Table Of ContentThe Normativity of the European Union
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0001
Also by Erik O. Eriksen
RETHINKING DEMOCRACY AND THE EUROPEAN UNION (co-editor J. E. Fossum)
THE UNFINISHED DEMOCRATIZATION OF EUROPE
LAW, DEMOCRACY AND SOLIDARITY IN A POSTNATIONAL UNION
(co-editors C. Joerges and F. Rödl)
MAKING THE EUROPEAN POLITY
DEVELOPING A CONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE (co-editors J. E. Fossum and A. J. Menéndez)
DEMOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: Integration through Deliberation?
(co-editor J. E. Fossum)
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0001
The Normativity of the
European Union
Erik O. Eriksen
Professor of Political Science and Director, ARENA
Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo,
Norway
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0001
© Erik O. Eriksen 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-39144-5
The author of this book has received financial support from the
Norwegian Non-fiction Literature Fund.
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First published 2014 by
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doi: 10.1057/9781137391452
Contents
Prologue vi
Acknowledgements viii
The Musts of European Integration
Voluntary Supranationalism
European Democracy
Democratic Alternatives or Dead Ends?
A Cosmopolitan European Future
Fraternité – The Missing Must of Integration
References
Index
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0001 v
Prologue
The European integration process is unfinished and the
European Union is an unsettled project. The lingering
question is whether there is a third way between intergov-
ernmentalism and supranational state-building. That there
is such an alternative has become steadily more manifest
and apparent since the early 1990s. This third way, a non-
state polity, it should be noted, has deep historical roots
in Europe. Since the French Revolution, states have not
existed in isolation as bounded geographical totalities, but
have interacted and, time and again, affected each other
adversely, and grown in interdependence and reciprocity.
This development is very much speeded up by the EU,
whose institutions provide mechanisms for encouraging
member states to consider the external effects of their
decisions on others, and which has subjected states to
supranational checks.
From a cosmopolitan point of view there is a need for a
multilevel system of rule in which supra-state authorities
monitor the conduct of lower levels to ensure their compli-
ance with rule of law, human rights and democracy. This
poses the question whether the integration process will
transform cosmopolitan citizenship into reality. The EU
pursues a modern idea of government as divorced from
nationhood: the polity is not destined by pre-political
bounds or power relations. The European citizens are no
longer solely members of a national state but of the EU
and the international community.
In this book I set out the idea that the normative founda-
tion of the EU is connected to the changed parameters of
vi doi: 10.1057/9781137391452.0002
Prologue vii
power politics through which sovereignty has become conditional upon
respecting democracy and human rights. The Community has ended up
as a polity in its own right, and one with democracy as one of its con-
stitutional principles. It has been brought about by the will and power
of European actors, and will be there in the foreseeable future. How
was such an integrationist move made possible, and what is the essence
of its mission? In order to come to grips with the normativity of this
project, I reconstruct the integration process from a distinct theoreti-
cal perspective. The force of reasons in problem-solving and in conflict
resolution in legally organised orders constitutes the core component of
this approach. The book identifies the main reasons as imperatives – as
normative musts – for European integration. By this I set out to clarify
the EU’s underlying structure, which sheds light on its endurance – on
what keeps it ticking in the midst of the crises, conflicts and disappoint-
ments we witness every day.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0002
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor
Matthias Lutz-Bachman at Goethe University Frankfurt,
who in collaboration with Drs Andreas Niederberger and
Philippe Schink initiated this book project. I am also grate-
ful for the events they organised in Frankfurt on the draft
version of the book on 22 and 23 April 2013. I would like to
thank all the participants for the discussion. In particular
I am indebted to Dr. Rosa Sierra of the Goethe University
Frankfurt, Dr. Oliver Eberl of the University of Darmstadt,
and Professor Claudia Landwehr of Gutenberg-University
Mainz for their extensive comments.
In putting together this book I have benefited from
cooperation with very many scholars over the years. At
ARENA I am thankful to John Erik Fossum, in particu-
lar, with whom I directed the RECON project 2007–11.1
Further, I am deeply grateful for comments provided by
Christopher Lord, Andreas Grimmel, Espen D. H. Olsen
and Helene Sjursen. For administrative help I would like to
thank Marit Eldholm, Kadri Miard and Helena Seibicke.
This book project has been supported by the Research
Council of Norway’s Norwegian Constitution Bicentennial
2014 Research Initiative (GRUNNLOV).
Note
See the RECON (Reconstituting Democracy in Europe)
website, available at: http://www.reconproject.eu/.
viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0003
1
Musts
The of European
Integration
Abstract: The European Union has ended up as a polity in
its own right and one with democratic credentials. What
made such an integrationist move possible? Moreover,
why do the member states find themselves entangled in a
situation of pooled sovereignty and collectivised risks? This
chapter reconstructs the integration process from a distinct
theoretical perspective premised on the assumed force
of reasons. Some reasons take the form of musts and are
inescapable in order to give a full account of the integration
process. Values like peace, democracy, impartiality and
dignity are among the musts of the European integration
process. Despite their indeterminate character, they
have obtained a quasi-empirical status as requirements
on actors and institutions. The normativity of the EU
underscores non-domination and a post-humiliating
Europe, which is threatened by todays’ Eurozone crisis.
Eriksen, Erik O. The Normativity of the European Union.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
doi: 10.1057/9781137391452.0004.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137391452.0004
