the EU handles.

For Bursens, part of the answer lies in how politicians talk about Europe:

Is the rise of euroscepticism a danger to the Union, or a sign that European democracy is finally growing up? On this, experts disagree. Taggart takes a more optimistic view. “The rise of Euroscepticism is healthy” he says. For decades, the EU was built under what scholars call permissive consensus: political elites pushed integration forward while most citizens paid little attention. Since the euro crisis and the pandemic, that period seems to be over. People argue about Europe now. They protest, they vote for parties with strong views on Brussels. For Taggart, this kind of contestation is normal and even necessary in a democracy.

Kriesi is more cautious. He warns that much of today’s euroscepticism is driven by nationalism. “Most Eurosceptics do not actually want more EU democracy. They want a weaker EU because they are nationalists.” he states. He points to the rule of law crisis in some member states, with Hungary as a key example, as the most serious democratic threat in Europe today. From this perspective, the danger is not an all-powerful Brussels crushing democracy from above, but national governments hollowing out checks and balances at home while blaming the EU.

Bursens notes that opposition to the EU looks different on the left and the right. The radical right fights decisions on migration, identity and law and order. The radical left focuses on economic rules and social policy. What unites them is the conviction that “the system is somehow predisposed” to produce outcomes they dislike.

Kriesi agrees that the most persistent challenge comes from right-wing nationalist movements that seek to weaken European constraints on their power.

For Maisuradze, the future of the Union will depend less on abstract debates about democratic deficits and more on whether citizens feel protected in their daily lives. If the EU can respond credibly to issues like inequality, migration and climate change, trust may be rebuilt. “Transparent leadership, fair policies and a strong sense of European solidarity are essential “she says.

Authors | Andreas Wasenius, Enda Sherifa Barboza, Quinten van Vorstenbos, Lara Van den Biesen, Melda Tokgöz