Abstract
"You don't fall in love with a common market? (EU Commission President Jacques Delors in The European, 3 November 1994). Here emerges one of the most challenging issues for the European Union. The prevalence of market integration has created a political vacuum and the so-called "democratic deficit?, essentially for lack of a genuine identification from the European citizens with European stakes. Indeed, it would be easier to consider that the EU project has failed in generating support from the citizens of the member states and consequently, in establishing the democratic bases it lacks today. The reality is that the project of the "Founding Fathers? , as presented in the Schuman Declaration (9 May 1950) relied on a combination of functionalism and technocratism that largely explains the a-political trajectory of the European construction
