The Values of the European Union : Elements of a European Identity (original) (raw)
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JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2009
Officials who toil for the European Union (EU), looking outwards from their base in Brussels, would be justified in feeling a little like Harry Potter: 'No one understands me'. Of course, the EU has now been the subject of sustained, serious academic attention, commensurate with its role in European political and economic life, for more than 30 years (in English, and longer than that in French and German). The EU studies community has shed considerable, even impressive light on how this 'unidentified political object', in the words of Jacques Delors, works in practice. Yet, turnout in the European Parliament election fell again in 2009. Eurosceptic parties, again, made gains. Every once in a while, someone in the quality press makes a game attempt to explain why the EU exists and what it does. 1 Yet, le grand public in Europe seems not to know or care. Ordinary citizens beyond Europe even less: there has never been an opinion poll, to this reviewer's knowledge, that has ever shown that a majority of Americans has even heard of the European Union. These three books, each in different ways, try to satisfy our 'primordial need to get a handle on the EU' in such a way that might enlighten curious non-specialists but also add to our acquis académique. 2 Two of these volumes-by Hix and Menonseek to reach audiences beyond the EU studies community. The other-edited by * I am grateful to Elizabeth Bomberg, Christopher Hill, Susan Orr and Helen Wallace for comments on earlier drafts. I am, of course, alone responsible for the final product. 1 The EU's 50th anniversary in 2007 prompted a number of such analyses. See '50 reasons to love the European Union', The Independent,
The European Union in the World � A Community of Values
Fordham International Law Journal, 2002
These are momentous times in Europe. The Euro has been successfully introduced, the enlargement negotiations are approaching their climax, and the European Convention ("Convention") is moving towards the drafting of a constitution for a new, continent-wide political entity. At the same time, unrest is manifest, particularly in two areas. On the one hand, many of our citizens, and not just the political elites, are dissatisfied with Europe's performance on the world stage and are concerned about the maintenance of peace and security within the Union. In these areas they would like to see a strengthened, more effective entity-"more Europe." On the other hand, their disenchantment with the long reach of European Union ("EU" or "Union") regulation in the first pillar area of economic policy is growing. The feeling of loss of local control over their destiny and a vague feeling of potential loss of identity within an ever more centralized polity is palpable. Here, they want "less Europe." In the outside world, change is also the order of the day. The ice-sheet of bipolarity, which overlaid and hid the complexity of international relations during the Cold War, is breaking up at an ever-increasing speed and revealing a world in which two paradigms are competing to become the underlying ordering principles for the new century. The traditional paradigm of interacting Nation States, each pursuing its own separate interests, with alliances allowing the small to compete with the large, is alive and well, and its proponents like Machiavelli or Churchill continue to be in vogue in the literature of international relations and the rhetoric of world leaders. At the same time, there is a school of thought which points to the growing economic and ecological interdependence of our societies and the necessity for new forms of global governance to complement national action. It is also becoming abundantly clear that the concept of a "Nation State" is often a fiction, positing as it does an identity between the citizens of a State and the members of a culturally homogenous society. For both reasons, the concept of the Nation State as the principal actor on the world stage, is called into question. The experience of the Union with the sharing of State sovereignty is clearly related to the second paradigm and also to the EU's firm support for the development of the United Nations ("U.N.") as well as other elements of multilateral governance. It would hardly be wise to suggest that any foreign policy, and certainly not that of the EU, should be based only on this paradigm. Given the recurrent threats to security, which seem to be part of the human condition expressed by some as the "inevitability of war"-the defense of territorial integrity; action against threats of aggression; and resistance to crimes against humanity such as genocide-the ability to conduct a security policy based much more on the old paradigm of interacting interests will continue to be required. That the EU needs to develop such a capability will be taken here as a given. Such a crisis-management capability will be essential to the Union, but will be distinguished here from the more long-term elements of foreign policy, which can be thought of as being designed to reduce the need for crisis management in the context of a security policy to a minimum. The crisis-management area of policy will not be treated further here. The thesis of this Essay is that the same set of political concepts can serve as a guide to the future internal development of the EU and as the basis of such a long-term foreign policy. Furthermore, it suggests that neither should be seen in terms of the balancing of interests but rather, as the expression of a small list of fundamental values. The list is as follows: (1) the rule of law as the basis for relations between members of society; (2) the interaction between the democratic process and entrenched human rights in political decision-making; (3) the operation of competition within a market economy as the source of increasing prosperity; (4) the anchoring of the principle of solidarity among all members of society alongside that of the liberty of the individual; (5) the adoption of the principle of sustainability of all economic development; and (6) the preservation of separate identities and the maintenance of cultural diversity within society. These values can be seen as the answer to the question posed both, by citizens of the Union and by our fellow citizens of the world: "What does the EU stand for?" In exploring these values we should, however, remember that in the real world there will be occasions on which Realpolitik will intrude and the interest-based paradigm will prevail.
The European UnionIn Search of an Identity
European Journal of Political Theory, 2003
The purpose of this article is to discuss the type of attachment and allegiance propounded in the recently proclaimed Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Charters such as Bills of Rights are generally held to be reflective of and evocative of a rights-based constitutional patriotism. The EU is not a state; there are widely different conceptions of what it is and should be, one of which is the vision of a Europe of nation states. Is the spirit of the Charter thus instead that of deep diversity, i.e. reflective of a wide diversity of views, visions and values as to what the EU is and ought to be? The article contrasts constitutional patriotism and deep diversity as alternative underlying philosophies of the Charter and also briefly examines the Charter's presumed ability to produce either type of sentiment of allegiance. key words: Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, constitutional patriotism, Convention on the Future of Europe, deep diversity, fundamental rights
When Culture Becomes Politics: European Identity in Perspective – By T. Pedersen
Jcms: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2009
relations. To answer this question, she analyses why and how the EU pursues five key foreign policy objectives: the encouragement of regional co-operation and integration; the promotion of human rights; the promotion of democracy and good governance; the prevention of violent conflicts; and the fight against international crime.
European Identities and the EU - The Ties that Bind the Peoples of Europe
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2004
Abstract This article addresses a crucial issue underlying enlargement and constitutional re- form: the ways in which the EU has come to relate to a common,European identity. The discussion problematizes the concept of identity in order to distinguish between different types of identities. It proposes that, while a meaningful common European historical identification barely exists, European identities have come to
Questioning the Basic Values -Austria and Jörg Haider
2017
The EU 14’s measures against Austria in 2000 are an interesting episode in the history of European integration. From today’s perspective we get the impression that the whole response from the EU Member States to the Austrian situation was a failure and history today shows that Jörg Haider never threatened democracy and the rule of law in Austria. This article argues against this understanding by not only retracing the core part of the story but also extending the perspectives on the year 2000 to the past and the future. In the first part, the historical dimension of Haider’s Freedom Party and the political relevance of the developments in the year 2000 are analysed from an Austrian perspective. Moreover, the EU 14’s measures and the effects on European integration are considered. The article argues that the EU did not learn effectively from the measures and failed to develop proper institutional and procedural mechanism to deal with the questioning of basic values by a Member State. In a second part, the article looks critically back on the participation of the Freedom Party in the Austrian government and the effects of Jörg Haider to Rule of Law and democracy in Austria. In contrast to the overall impression that the Freedom party’s participation in the government had no negative effects, the article argues that Haider’s approach to ethnic minorities in Carinthia significantly threatened the Rule of Law in Austria and the Carinthian model of corruption still threatens Austrian democracy and the federal state budget today. The EU 14’s scepticism about governmental participation can be justified in retrospect. The EU and its Member States, however, did not monitor the Austrian situation after the developments in 2000 and thus failed to acknowledge the real questioning of basic values by Jörg Haider. In conclusion, it is necessary for us to acknowledge the different layers of the narrative on the EU 14’s measures. The full picture enables us to re-evaluate the EU 14’s measures and to draw conclusions for future challenges to European integration by problematic political and legal developments in the Member States.