Discussions pertaining to advancing strategic policies and democracy in the EU cannot afford to disregard a fundamental institutional dilemma of the EU's political system, the conflict between intense interdependence and power sharing in a multilevel polity for one, and autonomy of governments as a condition for democratic legitimacy of power for another. Conceiving the EU as a federal democracy draws attention to this dilemma. This concept suggests democracy-preserving modes of governance instead of coercive coordination (policy adjustment to competition in the common market, joint decision-making among governments, central regulation by law and court decisions), which so far predominate in most relevant policy fields. It also calls for procedures to cope with issues of distributive justice stemming from territorial disparities in resources and burdens. The article conceptualises these challenges and outlines feasible steps to advance federal democracy in the EU.

中文翻译：

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联邦民主、分配正义和欧洲的未来

关于推进欧盟战略政策和民主的讨论不能忽视欧盟政治体系的基本制度困境、多层次政体中强烈的相互依存和权力分享之间的冲突，以及作为民主合法性条件的政府自治另一个人的权力。将欧盟设想为联邦制民主国家会引起人们对这一困境的关注。这个概念暗示了维护民主的治理模式，而不是强制协调（针对共同市场竞争的政策调整、政府间的联合决策、中央法律和法院判决的监管），迄今为止，强制协调在大多数相关政策领域占主导地位。它还呼吁制定程序来处理因资源和负担的地域差异而产生的分配正义问题。本文将这些挑战概念化，并概述了在欧盟推进联邦民主制的可行步骤。