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Armstrong links macro structures to the micro level (individual action) by providing a critical analysis of the institutionalization of new modes of governance and their impact on civil society and democratic politics. The argument is presented with respect to a particular new mode of governance, the open method of co‐ordination (or OMC), which is seen as posing challenges for integration theories that assume that law and courts would be central to understanding EU governance. OMC does not rest on the instrumental usage of EU law to achieve its goal and triggers law‐production at the national rather than the EU level. Focussing on the application of the OMC to the fight against poverty and social exclusion, Armstrong elaborates the tension (and potential pitfalls and promise) this new mode of governance presents for EU democracy. The six sections of the chapter are: Introduction; OMC and Integration Theory; Institutional Context and Change: Systemic Discourses, Rules and Norms—an analysis of the systemic context of OMC inclusion policy; The Organizational, Procedural, and Substantive Levels of Policy Development; Mobilizing Actors—the roles of civil society actors at national/subnational and transnational levels in the OMC inclusion process; and Conclusions.

This chapter proposes a new institution to remedy the EU’s current democracy protection deficit, tentatively called the ‘Copenhagen Commission’. The idea is to create an EU-specific democracy and Rule of Law watchdog, an institution which in certain respects would be comparable to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission. Before suggesting alternatives to existing approaches, the chapter first considers what it would take for democracy and Rule of Law protection to function properly. It then seeks to specify what it would take for the EU in particular to protect liberal democracy within Member States. After expanding on the institutional setup and powers of the Copenhagen Commission, the chapter concludes by addressing a number of common objections to this proposal, as well as discussing some necessarily speculative thoughts about the conditions under which the proposal might be implemented.

This chapter sets the stage for the book’s analysis of the latest phase of the evolution of the role of national parliaments (NPs) in the EU as shaped by two key factors: the Lisbon Treaty and the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. The overarching research question is whether NPs exhibit resilience or resignation in these changed politico-legal and socio-economic circumstances. The chapter also explicates why the Lisbon Treaty and the euro crisis have been fundamental to NPs’ positioning on the EU’s constitutional map. The notions of ‘national identity’ and ‘good functioning of the EU’ are decomposed and reconstructed as core determinants of the permanence of NPs in European public law. It is argued that the manner in which NPs shape these two notions constitutes the lynchpin of the discursive component of EU democracy, which has been at the heart of the problem of the Union’s legitimacy for decades.

The Commission is acquiring more and more the characteristics of a classic executive, which means that its governance is expected to be democratic and its executive democratically legitimated. Normalization of executive relationships was unavoidable but poses, at the same time, a set of new complex dilemmas. Has the EU been able to establish itself as a legitimate authority, as a political actor in its own right? And what future is there for the Commission?