Dealing with dissent: Recommendation to leave the EU

Plato’s admonition to ‘know thyself’ appears to be most appropriate for the EU in the twenty-first century. For decades, the EU has cherished a deliberate ambiguity concerning the nature of the Union and the future of Europe. This carefully maintained deadlock, however, has prevented the EU and its academics from accounting for its evolution from an internal market into a European democracy. The present contribution finds that the Lisbon Treaty constructs the EU as a democratic international organisation. The EU is neither a state nor an association of states but has evolved into a union of democratic states which also constitutes a democracy of its own. Faced with increasing challenges from political parties eager to dismantle European democracy from within, the EU has to embrace its democratic identity and to replace its traditional ambiguity with the firm determination to defend its constitutional achievements.