Politics of The European Union - Legal Basis

Legal Basis

Article 10

• 1. The functioning of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy.
• 2. Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament. Member States are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.
• 3. Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen.
• 4. Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union..

- Article 10 of the Treaty on European Union

The constitutional basis and organisation of the European Union is based on its treaties. There are two principle core treaties which have been amended over its history to give the EU more competencies and reconfigure the relationship between its institutions. The treaties declare the EU to be based upon representative democracy and "on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities".

The EU itself as a legal personality and a set of governing institutions empowered by the treaties. However sovereignty is not invested in those institutions, it is pooled with ultimate sovereignty resting with the national governments. Yet in those areas where the EU has been granted competencies, it does have the power to pass binding and direct laws upon its members.