The concept of demoi-cracy outlines a third way towards a democratic EU beyond intergouvernmentalist and supranational approaches (“Staatenbund” vs. “Bundesstaat”). It defends the status quo of the EU as a new type of democracy – a ‘democracy of democracies’ – based on three assumptions: First, member states are the main carriers of democracy in the EU and should remain so. Second, we should stop thinking about EU democracy in terms of a demos and a state, because both imply an essentialism that endangers the survival of national democracies. Third, EU democracy’s rationale is not self-government but mutual recognition of its statespeoples and transnational non-domination. The paper argues that while demoi-cracy rightly rejects intergouvernmentalist and supranationalist approaches, its very own basic principle of transnational non-domination requires a change in today’s EU polity, bringing the EP on par with the Council in constitutional matters – no EU demoi-cracy without demos-cracy on par.
