What is meant by the phrase “democratic deficit” with regard to the European Union?

The meaning of this phrase is that there is not enough
real democracy in the European Union because its people do not really care about EU
elections and because there is not a great deal of respect for its governmental
institutions.

The EU has a weak government because it is
not really a sovereign state.  Each of the EU countries continues to have a fairly
strong national identity and people do not necessarily identify much with the EU
government.  Because of this, they do not care about the government a lot and do not
really see it as their own
government.

Because the people do not have much faith in
the government and do not have that much influence over it, the EU is said to have a
democratic deficit.