Democracy Beyond the Nation-State: From National Sovereignty to Pluralist European Sovereignty

Abstract

European integration was a response to the different crises faced by European nation-states after the two world wars – a major political innovation that has made it possible to build a structural peace model, reinforce fundamental values and rights and establish a market that has been the basis of its economic prosperity. Following an initial phase of institutional development of the community model, integration, particularly since the Empty Chair Crisis, has drifted towards an increasingly intergovernmental model in greater tension with the foundational supranational spirit. In recent years, Europe has again found itself faced by enormous challenges (economic crisis, Brexit, pandemic, rise of new powers, etc.). On this occasion, the EU has succeeded in adopting an Economic Recovery Plan that includes an ambitious EU debt programme to finance projects of recovery and structural transformation of the EU economy. Moreover, for several years the EU has been engaged in a debate on its future, which began with the Commission’s White Paper in March 2017 and will culminate in 2022 with the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). However, the interesting concepts included in the debate – strategic autonomy, European sovereignty – run the risk of limiting their scope to functional developments, without sufficient exploration of democratic aspects. Furthermore, the concept of European sovereignty, if restricted to a replication of state sovereignty on a European scale, would find its transformative and democratic potential significantly curtailed.