Towards a European Transnational Party System. An Introduction

The author deals with the issue, still unresolved, of a better defined and more substantial institutional and functional position for political parties in the European Union system. This subject is part of the broader, endemic problem of the democratic deficit and the political development of the Union. The need for a genuinely systemic European - hence transnational - dimension of political parties is addressed by the author in terms of European party-building, within the ongoing broader process of democratic institution-building of the EU. The future of a genuine European party would be assured by its role of relevant actor of the transnational extension of democracy, that is as a vehicle of democracy in the glocal political space.