There are normative as well as specific European considerations for prioritising a strong model of democracy for the European Union centred on the public sphere. One central motivation relates to the complexity of existing democracies in advanced societies that tends to violate the background conditions underlying the representative model of democracy operating by aggregation and delegation. To this must be added the thickness and self-contained nature of the institutional systems of each EU Member State, especially in areas such as education, culture, social welfare and law and order, which render any straightforward or frictionless aggregation of interests largely impossible. Effecting the conditions for a strong democracy in advanced societies or the European Union is best thought of as a process of (further) democratisation than one of constituting a new model for democracy. The ultimate aim is not to undo and create new democratic institutions and procedures at different levels but rather to reform existing ones in ways that ensure that the underlying principal democratic ideas are organically sustained. The overall aim of the EUROPUB project has been to explore the applicability of a strong model of democracy for the European Union. Our research concentrated on two key areas for the European public sphere: first, the level of policy-making and the openness of the latter to citizen participation and contestation; second, the political discourse about Europe and specifically the project of political integration. The openness of policy-making structures to contestation and participation was researched through a series of policy case studies at different levels of governance and in different countries. The political discourse about European political integration was studied through an attitudes survey and the sociological career path analysis of members of the European political class. Additionally the EUROPUB project sought to integrate its findings in a transferable framework by developing a democratic audit for the European Union comprising over 400 indicators. Our research shows that there is a significant variation across policy domains with regard to both the institutional opportunity structures for participation and the total intensity of participatory practice as such. However these two dimensions do not stand in an obvious direct relationship. In other words, participatory practice is not dependent on the opportunity structures for participation, nor do the latter, when they exist, always lead to the desired democratic input in the decision process. The relationship is much more complex and needs to take into account various factors and primarily the decision procedures at work both at the European and national levels, the competencies of European institutions as compared to their counterparts at national level, the degree of felt 'common affectedness' of the key issues under consideration as well as the existence of key civil society organisations with strong advocacy coalitions. Despite this variation, our findings suggest that at the policy level we can indeed observe the emergence of a European public sphere in that there are both spaces and instances of deliberation and debate on issues of public concern that involve citizens or citizen representatives. At the same time, what we observe across several policy domains is attempts by government institutions to actively exclude societal actors from policy debates. This is, however, not fundamentally or even primarily a problem of EU institutions but is a phenomenon that occurs with equal if not more intensity at the national level. The legitimacy deficit of EU institutions, like the European Parliament, cannot be overcome alone by their democratisation through mainstream opportunity structures for participation like voting. The democratic deficit at this institutional level is located elsewhere and is intrinsically linked with the absence of a European public sphere about the political architecture of the European Union itself. This is strongly evidenced in the attitudes expressed by members of the emerging European political class. Members of the European political class can be distinguished between Euro-sceptics and Euro enthusiasts whereby Euro-scepticism is far more widespread than Euro-enthusiasm. At the same time and across the political spectrum we find a majority being disillusioned with mainstream representative politics. More significantly, however, we find a complete dissonance with regard to the future of the European Union and of the project of political integration. This dissonance exists within national delegations as well as within political groupings. Only one out of four favour some form of federalism for the EU. The rest are equally divided between a model of cooperative intergovernmentalism and a view that sees no role for either the European Parliament or national elected officials. Even though debates in Europe display a shared policy language, debates about Europe have yet to find a shared political language and their representatives. This dissonance or the lack of a unifying European ideology across the political spectrum or of unifying European political ideologies within political parties explains the continuing legitimacy deficit of the European Union. Unless dealt with directly and honestly, this will aggravate the democratic deficit of the European Union and harm its nascent public sphere.
