Debating the EU's Raison d'Être: On the Relation between Legitimacy and Justice

Since the eurozone, refugee and Brexit crises, it has become evident that the EU contributes to divergence among member states and inequality within them. It is also evident that the days of permissive consensus, integration by stealth, and trust in promises of peace and prosperity are long gone. Publics across the EU now wonder why the EU ought to garner their respect, and what role, if any, the EU should play in mitigating both cross‐ and intra‐national socioeconomic inequalities. They wonder, that is, what gives the EU legitimacy beyond securing a growth dividend and protecting against another European war, and what criteria of justice we ought to use in assessing the distributional consequences of integration. This contribution articulates a conception of legitimacy that has received very little attention in the literature, namely telic legitimacy, distinguishes it from conventional criteria of ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacy, explains its usefulness in addressing the EU's crisis in confidence, and outlines its relation to principles of justice.