Original sentence: The democratic deficit in the European Union is the notion that there are alledged democratic problems that have been a result of the process of creating the European Union (EU).The phrase "democratic deficit" has been attributed to Bill Newton Dunn, a British Member of the European Parliament who used the term in a pamphlet in the 1980s
Edited sentence: 'Democratic deficit' in relation to the European Union, refers to a perceived lack of accessibility to the ordinary citizen, or lack of representation of the ordinary citizen,  and lack of accountability of European Union institutions.In other words, in a supranational union or confederation (which is not a federal state) there is a problem of how to reconcile the principle of equality among nation states, which applies to  international (intergovernmental) organizations, and the principle of equality among citizens, which applies within nation states.Opinions differ on how to remedy the perceived deficit, and it is also argued that the deficit is structural, i.The German Constitutional Court, for instance, argues that decision-making processes in the EU remain largely those of an international organization, which would ordinarily be based on the principle of the equality of  states.The democratic deficit has been called a 'structural democratic deficit', in that it is inherent in the construction of the European Union as a supranational union that is neither a pure intergovernmental organization, nor a true federal state.The democratic deficit in the European Union refers to a perceived lack of democracy in the European Union, due to a lack of legitimacy of institutions of the European Union and a  lack of influence of its citizens.The phrase democratic deficit is cited as first being used by David Marquand in 1979, referring to the then European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union.The principles of equality of states and the principle of equality of citizens cannot be reconciled in a Staatenverbund.cannot be resolved without changing the nature of the Union