The permissive consensus that characterised the formation and first decades of operation of the EU has progressively been replaced by the so-called ‘democratic deficit’, which has been defined as the fact that European citizens have few opportunities to influence EU policy outcomes and decisions or that the EU is not accountable enough to its citizens (McCormick, 2014: 104). This was particularly noticeable during the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty, which, after being rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands, was nonetheless mostly implemented with only minor changes through the Treaty of Lisbon. More recently, the democratic credentials of the Union have been further negatively affected by the economic crisis, given that since then the troika -unaccountable to citizens- has largely taken control of economic and monetary policy at the expense of elected institutions, such as the European Parliament (EP) (Fossum, 2014: 60-65).