written by Yilmaz Kaplan printable version send your friend

Friday, 23 October 2009

The nation-state was born in Europe and still so powerful to resist against its alternatives.  The year 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia) is seen as the symbolic birth-year of nation-state, and in line with this assumption, the nation-state is now 361 years old in Europe. This means that this system has enough experience to survive or has a strong immune system that prevents radical changes.  That’s why, the European integration process has not easily been able to go one step further in the recent years.

At this point, I liken nation states to oysters. An oyster cannot prevent a foreign object from accidently entering its shell, but it covers this irritant with its own chemicals to protect itself. Finally, it produces a pearl which is not hazardous for the oyster anymore. Like oysters, the European nation states were too weak to prevent the integration process at the beginning but they always try to manipulate the process in a way to guarantee their survival.

As known, WWII greatly weakened the European nation-states, and to re-strengthen themselves, they needed a new formula. In this context, the formula to re-strengthen the European nation-states was to integrate them with each other. At the same time, “integration” was a kind of irritant for the states because “integration” meant that some part of the sovereignty of nation-states would be shared with new bodies but there were not many alternatives for the nation-states to re-strengthen themselves without “integration”. Therefore, the European integration process started at the beginning of the 1950s despite its irritant nature, but those unwanted effects on the sovereignty of the member states began to be covered by genius measures. As a result, in time, this new thing for the member states (the integration) was transformed to a “pearl” because of the internal measures and the external reasons.

Internally, the new institutions, which would limit the sovereignty of the member-states, emerged as the products of the integration process. At this point, the European Commission, which follows the common interests of the EU, and the Parliament, which follows the interests of the European people can be seen as the main institutions that limit the sovereignty of the member states at different levels. However, if these institutions are deeply scrutinized, many measures, which were taken by the member states to cover those institutions’ irritant effects in favour of the national sovereignty, are clearly seen. For example, the “comitology” system, which consists of the committees representing the member states, is implemented to oversee the functions of the Commission. According to Pollack[1], “comitology committees are control mechanism designed by member-state principals to supervise their supranational agent [the Commission] in its executive duties”. On the other hand, it is assumed that the Parliament follows the general interests of the European people within the EU system but the EP elections are like second-order national contests and there is not a European level of the election system or parties. Thus, the MEPs are sent to the Parliament directly from the national parties and the national powers keep the MEPs in line with the national interests. As a result, we can easily show the interests of the nation-states in the main EU institutions that are seen to be outside the national influence.

If we look at the external reasons, the negative effects of globalization on the sovereignty of nation states are the main reasons why the European nation-states tend to maintain this newly emerging pearl (the EU). In the globalization era, nation-states cannot implement any policy without taking the global issues into consideration and their absolute sovereignty has been blurred by their mutual interdependence. Therefore, the European nation-states can use the EU as a shelter to protect themselves from the negative effects of globalization. For example, the member states could decrease the damages of the recent global financial crisis thanks to the EU mechanism, and it is clear that the crisis would have harshly hit the European states if there were not the EU shelter. This shelter option of the EU integration against new external threats mainly due to globalization is the main external reason why the nation-states tolerate some supranational mechanism of the EU.

The European Constitution, proposed in 2004, was an important milestone for the European integration process, and it would increase the power of the EU institution at the expense of the nation-states. The member states launched the biggest resistance to the new efforts for further integration after the 1965 “empty chair” crisis and as a result of these resistances, the Constitution Treaty was altered to become the 2007 Lisbon Treaty.

If we look at the recent developments in the EU in this perspective, we can better understand what is going on. After the rejection of the proposal of the Constitution in France and in the Netherlands, the constitution evolved into the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. However, this evolution in favour of the nation-states was not enough. As a result, the Lisbon Treaty was rejected by Ireland in 2008, and again, because of the concessions to the nation-state, the Treaty was recently passed in the second referendum on 2^nd October 2009. In addition to these concessions, of course, Ireland does not want to lose its shelter from the financial crisis that considerably affected the country. However, this is not the end of the story because the Czech Republic has also not yet ratified the treaty. The Czech Republic has been trying to suspend the ratification of the treaty via the Constitutional Court as long as possible. By doing this, they hope to deter the vote until after the upcoming elections in the UK, which the British Conservatives hope to win. If the Conservatives are victorious, they have promised to hold a referendum for the ratification of the Treaty, in case the Treaty does not take effect at that time. Briefly, the Lisbon Treaty is a light version of the European Constitution and the member states are now trying to further dilute the Lisbon Treaty  although they need to reform their shelter in accordance to the  21^st century’s needs.

In conclusion, it is clear that the integration process has started to create an “ever closer People’s Europe”, which aims to make the European people the main actor, but the recent developments show that the nation-states are still highly dominant in the EU system. At this point, the Lisbon Treaty will be a litmus test to show whether the integration process will evolve towards the People’s Europe or the States’ Europe.

Y˝lmaz KAPLAN