Policy Legitimacy and the European Union

Although numerous contributions have been made towards establishing policy legitimacy in the European Union (EU), to date no comprehensive model has been developed. The aim of this article is to explain why the search for legitimacy of the European enterprise has not ultimately been satisfied. I argue that the reason for underdeveloped policy legitimacy in the Union stems not from the lack of interest on the part of European policy‐makers caused by the comfort of ‘permissive consensus’, but from the very nature of the concept of legitimacy as such, i.e. its organic, mythical foundation. Essentially, legitimacy reflects the belief that one system is just because it embodies an accepted superior justificatory principle, the myth. The justificatory message communicated by the myth creates an effective device for legitimation. The myth is understood here in its broad sense as the symbolic values through which people share an idea of origin, continuity, historical memories, collective remembrance, common heritage and tradition, as well as a common destiny, which has often involved a binding political process by which one ethnol has become hegemonic vis‐à‐vis the rest. Myth expresses and maintains social solidarity because it refers to values of belongingness and originality and a sense of shared collective identity and fate. Such a myth of origin as the ultimate source of legitimacy is missing from the European venture. No mythologein is powerfully operative within the Union, no one can win the consent of the entire Union population. The task of firmly and indisputably establishing Union policy legitimacy therefore encounters serious theoretical difficulties.