Rémi Dardonville

Romain Pierre

Master 2 PEA

 

 

Research dossier

 

 

 

 

Europe at the crossroads: Regions or Nation-states?

 

 

 

CONTENT

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

I Member states and regional issue

 

A- The necessary maintaining of a structure above regions

- TEXTE 1 “Sovereignty and Democracy”

- TEXTE 2 « Le rôle et la place des régions dans une Europe rénovée. »

 

B- Regional diversity among member states: an obstacle to a real European regionalization

 

- TEXTE 3 “Constitutional regions and the European Union”

 

 

 

 

II Regions at the centre of new European governance architecture

 

A-Regions and regional role in nowadays eventual Union

 

 

- TEXT 4, 5, 6: SCAD Plus Cross-border cooperation programme, Communication from the Commission “Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries”, and communication from the Commission on the “Third progress report on cohesion: Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion” of 17 May 2005, and its annex:

 

B-Regions as a future unavoidable self-asserting actor at the EU level

 

 

- TEXTE 7 « Déclaration de Venise du groupe PPE au Comité des régions »

 

 

ORIGINAL TEXTS

 

TRANSLATIONS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

In 1984, Hans Mommsen wrote, with somewhat more drama than is usual to these discussions, that "the nation is dead, long live the region."

 

In 1992, Tom Nairn wrote in the New Statesman that regions had become a "key part" of the discussion about European Union.

Indeed, Europe has always been and remains very much a continent of regional identities.

Regionalist debates emerged in the 1990’s, with the Treaty on European Union (TEU) which try to extend the role of European regions in the EU governance architecture. The development of regional economic programs and the decisions to create a committee of the Regions increased that political integration way. Whether the context is an analysis of the final crisis of the nation-state or a description of the structure of committees in the European Community, recognition of the significant role that regions and regionalism play in Europe today has quietly taken hold.

 

But different visions of the regions are opposed. For some, regions are ethnic and cultural units, for others, economic ones or geographical ones, and for yet others, they are simply political subdivisions of the nation-state.

Furthermore, the importance of regions changes in all the States, in terms of political, administrative, economic and cultural competences and also in constitutional autonomy. For example, Spanish autonomous communities or German Landers have their own legislative assembly and a certain degree of financial autonomy, which it’s not the case in France where regions have such a limited role.

 

 

Those who see a "Europe of the regions" as the great model for a future in which a tolerant cosmopolitanism and a warm, personal localism According to authors and politics, the place of local and regional studies has to increase important but must be clearly subordinate aids to the treatment of general questions.

What could be the best future to Europe?

I Member states and regional issue

 

A- The necessary maintaining of a structure above regions

 

TEXTE 1 “Sovereignty and Democracy”

Source:

This article, entitled Sovereignty and Democracy, is an analysis by Marc F. Plattner, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, who also was a visiting professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. It was published in the Policy Review, released by the Hoover Centre of the University of Stanford.

 

Summary:

As an introduction Plattner reminds us about the debate around European constitutional project in a globalized context. Then, he explains that Europe may be the area in the world where the process of deconstructing the state really succeeded, according to other scholars’ studies, the regions and other sub-national authorities being in the centre of European Union’s processes. But, the author thinks that there is a real danger because of this evolution, the risk that, if the perception of sovereignty changes for real, democratic practices will change as well. Even if he understands that the purpose of this evolution was to avoid wars and to promote peace at an international level, by transcending the state, he finally concludes that states have to be maintained, as a more efficient “overarching” structure to guarantee democracy and citizens’ liberty than smaller entities or international organizations.

Commentary:

This article is really interesting. Highly documented, it is a relevant analysis which shows some of the weaknesses of federalist-like organizations such as European Union. But the vision of the author is strongly American since it is pointing through the original aspects of the European Union what makes it different from the US’ federal structure, and insists on the necessary protection of individual civil rights and liberties against such a bureaucratic expanding super-state.

 

 

TEXTE 2 « Le rôle et la place des régions dans une Europe rénovée. »

 

Link :

http://www.notre-europe.asso.fr/article.php3?id_article=438

 

Source

 

This document is an article of Jacques Delors, very famous for his contribution to European construction, extracted from a thought journal, “Notre Europe”.

It was published in November 2000, at the occasion of the annual Symposium  for the Erasmus Prize Foundation, in Netherlands.

 

Summary

 

The author wants to underline the active role played by the regional dimension in the European process. Jacques Delors is convinced that regional roots are essential to the European society stability. This diversity has to appear as such a great wealth to the Union.

The integration can’t deny today that regional level, especially when we look the efforts realised since the reform of structural funds.

However, if the Union has to build more with the regions, she has to respect the institutional diversity of the States.

 

Résumé

 

L’auteur insiste ici sur le rôle actif des régions dans la dynamique européenne. Jacques Delors semble convaincu que ces sources régionales sont importantes pour l’équilibre d’une société. Cette diversité doit apparaître comme une véritable richesse pour l’Union. L’intégration ne peut nier aujourd’hui le niveau régional, surtout au regard du chemin parcouru depuis la réforme des fonds structurels.

Cependant, si l’Union doit davantage construire avec les régions, elle se doit de respecter la diversité institutionnelle des Etats

 

 

 

 

Commentary

 

Jacques Delors, one of the fathers of supranational integration bring to the thought a moderated position. Indeed, he shows that the regional dimension is a new deal in the European construction, a new interesting level of integration that politics can’t denounce. But the political role of States doesn’t have to undermine: they need to keep their institutional specificity and their skills for general problems and governance.

 

 

B- Regional diversity among member states: an obstacle to a real European regionalization

 

 

TEXTE 3 “Constitutional regions and the European Union”

 

Link

http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/europa/

 

 

Source

 

This text is an article found in the Web written by Drew Scott, a Scottish professor of European Union Studies at the School of Law of The University of Edinburgh.

 

 

Summary

 

Since the Treaty on European Union (TEU), a debate emerged around the constitutional role of regions and the question to extend her role in the European governance architecture. And the subsidiary principle could appear at the centre of this debate with the question: Does this principle has to concern only States and the Union, or also regions and Union?

The central problem in giving a more important place to region is the regional differences in the Union in terms of population size, economic development, institutional autonomy…

But according to the author, main problem is that region level hasn’t been recognized: the role of regions isn’t even explicitly being addressed with the Future of Europe convention.

Scott defined what he called “constitutional regions” which designed regions that possess a solid institutional basis. This kind of regions, like the German Lander, represents the future of Europe and has to be at the middle of the integration process.

 

Résumé

 

Depuis le Traité sur l’Union Européenne, un débat a émergé autour du rôle constitutionnel des régions et sur la question d’étendre leur rôle dans la gouvernance européenne. Le principe de subsidiarité apparaît au centre de ce débat : doit-il concerner seulement les Etats et l’Union, ou également les régions et l’Union ?

Le problème central de ce débat réside dans les différences régionales dans l’Union en termes de taille, de développement économique et d’autonomie institutionnelle.

Mais selon l’auteur, le problème est que ce niveau régional n’a pas été reconnu : le rôle des régions est à peine cité dans le projet établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe.

Scott définit ce qu’il appelle les « régions constitutionnelles », ce qui désigne des régions possédant une solide base institutionnelle. Ce sont ces régions qui représentent le future de l’Europe et qui doivent se situer au cœur de la dynamique d’intégration.  

 

Commentary

 

The author wishes that the region had been recognized. Regions have to participate at the European construction, which is difficult when we look the institutional part. Member States present a lot of differences in terms of population size, economic development, and institutional autonomy. According to him, States don’t want dismiss their sovereignty.

However, this vision of Europe and her regions appears too much legal and constitutional, for example in using the expression “constitutional regions”.

II Regions at the centre of new European governance architecture

 

A-Regions and regional role in nowadays eventual Union

 

TEXT 4, 5, 6: SCAD Plus Cross-border cooperation programme, Communication from the Commission “Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries”, and communication from the Commission on the “Third progress report on cohesion: Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion” of 17 May 2005, and its annex:

 

http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/interim3_en.htm

http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/pdf/interim3/com(2005)192short_en.pdf

http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/fr/s24000.htm#POLITIQUE

 

 

Source:

These documents, SCAD Plus Cross-border cooperation programme, the communication entitled “Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries” and the communication from the Commission about the Third progress report on cohesion, “Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion”, and its annexes, are all documents released by the Commission, dealing with cohesion and regional cooperation, both inside and outside the EU. They can be found in the Europa institutional websites.

 

 

Summaries:

 

Summary of SCAD Plus Cross-border cooperation programme and communication from the Commission “Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries”:

The Commission Regulation 2760/98 of 18 December 1998, concerning the implementation of a programme for cross-border cooperation in the framework of the Phare programme, complies with the goals asserted in a previous regulation (1628/94), mostly to help Central and Eastern Europe Countries develop economically. Besides this primary issue, the new regulation aims at expanding the programme to other countries, favouring exclusively “cross border” projects, within the frames of the Community structural policies, and Interreg programme.

The countries and the borders eligible to this programme are mainly localized in Southern and Eastern Europe, the repartition of the funding depending on regions’ GDP, population, and surface. The regulation then reminds the kind of actions to be leaded through this programme, to favour economical development and integrate these regions by the mean of communitarian networks. These are supposed to try and prepare countries to comply with European Community standards and reduce the gap between older members and those who are about, or willing to enter. The projects are to be defined on a multi-annual basis, are part of the programme decided by the Commission, and should, as much as possible depend on co-executive authorities, “joint monitoring structures”, gathering national and European decision-makers. Moreover, some particular initiatives to increase “European Union-bordering-candidate countries” regions’ competitiveness should also be proposed.

The communication of 25 July 2001 from the Commission on the impact of enlargement on regions bordering candidate countries (COM(2001)437), recalls most of the goals included in the previous regulation though it insists more specifically on the actions to be leaded to increase the competitiveness of EU regions bordering candidate countries, restricting the scope in some way.

Summary of the communication from the Commission on the “Third progress report on cohesion: Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion” of 17 May 2005, and its annex:

 

The Commission first focuses on the economic and social disparities in the enlarged European Union space. The analysis shows that the gaps in GDP among EU countries have greatly widened since the enlargement, and how great the difference may be from a region to another in this newly enlarged union. It also points the increase of employment rates, although much more progress is required and recent improvements in productivity. But it hardly succeeds in revealing relevant evidences that would allow a more theorized view of the evolution and nature of these disparities.

Then the communication evokes the multiple objectives which are bridging the Cohesion policy to the Lisbon strategy, more especially in the current programming period, and finally arouses a number of issues, questioning the future of Cohesion policy and recalling the Community Strategic guidelines for the next programming period.

The annex is useful since it is constantly referred to it and it provides very interesting data, mostly through graphs and maps.

 

 

Commentary:

Because they are official information, released by European institutions, these documents present a balanced and politically consensual vision of the regional action of the EU. By placing regions and other local entities in the really centre of the building and integrating processes, it shows the importance of a conjoined development supported through casual projects and partnerships, instigated at the most  local levels, to achieve a coherent union. That can partly explain why the progress report is insisting on the effective achievements and on new strategic programming measures more than it insists on the negative points, such as the persisting development gaps between regions within the EU and the difficulty for member states to agree on the financial contributions necessary to succeed in resolving these gaps.

 

B-Regions as a future unavoidable self-asserting actor at the EU level

 

TEXTE 7 “Déclaration de Venise du groupe PPE au Comité des régions

 

Link:  http://www.cor.eu.int/presentation/down/epp/documents/meeting/Venice%20Declaration%20FR%20REV2.pdf.

 

Source

 

 This document is a declaration of the group of the European people’s party in the committee of regions made in Venice in July 2002.

 

 

Summary

 

The authors want to favour a citizen Europe and for that Europe needs strong regions. The citizen has to be at the centre of European construction and only regions will favourite this goal. According to that declaration, stronger regions and cities have to be the mainstay of the future of Europe.

The subsidiary, vertical and horizontal, is the principle director of European activity and a sharing out of the skills need to be clearly institutionalized in the treaties. To give more importance to the region the committee of the regions has to take a political dimension.

 

Résumé

 

Les auteurs de cette déclaration veulent favoriser une Europe citoyenne et pour cela permettre à de fortes régions d’émerger. Le citoyen doit être au centre de la construction européenne et seulement les régions pourront aller dans le sens de cet objectif. Selon cette déclaration, des régions et des villes plus fortes doivent être le pilier du futur de l’Europe. 

La subsidiarité, verticale et horizontale, est le principe directeur de l’activité européenne et le partage des compétences doit être clairement institutionnalisé par les traités. Pour donner plus d’importance à la région, le comité des régions doit prendre une dimension politique.

 

 

Commentary

 

Favour stronger regions and more important cities have to be one of the main goals to develop a citizen Europe. Give an institutional role to regions is one of the priorities to let the European democratic development.

However, give a political dimension isn’t a good thing to the best representation of all, especially when we know that European party’s people is the most organized movement in Europe. Favour stronger regions don’t have to sacrifice the representation of all the European citizens.   

 

 

 

 

 

ORIGINAL TEXTS

 

- TEXTE 1 “Sovereignty and Democracy”

 

 

 

 

 

prlogosm.gif (2061 bytes)

Printer Friendly Version
(Original Version)

Sovereignty and Democracy

By Marc F. Plattner
Marc F. Plattner is coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies. From October 2002 through June 2003 he was a visiting professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute.

A “european convention” chaired by former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing recently finished drafting a new constitution for the European Union, but the parallels with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that this inevitably conjures up for American observers are extremely misleading. Anyone who expects the current debate over European unification to mirror the historic contest in the United States between Federalists and Anti-Federalists is quickly disabused. That was an argument about the proper locus of sovereignty and the appropriate scale of the state. Politicians can sometimes be heard voicing such concerns in Europe today, but in scholarly and intellectual circles the predominant tendency is not to argue about where sovereignty should be lodged, but to call into question the concept of sovereignty; not to argue about how big the state should be, but to wonder about whether the era of the modern state is coming to an end.

This may seem odd at a time when the modern state seems to be enjoying the hour of its greatest triumph. Virtually the entire world now consists of independent states, their number greater than ever before. And the most important global institutions, beginning with the United Nations itself, are intergovernmental organizations whose members are states, represented by the delegates of their governments. Yet there is no denying the fact that in many quarters, especially in some of the advanced democracies, there is a widespread feeling that the modern state is becoming obsolete, that it is increasingly incapable of responding to the problems of the contemporary world, and above all to the challenges posed by globalization. It is this feeling that shapes the moral and political context in which European unification is unfolding. In one sense, of course, the eu is merely a regional organization, but the debate over its future is intimately bound up with the issue of globalization.

Globalization is a subject on everyone’s lips today, not just in Europe but around the world. I am inclined to believe that recent advances in telecommunications technology and in the internationalization of markets have created a greater degree of mutual interpenetration among societies worldwide than ever existed before. But the trends that are summed up by the term “globalization” are not new. Following the rise of multinational corporations and the oil price shocks of the 1970s, many observers called attention to the idea of international “interdependence.” And some scholars have plausibly argued that there was greater international openness and mobility during the period prior to World War i than there is today. In my view, what is distinctive about the current discourse on globalization is the jaundiced view that it takes of the modern state. After having long been regarded as the culmination of political evolution and the indispensable framework for freedom and democracy, the state is now often seen as a historically contingent institution built on shaky moral foundations.

 

Deconstructing the state

One of the scholars who appears to have been especially influential in shaping current thinking about the modern state is John Ruggie. Fittingly enough, Ruggie not only is a distinguished professor of international relations, but has recently served as assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. His writings, and especially his International Organization article “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations” (Winter 1993), are widely cited not only in the academic literature but also in more policy-oriented discussions regarding the future of the European Union. What Ruggie “problematizes” in his essay is not just modernity, but the modern state and the concept of sovereignty.

The discipline of international relations tends to take for granted the “modern system of states,” Ruggie argues. Thus, while it is adept at understanding changes in the balance of power among states, it is poorly equipped to understand the more momentous kind of transformation that may result in “fundamental institutional discontinuity in the system of states.” Yet there are signs that such a period of “epochal” change may now be upon us. This is seen both in the transformation of the global economy due to ever more extensive transnational links and in the rise of the European Union, which “may constitute nothing less than the emergence of the first postmodern international political form.”

Ruggie’s essay includes a brief account of the debate about postmodernism in the humanities, but for the purposes of international relations he distinguishes the modern from the postmodern in terms of their different “forms of configuring political space.” The modern system of rule is based upon “territorially defined, fixed and mutually exclusive enclaves of legitimate domination. As such, it appears to be unique in human history.” How else has political space been configured in the past? Ruggie refers briefly to primitive kin-based systems and to the conception of property rights held by nomadic peoples, but by far the greatest part of his analysis is devoted to the “nonexclusive territorial rule” that characterized medieval Europe, with its complex patterns of multiple allegiances and overlapping jurisdictions.

It is by analyzing the earlier transformation of the feudal order into the modern world of states claiming absolute and exclusive sovereignty over their territories that we can gain insight into the new transformation that may now be under way. The modern state has been invented or “socially constructed,” and thus its persistence cannot be taken for granted. In fact, the European Union, where “the process of unbundling of territoriality has gone further than anywhere else,” may point the way toward a postmodern future that will in important respects resemble the medieval past.

The general orientation of Ruggie’s analysis is reflected in a great deal of contemporary writing about sovereignty, the nation-state, and the European Union. (To be sure, Ruggie draws upon a body of prior academic studies, most notably the work on the formation of the modern state prominently associated with Charles Tilly.1) One encounters in this literature surprisingly frequent references to the fleeting and historically contingent character of the modern nation-state. And the European Union is most often described not as the germ of some larger form of the nation-state (often disparagingly referred to as a “superstate”) but as a new kind of postmodern or “neomedieval” structure that transcends the “Westphalian” framework.

Yet while Ruggie’s argument incorporates a number of useful insights, I believe that it is misguided in several crucial respects. The first is an overemphasis on the wholesale uniqueness of the modern state. It is true that the modern state differs in some ways from all previous political orders, and its persistence, despite its current worldwide predominance, should not simply be taken for granted. Yet the fact that the modern state is new is sometimes elided into the view that the division of the world into separate political orders is also something new. Ruggie’s assertion that an order based upon “territorially defined, fixed and mutually exclusive enclaves of legitimate domination . . . appears to be unique in human history” is, I believe, simply wrong.

Analyses like Ruggie’s that hold that the modern state was invented or constructed tend to take the feudal Europe that preceded it as a more gradually evolved and thus somehow more natural and less arbitrary form of political order. They do not consider the possibility that the feudal order, shaped by the universalist claims of pope and emperor, was itself a radical departure in human history, occasioned by the rise of Christian revelation. But this is surely how feudalism was viewed by the theoretical founders of modern politics.

The notion that the earlier transition from feudalism to modernity somehow supplies the key to understanding the coming transformation to a new system that will transcend modernity recalls the doctrine of Karl Marx. And as is also true of the Marxist schema, Ruggie’s perspective has very great difficulty fitting the ancient world into its analytical framework. Most such contemporary approaches, including Ruggie’s, do not even try to account for classical Greece and Rome; they simply ignore them. Willful neglect of the ancient city is, in fact, a striking feature of this entire literature. One can read histories of the state or of international state systems that deal with primitive tribes, nomadic peoples, the Chinese Empire, ancient India, and the Islamic world but do not even have an entry in the index for ancient Greece. This is especially odd, first, because the cities of ancient Greece certainly constituted a system of political units based on “territorially defined, fixed and mutually exclusive enclaves of legitimate domination” and, second, because part of the inspiration for the creation of the modern European state unmistakably came from the rediscovery of ancient political thought and practice.

After all, even medieval political thought was decisively shaped by the recovery of the works of Aristotle. It is true that early modern thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes openly attacked classical political thought and sought to create or to justify a political order that would differ in crucial respects from the ancient city; yet a major aim of these founders of modern political philosophy was to recover the autonomy and supremacy of political life that had characterized classical Greece and Rome. Machiavelli’s most comprehensive work consists of discourses on Livy’s history of Rome, and Hobbes’s earliest published writing was a translation of Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian war. Moreover, the peculiarly modern doctrine of sovereignty first developed by Bodin and Hobbes, however it may differ in other ways from the classical understanding, agrees with the Aristotelian view that the political order is the highest association or the supreme community — at least in the sense of not being properly subject to any external power.

The focus on the medieval world and neglect of the ancient in the literature to which Ruggie’s essay belongs tend to be paralleled by a lack of concern with the issue of self-government or democracy. Those who write approvingly of the Holy Roman Empire as a model for Europe2 or praise the diversity and permeability of borders in the “pre-Westphalian” era do not appear to reflect on the human consequences of those arrangements. It is not mere happenstance that the feudal period was a time not only of disorder but of oppression and severe inequality. An absence of firm borders and of clear lines of jurisdiction may not be a problem in empires or other political forms where governments are not accountable to their citizens. But if the citizens are to govern, or at least to hold their governors accountable, it must be clear who is and who is not included in the polity. And it is hard to see how this can be accomplished without clear lines of demarcation indicating whose voices have the right to be counted.

There is more than a merely verbal connection between the modern concept of sovereignty and the contemporary idea of the sovereignty of the people. Notwithstanding the fact that Bodin and Hobbes were champions of monarchy, it is their doctrine of sovereignty that prepared the way for the notion that all political power ultimately derives from the consent of naturally free and equal individuals. It is the modern nation-state that provided the indispensable framework for building a political order that protects the rights and heeds the voices of all the people who belong to it.

Two of the leading contemporary scholars of democracy, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, affirm the necessity of this link with particular forcefulness: “[W]ithout a state,” they argue, “no modern democracy is possible. . . . Modern democratic government is inevitably linked to stateness. Without a state, there can be no citizenship; without citizenship, there can be no democracy.”3

 

Democracy without sovereignty?

What, then, is the attitude toward democracy of those who proclaim the obsolescence of the nation-state and welcome the erosion of the “Westphalian” notion of sovereignty? While there are some who ignore or are indifferent to this question, it would be inaccurate and unfair to claim that this is the general view of the champions of transnationalism. There is, for example, a lively and intense debate about the eu’s “democracy deficit” or “legitimacy deficit” and how to repair it. This concern even appears prominently in the eu’s Laeken Declaration, the official document that initiated the process leading to the new draft constitution. A cynic might say that this is the defensive response of European elites, worried that disillusionment among European publics with the remote and opaque decision making of the eu may derail the entire project of “ever closer union.” But I believe that it also reflects the fact that the global prestige of the democratic principle is perhaps higher than it has ever been — notwithstanding the growing tendency to question the legitimacy of the modern state.

As a result, many students and proponents of the eu seem to be groping toward the view that the eu can become a democratic non-state. They refuse to accept the dichotomy according to which the eu must be either 1) an essentially intergovernmental organization that derives its democratic legitimacy through the national parliaments of its member states or 2) a genuine federal state that derives its democratic legitmacy through governing institutions directly responsible to the European electorate. They say, with more than a little justification, that the eu already has gone well beyond being a merely intergovernmental institution yet falls far short of being a federal state. At the same time, their argument is not that the eu has found some “middle way” between intergovernmentalism and traditional federalism but rather that its organizing principles must be understood as existing on a different plane from the continuum that runs from intergovernmentalism to federalism. Thus, they define the eu as a non-state, non-nation polity (or entity).4

It may be true that so far this is largely the language of academics rather than politicians or publics, but the argument has a considerable attraction for the latter as well. First, this non-state conception appeals to a strong antipolitical disposition that is seen today in many parts of the world but is especially powerful in Europe. This disposition is reflected in the enormous prestige enjoyed by “civil society” and by “nongovernmental organizations,” as compared to political parties or to governments. One way of viewing the non-state vision of the eu is that it promises to provide governance without the need for government. Indeed, some Europeans, far from wishing to build a new kind of polity, seem to aspire to the creation of a new nongovernmental organization — the eu as the world’s largest and most influential ngo. Second, the non-state conception seems to offer a means of what is frequently referred to as “squaring the circle” — that is, building an ever closer European Union without taking away the sovereignty of member states that many Europeans continue to hold dear.

According to the classic modern doctrine of sovereignty, of course, it was regarded as impossible to maintain sovereignty in both a political union and its constituent parts. In contemporary language, one might say that the lodging of sovereignty was regarded as a kind of “zero-sum game.” Here is how Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 15, characterizes the opponents of the Constitution drafted by the Philadelphia convention: They aim, he charges, “at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union and complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in imperio.”

A bit further on, Hamilton elaborates on what he calls “the characteristic difference between a league and a government” — namely, that only the latter can extend its authority to individuals, while the authority of the former reaches no further than to member governments. Government, according to Hamilton, involves the power not only of making laws, but of enforcing them. For if they are without sanctions, “resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.” While governments may deal with recalcitrant individuals through the “courts and ministers of justice,” there is no way a league can enforce its decisions against one of the sovereign entities that compose it without resorting to military force. Thus, in a league “every breach of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of civil obedience.”

The Federalist goes on to support this reasoning by appeals both to the nature of man and to the experience of previous confederations. Because men love power, those who exercise sovereignty are likely to resist attempts to constrain or direct them. Thus, in confederations that attempt to unite sovereign bodies, there is inevitably a centrifugal tendency for the parts to free themselves from the center. The subsequent numbers of the Federalist then explore the experience of confederations both ancient and modern. The conclusion drawn from this examination of the historical record is emphatically stated at the end of Federalist 20 (a paper sometimes attributed jointly to Hamilton and James Madison) — namely, “that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting violence in place of the mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy.”

Hamilton justifies this sweeping conclusion by appealing to “experience [which] is the oracle of truth.” Yet proponents of the new views put forward by theorists of the European Union would point precisely to the experience of European integration to contradict Hamilton’s conclusions. First of all, though in many respects it seems closer to a league than to a government in Hamilton’s terms, the eu, thanks to various rulings of the European Court and their acceptance by national courts, does have authority that in important respects reaches to individuals as well as collectivities. Second, in spite of the lack of a mechanism to enforce compliance, the decisions of the eu are largely accepted by member states — and this without resort to the sword.

In fact, the eu seems to present the spectacle of constituent units obeying the dictates of the center not only without violence but even without visible coercion. In trying to understand this unprecedented phenomenon, I have found particularly helpful a formulation offered by J.H.H. Weiler, one of the most distinguished scholars of European law. Weiler argues that the eu has evolved a federal constitutional or legal structure alongside a largely “confederal” or intergovernmental political structure.5 In other words, Europe has accepted the “constitutional discipline” characteristic of federalism without becoming a federal state. In effect, it has become a federal non-state whose decisions are accepted voluntarily by its constituent units rather than backed up by the modes of hierarchical coercion classically employed by the modern state. In fact, the eu combines a “top-to-bottom hierarchy of norms” with “a bottom-to-top hierarchy of . . . real power.” It achieves what Hamilton would have regarded as either disastrous or impossible — the separation of law from the power to enforce it.

However accurate Weiler’s analysis may be in describing the current state of the eu, it surely raises a couple of larger questions: First, what conditions have enabled this structure to work so far, and can it continue to do so? Second, presuming that the federal non-state can continue to maintain itself, what would be the ultimate consequences for democracy? The first of these questions concerns the viability or practicability of the federal non-state, while the second concerns its ultimate desirability. I cannot hope to address these matters in more than a very preliminary way here, but let me try to offer a few reflections about them.

 

War and the postmodern state

In seeking to understand what has enabled the eu to function effectively as a federal non-state, I would emphasize the fact that its member states are all liberal democracies. This means not only that they are “open societies” but that they are averse to using force against other open societies. Here I think that what has been dubbed the “democratic peace” thesis is directly relevant. That thesis, based on an imposing record of historical evidence, holds that liberal democracies rarely if ever fight wars against each other (though they are quite prone to fight wars against countries that are not liberal democracies). The web of ties that bind member states of the eu has undoubtedly contributed to the sense that war among them is unthinkable, but one might argue that the nature of the member states is more important in this regard than the framework that connects them. After all, war is equally unthinkable between an eu member state and a nonmember like Norway or Switzerland, just as it is unthinkable between the United States and Canada or between Australia and New Zealand.

The fact that contemporary liberal democracies do not fear that force will be used against them by their fellow liberal democracies makes possible a previously unprecedented degree of integration among them. In Europe, a region where most regimes — and certainly the most powerful ones — are liberal democracies, it has made possible the success of the European Union in achieving an extraordinary degree of cooperation without erecting a “superstate.” In understanding this achievement I have found very useful the analysis offered by the British diplomat Robert Cooper (a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair who is now working as director-general for external and politico-military affairs for the Council of the European Union). In his remarkably concise essay The Postmodern State and the World Order (London: demos and the Foreign Policy Centre, 1996), Cooper provides what, to my mind, is a much more persuasive case than does John Ruggie for the novelty of the eu and for the willingness of its member states to surrender some of their sovereignty.

Cooper convincingly demonstrates that there has been a fundamental change in the international aims and behavior of many of the advanced democracies, but he also emphasizes that the postmodern order most clearly represented by the eu constitutes only one portion of today’s world. For it coexists with two other orders: the modern order of robust national states still jealous of their sovereignty (among his examples are India, China, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) and the premodern order of “failed states” (Afghanistan, Somalia, Sierra Leone) incapable of exercising real control over their territories. This means that the postmodern states, while they may eschew the use of force among themselves, cannot wholly escape the need of employing it in their dealings with modern and premodern states. It also means that the ability to preserve and enhance the postmodern achievements of the eu depends on a willingness to depart from the norms of postmodern behavior and to employ the “rougher methods of an earlier era” when the situation demands. As Cooper puts it, “Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle.”

As we have recently witnessed, however, the perceived need to resort to “rougher methods,” especially those involving the use of military force, tends to create political disputes among postmodern states that are not easily resolved consensually. Some would no doubt argue that the current contentions within the eu are largely provoked by the policies of the United States and that the fault lines dividing Europeans have their origins in Washington. Others would surely respond that the U.S. security umbrella provides the indispensable shelter that allows the eu to function as a wholly civilian non-state polity.

Be that as it may, the difficulty underlined by Cooper remains. Even if the European Union succeeds in taming national sovereignty and in subordinating force to law within its own postmodern sphere, can it continue to resist the pressures and dangers that arise from the still untamed parts of the world? As Cooper notes, “States reared on raison d’état and power politics make uncomfortable neighbors for the postmodern democratic conscience. Supposing the world develops . . . into an intercontinental struggle. Would Europe be equipped for that?” To put it somewhat differently, will a non-state be able to defend and preserve itself in a world that still contains powerful modern states? Or would such external pressure drive Europeans to try to recover their “stateness,” whether by the formation of a real European “superstate” or by a reassertion of sovereignty at the level of the nation-state?6

So even if Europe is undergoing a far-reaching transformation such that the old notions of sovereignty no longer apply within the intra-European sphere, the question remains whether “postmodernism in one region” can really work. Can Europe renounce the use of force if other parts of the world refuse to do so? And can Europe continue to govern itself within a non-state framework if its member states must continually wrestle with life-and-death issues of war and peace that intrude upon it from other regions? The eu’s perennial difficulties in fashioning a common foreign policy underline the seriousness of this dilemma.

 

Transcending the state?

But let us for argument’s sake presume that the rest of the world can be postmodernized and, thus, that this problem can be resolved. There would still remain the question of what might be lost in leaving behind or transcending the nation-state. Here I have in mind precisely the issue of democracy. This problem is also briefly noted by Cooper, who formulates it in the following terms: “A difficulty for the postmodern state . . . is that democracy and democratic institutions are firmly wedded to the territorial state. . . . Economy, law-making, and defense may be increasingly embedded in international frameworks, and the borders of territory may be less important, but identity and democratic institutions remain primarily national.”

Cooper’s reference here to identity being “primarily national” raises an important ambiguity inherent in the word “national,” so let me make clear that I am not suggesting that political identity must be tied to some form of ethnicity. As the case of the United States proves, such identity can be established among citizens of very diverse ethnic origins. Though it would not be easy, I do not think it is out of the question that a European political identity could be nurtured that would come to supersede the attachment of Europeans to their existing national states. So I am not arguing that European unification as such is hostile to democracy, or that the only way to preserve democracy in Europe is to reaffirm the sovereignty of the eu’s member states. I am not a “euroskeptic.”

My argument is that for democracy to work, there must be an overarching political order to which people feel they owe their primary political loyalty — in short, a state, with clear boundaries and clear distinctions as to who does and does not enjoy the rights and obligations of citizenship. In principle, such an order could equally well be constituted at the level of the European Union or remain at the level of its member states. What I doubt is that it is possible to square the circle of competing sovereignties over the long run or that democracy can work outside or across the framework of a sovereign state. So my plea is that those who are seriously devoted to democracy reconsider their devaluation of the state, or at least think harder about how it can be left behind without also undermining democracy.

The strong tendency today for many proponents of liberal democracy to turn against the state, despite the long and intimate relationship between liberal democracy and the modern state, is striking. I think the reason behind it lies not only in certain historical developments but in a tension that has always existed at the heart of liberal democracy. Elsewhere I have explored the tension between the liberal and the democratic elements that form the cohesive but unstable compound known as liberal democracy.7 The liberal or cosmopolitan element, which emphasizes the universal human rights of the individual, fits uneasily with the particularistic demands of self-government and citizenship that constitute its specifically democratic element. In my view, the European Union, especially as understood by the approach that I have been discussing, represents the exaltation of liberal democracy’s liberal aspect at the expense of its democratic aspect. The real issue is whether liberalism can flourish — or even survive — if it is not anchored in the framework of a democratic state. Can liberalism, as it were, outgrow the state and sustain itself within a transnational or cosmopolitan order?

The most perceptive account of the historical and philosophical dialectic involving democracy and the nation-state has been presented by the French political philosopher Pierre Manent. He has explored this subject in several recent writings, but I cite here a passage from his essay “Democracy Without Nations?” which appeared in English translation in the Journal of Democracy (April 1997): “One might say that the democratic principle, after having used the nation as an instrument or vehicle, abandons it by the wayside. This would not be worrisome if a new vehicle were available or clearly under construction. This new political form, however, is nowhere in sight.”8 I emphasize the word political because Manent is of course aware that many see the European Union as just such a vehicle. His contention, however, is that “Europe refuses to define itself politically,” preferring to see itself in cultural or civilizational terms — or, at any rate, refusing to constitute itself as a state.

Why, according to Manent, does the democratic principle (which holds that human beings are by nature free and equal and that all political legitmacy must be rooted in their consent) abandon or even turn against the state? He links this development to the fact that the boundaries or limits of the particular political unit embodied in the state cannot themselves be justified democratically. All existing states owe their boundaries to historical contingencies — especially to the outcome of wars — that are wholly arbitrary from a strictly democratic perspective. The democratic principle of popular sovereignty or self-determination fails to provide any basis for deciding how to define the people that is sovereign or the collective self that is to determine its own fate. Thus, the distinction between the citizen and the outsider can appear ultimately arbitrary and even unjust. From a cosmopolitan perspective it seems to be one more example of “discrimination,” or of using an artificial distinction to justify treating some people differently from others.

Thus, the democratic principle of human freedom and equality can be turned against the state in the name of the individual and of the common humanity that he shares with citizens and noncitizens alike. Once the democratic principle is pushed to the point where it breaks down the framework of the nation-state, Manent argues, it in effect turns against political life as such. That is, it calls into question the possibility of any self-governing community.

Political life requires that the political community be sovereign, that it establish the laws under which other human associations or communities operate. It is the public sphere that ultimately determines the boundaries of the private sphere, however capacious those boundaries may be. And the public sphere can exist only if people become fellow citizens, if they agree to be governed by the decisions made through a legitimate political process, even when these decisions may require that they part with their property or risk their lives. As Manent emphasizes, to have a political order people must be willing to “put things in common,” to become part of a community that in important respects must set itself off from those who are not members. Only in that way can it govern itself.

 

 

Citizens and the other

The most revealing account that I have found of the principled and moral refusal to “put things in common” in a political fashion is provided by J.H.H. Weiler in the essay cited above. Not coincidentally, that essay concludes by explicitly casting doubt on the value of democracy. For Weiler, Europe’s non-state constitutional federalism “represents . . . its deepest set of values,” rooted in what he calls the Principle of Constitutional Tolerance. This principle rejects not just nationalism but even the idea of “constitutional patriotism,” of an ethos that “implicitly celebrates a supposed unique moral identity, the wisdom, and yes, the superiority of the authors of the constitution, the people, the constitutional demos.” Weiler denies that democracy should be regarded as a goal of the eu. The goal, instead, “is to try, and try again, to live a life of decency, to honour our creation in the image of God, or the secular equivalent.” And “in the realm of the social, in the public square, the relationship to the alien is at the core of such decency.” Nothing is “normatively more important to the human condition and to our multicultural societies.”

How, then, should we deal with the alien? Weiler describes two strategies. The first, which involves inviting the alien to become one of us, e.g., by making him a fellow citizen, is rejected because “it risks robbing him of his identity.” It is thus “a form of dangerous internal and external intolerance.” Instead, Weiler argues in favor of a strategy that maintains boundaries and respects difference, but in which “one is commanded to reach over the boundary and accept [the alien], in his alienship, as oneself.” This points to the “deeper spiritual meaning” of Europe’s non-statist constitutional architecture. It calls upon Europeans to bond not with fellow citizens but precisely with others. It asks them to “compromise” their “self-determination” in the name of tolerance. It calls for voluntary subordination to the decisions of others, “which constitutes an act of true liberty and emancipation from collective self-arrogance and constitutional fetishism.” In sum, Weiler attacks the moral basis of the constitutional democratic state, in which people become fellow citizens by “putting things in common,” in favor of the allegedly more elevated principle of respecting what is alien.

Weiler’s essay is one of the most brilliant things I have read about the European Union, but, as is no doubt apparent, I believe it is profoundly misguided, both morally and practically. Central to Weiler’s discussion is his invocation of the fact that “Europe was built on the ashes of World War ii, which witnessed the most horrific alienation of those thought of as aliens; an alienation which became annihilation.” But what is the proper lesson to be drawn from the Holocaust? Is it that the constitutional democratic state is inadequate, or is it that the worst evils come from the failure to establish and consolidate constitutional democratic states? To me, it seems obvious that the correct lesson is the latter. Certainly, I know that if neo-Nazis or other alien-haters were to target me, I would vastly prefer to entrust my rights and my fate to the protections offered by a constitutional democratic state that combines law with force than to a transnational architecture of any sort.

Notes

1 See Charles Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton University Press, 1975).

2 See, for example, Peter Koslowski, “Fatherland Europe? On European and National Identity and Democratic Sovereignty,” in Andreas Follesdal and Peter Koslowski, eds., Democracy and the European Union (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1998).

3 Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 17, 28.

4 One of the clearest statements of this point of view may be found in Philippe C. Schmitter, How to Democratize the European Union . . . and Why Bother? (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). See especially Chapter 1.

5 J.H.H. Weiler, Epilogue, “Fischer: The Dark Side,” in Christian Joerges, Yves Mény, and J.H.H. Weiler, eds., What Kind of Constitution for What Kind of Polity? Responses to Joschka Fischer (San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, 2000).

6 Even Philippe Schmitter, one of the most thoughtful “non-state” theorists, acknowledges that if the EU were to play a more active role in security and defense policy, it would “have to acquire far more ‘statelike’ properties than it currently has in order to coordinate and finance such a collective effort.” Schmitter, How to Democratize the European Union, 27.

7 Marc F. Plattner, “Globalization and Self-Government,” Journal of Democracy (July 2002); “From Liberalism to Liberal Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (July 1999); “Liberalism and Democracy,” Foreign Affairs (March-April 1998).

8 See also Pierre Manent, Cours familier de philosophie politique (Paris: Fayard, 2001), especially Chapters 4-7 and 18; and “Les problèmes actuels de la démocratie,” Commentaire (2002).

 

TRANSLATION

 

Une “Convention Européenne” présidée par l’ancien Président français Valéry Giscard d’Estaing a récemment achevé de rédiger une nouvelle constitution pour l’Union Européenne, mais les parallèles avec la Convention de Philadelphie de 1787 que cela évoque inévitablement aux observateurs américains sont extrêmement trompeurs. Celui qui s’attend à ce que le débat actuel sur l’unification de l’Europe reflète le combat historique qui eut lieu aux Etats-Unis entre Fédéralistes et Anti-fédéralistes est rapidement désabusé. Il s’agissait dans ce cas d’une opposition sur le sens même du mot souveraineté et sur le degré approprié d’étatisation. Si l’on entend parfois certains politiciens soulever ces questions de nos jours en Europe, la tendance qui prédomine dans les cercles intellectuels et universitaires n’est pas de débattre sur la place de la souveraineté mais de s’interroger sur ce le concept de souveraineté lui-même, pas de s’interroger sur la place de l’état mais plutôt de se demander si l’ère de l’état moderne est arrivée à sa fin.

Cela peut sembler bizarre à une époque où l’état moderne semble connaître une consécration. En théorie le monde entier est aujourd’hui composé d’états indépendants, en nombre plus important que jamais auparavant. Et les plus importantes des institutions mondiales, à commencer par les Nations Unies, sont des organisations intergouvernementales dont les membres sont les états, représentés par les délégués de leurs gouvernements. Nul ne nie cependant que dans de nombreux quartiers, particulièrement dans certaines des « démocraties avancées », le sentiment que l’état devient progressivement obsolète est largement partagé, qu’il est de moins en moins capable de faire face aux problèmes du monde contemporain, et par-dessus tout à ceux que soulève la mondialisation. C’est le sentiment qui est à la source du contexte politique et moral dans lequel l’unification européenne ne parvient pas à se réaliser. Dans un certain sens, l’UE est clairement une organisation régionale, mais le débat autour de son avenir est intimement lié au problème de la mondialisation.

La mondialisation est un mot que l’on entend dans toutes les bouches aujourd’hui, pas seulement en Europe mais tout autour du monde. J’ai tendance à croire que les progrès récents dans les technologies des télécommunications et dans l’internationalisation des marchés ont généré une interpénétration mutuelle parmi les sociétés à travers le monde plus importante qu’elle ne le fût jamais auparavant. Cependant les caractéristiques regroupées sous le terme de mondialisation ne sont pas nouvelles. Suite à l’émergence des entreprises multinationales et aux chocs pétroliers des années 70, de nombreux observateurs ont mis en avant l’idée d’une « interdépendance » internationale. Et certains universitaires ont alors rétorqué que la mobilité et l’ouverture internationales étaient plus importantes au cours de la période précédant, la première Guerre Mondiale. De mon point de vue, ce qu’a de différent le discours actuel sur la mondialisation, c’est la vision vieillissante qu’il a de l’état moderne. Après avoir longtemps été perçu comme le point culminant de l’évolution politique et le cadre indispensable à la liberté et à la démocratie, l’état est à présent souvent vu comme une institution fortement liée à l’histoire, bâtie sur de vacillantes fondations morales.

 

Déconstruire l’état

L’un des universitaires qui semble avoir été particulièrement influent dans la définition de la pensée actuelle sur l’état moderne est John Ruggie. Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, Ruggie n’est pas seulement un professeur de relations internationales réputé, mais a aussi œuvré récemment en tant que secrétaire général adjoint des Nations Unies. Ses écrits, plus précisément son article «  La Territorialité et au-delà : problématiser la modernité dans les relations internationales », paru dans International Organization, sont largement cités tant dans la littérature académique que dans les débats politiques en ce qui concerne l’avenir de l’Union Européenne. Ce que Ruggie « problématise » dans son essai ce n’est pas uniquement la modernité, mais l’état moderne et le concept de souveraineté.

L’étude des relations internationales a tendance à tenir pour acquis le « système moderne d’états, » déclare Ruggie. Cependant, alors qu’elle est apte à saisir les changements dans l’équilibre des pouvoirs entre les états, elle n’est pas suffisamment fourbie pour comprendre les transformations les plus instantanées qui peuvent aboutir à « une discontinuité institutionnelle fondamentale dans le système d’états ». Pourtant existent des signes qui montrent qu’une telle période de changement d’époque puisse dès à présent nous guetter. Cela est visible de la même façon au travers de la transformation de l’économie mondiale à cause de liens transnationaux sans cesse étendus, et à la montée de l’Union Européenne, qui « pourrait n’être rien moins que l’émergence de la première forme politique internationale post-moderne ».

L’essai de Ruggie inclut un bref topo sur le débat sur le post-modernisme au sein des sciences humaines, mais pour les besoins de l’étude des relations internationales il distingue le moderne du post-moderne en ce que qu’ils envisagent différemment la configuration de l’espace politique. Le système de gouvernement moderne est basé « sur des enclaves territorialement définies, fixées et mutuellement exclusives de domination légitime. En tant que tel, il paraît unique dans l’histoire de l’humanité ». Comment l’espace politique a-t-il été différemment configuré par le passé ? 

 

- TEXTE 2 « Le rôle et la place des régions dans une Europe rénovée. »

.

Symposium annuel de l’Erasmus Prize Fundation, s-Hertogenbosch (Pays-Bas), le 4 novembre 2000.
par Jacques Delors*
novembre 2000


Le thème choisi pour le symposium aujourd’hui peut surprendre et sembler un peu décalé, voire périphérique, par rapport à l’actualité nourrie des négociations de la CIG et de l’élargissement. Pourtant, à chaque étape importante de la construction européenne, il est crucial de s’interroger sur le rôle de sa composante régionale et locale. Pour ceux qui sont soucieux des progrès du modèle européen de société, de la démocratie et de la prospérité du continent, cette réflexion s’impose comme une évidence. Pour ceux qui en douteraient, le texte préparé par le Professeur Zijderveld apporte une démonstration stimulante de la multiplicité des questions posées par une « lecture régionale » des évènements récents. J’ai noté qu’il nous suggère pas moins de sept sujets de discussion.

En introduisant notre débat sur le rôle et la place des régions dans une Union rénovée, j’ai conscience d’aborder une question qui provoque souvent des échanges passionnés, parfois manichéens. L’actualité récente, notamment dans mon pays à propos du futur statut de la Corse, a montré combien elle suscitait de polémiques. Je n’ai pas l’intention d’y ajouter mon grain de sel.

Cependant j’ai acquis de longue date des convictions - et j’entends les défendre - sur l’importance pour l’équilibre d’une société, et des individus qui la composent, de ne pas perdre leurs racines, sur le dynamisme des initiatives locales et régionales et, finalement, sur la richesse que représente la diversité territoriale européenne. Les idées que je vais présenter ne seront donc pas forcément partagées par tous. Mais, si j’ai bien compris, c’est ce qu’attendent les organisateurs. Ils comptent sur nos débats contradictoires pour clarifier certains enjeux et identifier de nouvelles pistes de travail et de progrès.

Je démarrerai par un constat sur lequel tout le monde sera sûrement d’accord : le chemin parcouru depuis la réforme des Fonds structurels de 1988 est considérable. En une décennie, les régions se sont affirmées en utilisant les opportunités offertes par l’Union européenne. Cependant je crois qu’il ne faut pas surestimer ces résultats, ni prendre argument de cette réussite pour transformer les règles du jeu de la construction européenne. Pour que le dialogue puisse se dérouler sans ambiguïté, je dois rappeler le principe selon lequel l’Union n’est pas fondée à s’immiscer dans la sphère constitutionnelle des Etats.

En effet, si l’Union élargie doit se construire davantage avec les régions, elle doit continuer à respecter la diversité institutionnelle des Etats membres. La viabilité future de la grande Europe passe autant par la cohésion et la mobilisation des régions qui la composent, que par sa capacité à répondre à de nouveaux problèmes de gouvernance.

 

TRANSLATION

 

Role and positions of regions in a renovated Europe.

 

Annual Symposium of the Erasmus Prize Foundation

 

 

By Jacques Delors

 

The topic chosen today for the symposium might surprise and seems out of step, or even outlying, compared with the current affairs harboured by negotiations of the IGC and the enlargement. However, at each important stage of the European construction, it seems crucial to ask us about the role of it regional and local component. For people who are concerned about the European society model progress, about democracy and continent’s prosperity, that thought is obvious. For people who would have doubts, the text written by Professor Zijderveld, brings an encouraging demonstration of the multiplicity of questions raised by a “regional reading” of the recent events. I noted that he suggests no fewer than seven topics of discussion.

 

In introducing the debate on the role and positions of regions in a renovated European Union, I’m aware to tackling a question that often provokes passionate - dualistic sometimes- exchanges. Recent current affairs, particularly in my country with regard of the future status of Corsica, have showed how much she generates debates. I have no intention of sticking one’s oar in.  

 

However, I acquired convictions for a long time – and I want to defend them- about the importance for the balance of the society, and for individuals who comprise it, not to lose touch with their roots, about the dynamic value of local and regional initiatives, and the source of wealth that represents the local European diversity. The ideas that I’m going to present may not be shared by everyone. But, if I understood well, it’s what organizers are expected for. They are hoping on our contradictory debates to clarify certain issues and to identify new leads for work and progress.

 

I will start with an observation on which everyone will surely agree: the way travelled since the 1998 reform of structural funds is considerable. In a decade, regions have asserted themselves by using the opportunities offered by the Union. Nevertheless, I think that we should not overestimate these results, or use this success as a reason for changing the rules of European integration. To avoid any ambiguity in the forthcoming discussion, I have to remind participants of the principle that the Union isn’t entitled to interfere in the constitutional affairs of its Member States.

 

Indeed, if European Union in a context of enlargement must be built in a closer cooperation with regions, it must continue to respect the institutional diversity of the Member States. The sustainability of a greater Europe depends just as much on the cohesion and involvement of its constituent regions as on its ability to respond to new governance problems. 

 

 

 

 

 

- TEXTE 3 “Constitutional regions and the European Union”

pdf file, impssible to copy.

 

- TEXT 4, 5, 6: SCAD Plus Cross-border cooperation programme, Communication from the Commission “Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries”, and communication from the Commission on the “Third progress report on cohesion: Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion” of 17 May 2005, and its annex:

 

Cross-border cooperation programme

This Regulation implements a cross-border cooperation programme under the Phare programme and is designed to promote cooperation between the border regions of central and eastern Europe and adjacent regions of the Community and other applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.

ACT

Commission Regulation (EC) No 2760/98 of 18 December 1998 concerning the implementation of a programme for cross-border cooperation in the framework of the Phare programme [ See amending acts ].

SUMMARY

This Regulation replaces Commission Regulation (EC) No 1628/94 of 4 July 1994 establishing the first cross-border cooperation programme and pursues similar aims, in particular economic development in the border regions of central and eastern European countries and greater convergence of their level of development with that of the European Union. However, it aims to extend the programme's geographical scope and to improve the operation of the previous programme by increasing the number of projects of a typically cross-border nature and stepping up the pace of implementation. The programme must be conducted in coordination with the Community's structural policies and the Interreg programme .

The borders eligible for this programme are those:

The Regulation lays down the criteria for the distribution of funds between the recipient countries (population, GDP per capita and surface area of the regions concerned).

Projects funded by grants under this programme must have the following aims:

Actions eligible for funding under the cross-border cooperation programme include:

The last five categories may only be financed under a fund which may be established in each of the regions concerned. This fund will receive a limited percentage of the appropriations for the programme with a view to encouraging joint small-scale actions involving local actors from the border regions.

The Community contribution is provided in principle as a grant. Where the Community grant contributes to the financing of revenue-generating activities, the Commission may, in consultation with the authorities involved, provide for co-financing from project revenues or reimbursement of the initial grants.

For each of the border regions, a Joint Cooperation Committee will be set up consisting of representatives of the countries concerned and the Commission. The Committee will prepare a joint cross-border programming document in a multiannual perspective, which will identify priorities and development strategies for the region and lay down provisions for their implementation. On the basis of this document the Committee will draw up a common set of projects once per year. Recommendations for projects will be transmitted to the Commission by the government of the country concerned.

On the basis of the joint cross-border programming document and project recommendations, the Commission will formulate a programme proposal for each border region. The amount of the grant for a given project will be established in accordance with the procedure laid down by Council Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89 of 18 December 1989 (Phare). That Regulation lays down the aid management procedures followed by the Commission. Wherever possible, joint monitoring structures will be set up to facilitate the implementation of the programmes.

Community action for regions bordering the candidate countries

1) OBJECTIVE

To propose a series of specific measures aimed at strengthening the economic competitiveness of EU regions bordering the acceding countries.

2) ACT

Communication of 25 July 2001 from the Commission on the impact of enlargement on regions bordering candidate countries - Community action for border regions [COM(2001) 437 final - Not published in the Official Journal].

Updated by:
Progress Report of 29 November 2002 on the Communication from the Commission on the impact of enlargement on regions bordering candidate countries - Community action for border regions [COM(2002)660 final].

3) SUMMARY

The challenge of the enlargement of the European Union , foreseen for 1 May 2004, with eight central and eastern European countries (Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia) and two Mediterranean countries (Cyprus and Malta) is unprecedented in the history of the EU. Over and above the purely economic considerations, the success of enlargement depends to a large extent on the support of present and future European citizens.

Within the framework of the accession partnership and the adoption of the Community acquis, the European Union is providing important financial and technical assistance, helping the future Member States in implementing deep structural reforms. The agreement on agricultural and regional policy reached in December 2002 at the Copenhagen European Council allowed to provisionally close the accession negotiations and lay down financial assistance for these countries until the end of 2006.

The economic gap between the existing and the future Member States is considerable. This is especially visible along large parts of the EU's border with candidate countries. Particular attention needs to be paid to these areas in order to turn the challenge of enlargement into a real opportunity of socio-economic development. Reinforcing information and communication measures is a good means of attaining such an objective.

THE ECONOMIC SITUATION OF BORDER REGIONS

The border regions concerned are defined as regions at NUTS II level , bordering the acceding countries by land or sea and situated around NUTS III regions involved in cross-border programmes under the INTERREG III A Community Initiative in the period 2000-2006. The EU counts 23 such border regions:

There are important disparities between these regions, mainly regarding the economic development, the employment rate, the infrastructure, the level of education, or the share of the gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to research. While the per capita income is relatively high in Italy, Finland, most Austrian regions and Bavaria, it is lower than 75% of the EU average in the new German Länder, Greece and Austria's Burgenland. Compared to the whole EU, the group of these 23 border regions nevertheless attains the present EU's average development level and employment rate. Per capita income and productivity are also higher in these regions than in the neighbouring regions of the acceding countries, except for Bratislava. The Second Progress Report on economic and social cohesion provides an important insight into the particular socio-economic situation of border regions.

Existing Community policies

For the 2000-06 period, the border regions of acceding countries will benefit from several forms of Community financial assistance through:

Effects of enlargement in border regions

Since the transition process started in 1990, the border regions have already benefited from their geographical proximity to the EU. The relatively well-developed infrastructure and low labour costs have contributed to stimulating markets, investments and tourism in these areas.

The income gap between the EU and the accession countries has led to fears of large migration flows into the EU. In the light of the studies carried out [SEC(2001) 457] and the experience of the accession of Spain and Portugal in 1986, the migration from the future Member States towards the EU should not exceed 1% of the present European population and the negative impact on wage levels is rather modest. Furthermore, the accession negotiations have established a series of measures (including a transition period, a review mechanism, safeguards and declarations of the Member States), which progressively introduce free movement of workers over 5-7 years. Immigration may even help to limit the adverse effects of ageing populations and to overcome labour shortages in some sectors.

The daily cross-border migrations vary considerably from one border region to the other, ranging from 1 to 8% of labour in different regions. Cross-border commuting affects mainly Germany and Austria. In the first case, it is mainly focused along the border of Bavaria with the Czech Republic. As for the second, Austria shares borders with four candidate countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia) and its main economic centres (Vienna, Graz and Linz) are located close to these borders.

With regard to economic integration, the competitive pressure generally associated with enlargement is already noticeable since the EU has lifted most customs duties and quantitative restrictions in trade in agricultural and industrial products from candidate countries. In general, capital-intensive and technologically advanced sectors in the border regions are likely to benefit from enlargement, while labour-intensive sectors (agriculture, heavy industry) are likely to face competition from cheaper labour coming from acceding countries.

COMMUNITY ACTION FOR BORDER REGIONS

The Commission estimates that the measures taken for all the EU regions need to be complemented by other action to contribute to better economic integration. Instead of creating a new specific instrument, a combination of new and improved existing measures will be most effective in addressing the specific needs of border regions. Moreover, the focus should be placed on providing better information on the objectives and benefits of enlargement.

The new measures aim to provide specific additional funding to border regions, worth a total of EUR 305 million. These measures are the following:

In addition to these measures providing additional funding, the action plan of the Commission proposes a better co-ordination of existing policies. The aim of this action plan is to strengthen the coherence and efficiency of Community policies with an important impact on border regions:

The floods of summer 2002 in Eastern Europe caused serious human and material damage in certain border regions in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. To be able to respond immediately to the needs of those suffering a disaster, the European Union has established the European Union Solidarity Fund , for which the annual allocation amounts to EUR 1 billion. In 2003, it will support the above regions. It is not limited geographically, but by the nature and size of the disaster.

4) IMPLEMENTING MEASURES

5) FOLLOW-UP WORK

 

- TEXTE 7 « Déclaration de Venise du groupe PPE au Comité des régions »

Impossible to copy, go to the link