欧盟委员会与公民社会关系的变迁与反思

Reflections on the Transformation of the Relationships between the European Commission and the Civil Society

随着欧盟治理的民主合法性危机的突显,欧盟委员会积极地把公民社会组织纳入欧盟政治过程中。本文通过对欧盟委员会有关公民社会的文件的系统分析,指出欧盟委员会与公民社会(组织)之间的关系近年来发生了变迁,这主要体现在:一方面,欧盟委员会从只关注咨询利益集团,转而突出广义的公民社会组织乃至"相关各方"的纳入;另一方面,从只关注公民社会组织的提供信息和专家知识的作用,也就是说对输出合法性的贡献,转而突出公民社会组织的参与对消除欧盟"民主赤字"、促进欧盟治理的输入合法性的作用。最后,文章对欧盟委员会纳入战略中存在的问题,诸如促进参与民主的真实性、公民社会组织概念的泛化与空洞化以及公民社会组织的代表性等,进行了批评性评价。

With the revelation of the democratic legitimacy crisis of the EU Governance,the European Commission has been engaged actively in involving the civil society into the EU political process. Through a systematic analysis of the European Commission's documents concerning the civil society,this article points out that the relations between the European Commission and the civil society have changed in recent years in a twofold way. On the one hand,the European Commission turns from paying attention only to consulting the special interest groups to emphasising the involvement of the widely defined civil society and even of all the 'interested parties'. On the other hand,instead of attaching importance only to the functions of the civil society to provide information and expert knowledge,in other words,to its contribution to the output legitimacy,the European Commission turns to emphasise its contribution to eliminating the EU's democratic deficit and to promoting the input legitimacy of the EU Governance. This article finally gives a critical assessment of the existing problems in the European Commission's involving strategy,such as the authenticity of participatory democracy,the wide-ranged but empty concept of civil society as well as its representativity,and so on.