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Abstract

European integration has long relied on the democratic legitimacy of its Member States without paying much attention to the increasing importance of its multilevel governing processes. At this time, however, Europe is caught in the intersection of multiple crises, all of which—Brexit as well as the euro crisis, the refugee crisis as well as the crises in Europe's relations with its Eastern and Southern ‘near abroad’—are challenging the effectiveness as well as the democratic legitimacy of government on European and national levels. These dual challenges are connected: Democratic legitimacy presupposes effective governing and problem-solving capacity. Hence the failure of output legitimacy may undermine or even destroy the possibility of input legitimacy—a risk for which the fate of the Weimar Republic remains a most disturbing memento. At the same time, however, the lack of input legitimacy in the present European context will constrain and may ultimately destroy the effectiveness of measures based on non-accountable supranational authority.