I wrote an article on the Irish No vote to EU, in which I make the rather unpopular argument that EU treaty modifications are so complex that they are not suitable for referenda. The Irish no-vote is an indirect consequence of the 1987 decision by the Irish Supreme Court, requiring Ireland to always put all EU treaty modifications to a referendum.
If we started the EU from scratch today, it would be much different, but we have to look at the historical context in which it developed and make best of the system we already have in place. The voters are indirectly represented in two ways, the Lisbon treaty has been approved by the European Parliament, which consists of representatives of EU citizens, and it has been represented by 18 member state parliaments, which have also been democratically elected by the people.
It is interesting to note the comments section for my article, where there is actually quite a lot of meaningful debate on what is the meaning of democracy in today’s world (along with the usual name-calling and personal insults).
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