Less Bargaining – More Deliberation The Convention Method for Enhancing EU Democracy ANDREAS MAURER T he Laeken European Council of December 2001 agreed on a set of questions with regard to the future design of the eu ’s institutions and their democratic legitimacy. According to the Laeken declaration on the future of the European Union,»the European Union derives its legiti­macy from the democratic values it projects, the aims it pursues and the powers and instruments it possesses[and …] from democratic, transpar­ent and efficient institutions.«(European Council 2001) Although this statement suggests a broad normative consensus about the state of de­mocracy and legitimacy in the eu , the heads of state and government mandated the recent Convention to deliberate on some of the most tra­ditional questions to be answered when establishing any political system. Overall, the Laeken mandate mirrors an unequivocal picture of the eu : the Union remains designed as a political system in process. Although it is based on some of the most traditional concepts of representative democracy, the system requires improvement. However, the very nature of the mandate and its context – the failure of the Treaty of Nice, the perspective of an enlarged Union of 25 and more member states, and the effects of a globalized economy and trans-national risk production – show that these concepts are not fully implemented. In other words: The European Union faces serious problems with regard to the relationship between its governing bodies and its citizens. The very question of the Convention therefore is: Does, and if yes, how does the eu provide op­portunity structures for establishing a democratic system? Are there any means to reconstruct and to visualise a concept of democracy, which al­lows the Union to further build on its differentiated set of institutions, and to gain a positive feedback by its citizens? This paper attempts to explore the Convention method along the major outlines of the theoretical concept of deliberative democracy. My argument is that the Convention method can be seen as an alternative way for steering system change and fundamental reform of the European Union, because it features participative and inclusive forms of open de­ipg 1/2003 Maurer, Enhancing EU Democracy 167