The European Union and the Puzzle of Parliamentary Government

The parliamentary election of Jean-Claude Juncker as the Commission president re-launched the debate on the parliamentary transformation of the EU. The article critically discusses the argument that EU can or should become a parliamentary federation. Based on the analytical distinction between federation by aggregation and by disaggregation, and assuming the EU as a species of the former type, the article shows the difficulty of adopting a parliamentary government at the horizontal level because of the demographic asymmetry and cultural differentiation between the EU Member States. The constraints on adopting a parliamentary government are reflected in the Lisbon Treaty. But, also with a change of the Treaty, parliamentary government in the EU would be obstructed by inter-institutional and structural dilemmas.