Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction: European constitutionalism beyond the state
- Part I
- Part II
- 2 Postnational constitutionalism and the problem of translation
- 3 The unfinished constitution of the European Union: principles, processes and culture
- 4 Europe and the constitution: what if this is as good as it gets?
- 5 The European Union as a polycentric polity: returning to a neo-medieval Europe?
- Part III
- Epilogue: europe and the dream of reason
- Index
- References
5 - The European Union as a polycentric polity: returning to a neo-medieval Europe?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2009
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction: European constitutionalism beyond the state
- Part I
- Part II
- 2 Postnational constitutionalism and the problem of translation
- 3 The unfinished constitution of the European Union: principles, processes and culture
- 4 Europe and the constitution: what if this is as good as it gets?
- 5 The European Union as a polycentric polity: returning to a neo-medieval Europe?
- Part III
- Epilogue: europe and the dream of reason
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Between the cooperation of existing nations and the breaking of a new one there is no stable middle ground. A federation that succeeds becomes a nation; one that fails leads to secession; half-way attempts…must either snowball or roll back.
Federate or perish. That is how Stanley Hoffmann characterized the options for Europe in a famous comment made in 1966. In the eyes of Hoffmann the European Community would never be able to survive as an ‘in-between organization’ in constant turmoil. It had either to put on traditional federal clothing or to dissolve itself altogether. Hoffmann's comment is almost forty years old but could just as well have been taken from the ongoing debate about the future of Europe. It resembles remarkably the words of the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer in his widely cited speech at Humboldt University in May 2000. Fischer argued that ‘The consequence of the irrefutable enlargement of the EU is … erosion or integration.’ Confronted with two enormous challenges, ‘enlargement as quick as possible’ and ‘Europe's capacity to act’, Europe is forced in a federal direction – at least if one seriously wants to avoid erosion of the entire European project.
It is not the first time that enlargement is used as an argument for further integration, but Fischer's proposal is far from straightforward. He sees flexibility, or ‘enhanced cooperation’ as some prefer to call it, as an inroad to a more federal Europe.
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- European Constitutionalism beyond the State , pp. 103 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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