The Treaty of Lisbon: Policymakers' Panacea or Placebo?

This thesis deals with the question what the effects of the Treaty of Lisbon are on the democratic legitimacy of European Governance. In order to reach conclusions, I have made use of the conceptual framework on input, throughput and output legitimacy by Bekkers, Dijkstra, Edwards, & Fenger (2007), which is an updated version of the framework on input and output legitimacy by Scharpf (1998). Each of the three forms of legitimacy was translated into a Eurobarometer question that best suits the corresponding form of legitimacy, and was subjected to a cross-national comparison between the EU MS of Slovakia, Denmark, Greece and Sweden. Not only did it appear that the Treaty of Lisbon did not affect the way Europeans perceive the democratic legitimacy of European Governance, the research also shows that there are structurally different attitudes towards EU democracy across the Union. This is likely explained by a mix of cultural, economic and political backgrounds at the national level. It was also established that in half of the EU MS, citizens rate EU democracy about as high or low as national democracy. This led to the conclusion that legitimacy is a highly subjective topic, notwithstanding any attempts by the EU and the MS to enhance it by launching new treaties, or by revising them. Instead, much ground can and must be gained at the national level, particularly by politicians, media, schools and companies, to help develop a European public sphere in order to close the distance between Brussels and Europeans.