“Is there a deficit of throughput legitimacy in the EU?”

Theoretical questions regarding how to legitimate the European Union’s supranational governance have turned the spotlight on procedural legitimacy and its relationship to political and performance legitimacy. In EU studies, such questions translate into a focus on ‘throughput’ legitimacy’ and its relationship to ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacy. This article defines the terms, discusses their interrelationships, then elaborates on the five criteria encompassed by throughput—efficacy, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and openness. It illustrates with examples from EU governance, ending with the throughput legitimacy problems of EU institutional actors during the Eurozone crisis. The article argues that although throughput legitimacy is no substitute for input or output legitimacy, it is nonetheless an indispensable component of legitimacy. The interrelationships of its different components as well as with output and input legitimacy are at the center of the dilemmas of EU governance today.Accepted manuscrip