Conclusion

Abstract

We can see from the description of the four Europes how legitimacy relates to the complexity of the EU. The Technocratic Europe consists largely of regulation, and requires legitimation more as regulations and rules increase. The suggestion has been made to reduce them, and simplification would help. However, it seems unrealistic to expect that any reduction would be noticeable enough to provide a positive legitimating factor. The average small businessman, for example, could heave a sigh of relief as one piece of red tape is removed, but is unlikely to think that the disappearance of one rule makes all the rest perfectly acceptable, and thereby transform his resentment of EU regulation into contentment with the system that delivered it. Nevertheless, as Chapter 6 showed, Technocratic Europe, for example by exercising the EU’s ‘soft power’ in sensitive areas in non-EU states, has potential to enhance the EU’s world standing, and thereby add to its citizens’ sense of identification.