Until now, European democracy has been institutionally thought and organised as a regime of competitive party democracy. Simon Hix says that 'democracy only really exists if there is a choice between competing policies and politicians, and if there is a reasonable chance of alternation in government.' Sadly enough, European parliamentary elections, which are the only direct European elections, are not perceived by citizens as a democratic opportunity to choose between competing policies at the European level and voters participation is steadily falling. This is partly due to the fact that, as Hix and many others argue, 'European Parliament elections are not about Europe, as parties and the media treat them as mid-term national contests.' However, many other factors contribute to the idea that EU democracy does not exist. On the one hand, there are institutional factors resulting in a lack of curiosity, information and understanding about EU institutions of which decision-making processes are thought to be obscure and technocratic by most of the Europeans concerned. Transfer of competences to the EU have, indeed, gradually transformed the balance of power between national parliaments and the European executive actors such as the Commission and the Council, while the European Parliament, despite an increasing influence and power, is still too weak to compensate for the loss of parliamentary control at the national levels. Moreover, Members of the European Parliament are not connected to the citizens as are supposed to be traditional elected representatives in the national assemblies. On the other hand, institutional factors are not sufficient enough to explain the deep-grounded feeling of a present democratic discontent that fills out citizens' grievances. At a turning point in the history of the European powers, two issues pertaining to the idea of government and legitimacy are at stake. The first is the notion of balance of power and democracy, the second is the conceptualization of what it means to be a citizen and thus what it is that defines citizenship and political participation and recognition. The argument is that, if 'citizens are not able to vote on EU policies, except in periodic referendums on EU membership or treaty reforms,' it is because they have never been able to involve themselves naturally at a European level as national governments never allowed it to happen. Furthermore, issues addressed by the European Union are not apparently salient to EU citizens' main concerns as Andrew Moravcsik stated it during a lecture on the legitimacy of the European constitutional settlement at LSE on the 12th of May 2009. Those questions will be individually developed in future posts.