Supranational union

Distinguishing features of a supranational union

A supranational union is a supranational polity that lies somewhere between a confederation that is an association of sovereign states and a federation that is a single sovereign state. The European Economic Community was described by its founder Robert Schuman as midway between confederalism which recognises the complete independence of states in an association and federalism which seeks to fuse them into a super-state. The EU has supranational competencies, but it possesses these competencies only to the extent that they are conferred on it by its member states (Kompetenz-Kompetenz). Within the scope of these competencies, the union exercises its powers in a sovereign manner, having its own legislative, executive, and judicial authorities. The supranational Community also has a chamber for organised civil society including economic and social associations and regional bodies.

The union has legal supremacy over its member states only to the extent that its member state governments have conferred competencies on the union. It is up to the individual governments to ensure that they have full democratic backing in each of the member states. The citizens of the member states, though retaining their nationality and national citizenship, additionally become citizens of the union, as is the case with the European Union.

The European Union, the only clear example of a supranational union, has a parliament with legislative oversight, elected by its citizens. To this extent, a supranational union like the European Union has characteristics that are not entirely dissimilar to the characteristics of a federal state like the United States of America. However, the differences in scale become apparent if one compares the United States federal budget with the budget of the European Union (which amounts only to about one percent of combined GDP) or the size of the federal civil service of the United States with the Civil Service of the European Union.

Supranationalism in the European Union

Historically the concept was introduced and made a concrete reality by Robert Schuman when the French Government agreed to the principle in the Schuman Declaration and accepted the Schuman Plan confined to specific sectors of vital interest of peace and war. Thus commenced the European Community system beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community. The six founder States (France, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) agreed on the goal: making "war not only unthinkable but materially impossible". They agreed on the means: putting the vital interests, namely coal and steel production, under a common High Authority, subject to common democratic and legal institutions. They agreed on the European rule of law and a new democratic procedure.

The five institutions (besides the High Authority) were a Consultative Committee (a chamber representing civil society interests of enterprises, workers and consumers), a parliament, and a Council of government ministers. A Court of Justice would decide disputes coming from governments, public or private enterprises, consumer groups, any other group interests or even an individual. A complaint could be lodged in a local tribunal or national courts, where appropriate. Member states have yet to fulfil and develop the articles in the Paris and Rome treaties for full democracy in the European Parliament and other institutions such as the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions.

Schuman described supranational unions as a new stage in human development. It contrasted with destructive nationalisms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that began in glorious patriotism and ended in wars. He traced the beginning concept of supranationality back to the nineteenth century, such as the Postal Union, and the term supranational is used around the time of the First World War. Democracy, which he defined as "in the service of the people and acting in agreement with it", was a fundamental part of a supranational community. However, governments only began to hold direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, and then not according to the treaties. A single electoral statute was specified in the treaty for Europe's first community of coal and steel in 1951. Civil society (largely non-political) was to have its own elected chamber in the Consultative Committees specific to each Community as democratically agreed, but the process was frozen (as were Europe's parliamentary elections) by Charles de Gaulle and other politicians who opposed the Community method.

Today supranationalism only exists in the two European Communities inside the EU: the Economic Community (often called the European Community although it does not legally cover all State activities) and Euratom (the European Atomic Energy Community, a non-proliferation community, in which certain potentialities have been frozen or blocked). Supranational Communities provide powerful but generally unexploited and innovatory means for democratic foreign policy, by mobilising civil society to the democratically agreed goals of the Community.

The first Community of Coal and Steel was agreed only for fifty years. Opposition, mainly by enterprises that had to pay a small European tax of less than 1% and government ministers in the council, led to its democratic mandate not being renewed. Its jurisprudence and heritage remain part of the European Community system.

De Gaulle attempted to turn the European Commission into a political secretariat under his control in the Fouchet Plan but this move was thwarted by such democrats in the Benelux countries as Paul-Henri Spaak, Joseph Luns and Joseph Bech as well as a large wave of other pro-Europeans in all the Community countries.

The supranational Community method came under attack, not only from de Gaulle but also from other nationalists and Communists. In the post-de-Gaulle period, rather than holding pan-European elections under a single statute as specified in all the treaties, governments held and continue to hold separate national elections for the European Parliament. These often favour the major parties and discriminate against smaller, regional parties. Rather than granting elections to organised civil society in the consultative committees, governments created a three-pillar system under the Amsterdam Treaty and Maastricht Treaty, mixing intergovernmental and supranational systems. Two pillars governing External policy and Justice and Home affairs are not subject to the same democratic controls as the Community system.

In the Lisbon Treaty and the earlier nearly identical Constitutional Treaty, the democratic independence of the five key institutions is further blurred. This moves the project from full democratic supranationalism in the direction of not just intergovernmentalism but the politicisation of the institutions, and control by two or three major party political organisations. The Commission defines key legal aspects of the supranational system because its members must be independent of commercial, labour, consumer, political or lobby interests (Article 9 of the Paris Treaty). The commission was to be composed of a small number of experienced personalities, whose impartiality was beyond question. As such, the early presidents of the Commission and the High Authority were strong defenders of European democracy against national, autocratic practice or the rule of the strong over the weak.

The idea in the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties is to run the European Commission as a political office. Governments would prefer to have a national member on the commission, although this is against the principle of supranational democracy. (The original concept was that the commission should act as a single impartial college of independent, experienced personalities having public confidence. One of the Communities was defined in the treaty as a Commission with fewer members than the number of its member states.) Thus, the members of the commission are becoming predominantly party-political, and composed of sometimes rejected, disgraced or unwanted national politicians.

The first president of the High Authority was Jean Monnet, who never joined a political party, as was the case with most of the other members of the Commissions. They came from diverse liberal professions, having made recognised European contributions.

Governments also wish to retain the secrecy of their deliberations in the Council of Ministers or the European Council, which discusses matters of the most vital interest to European citizens. While some institutions such as the European Parliament have their debates open to the public, others such as the Council of Ministers and numerous committees are not. Schuman wrote in his book, Pour l'Europe (For Europe), that in a democratic supranational Community, "the Councils, committees and other organs should be placed under the control of public opinion that was effectual without paralysing their activity nor useful initiatives".

Categorising European supranationalism

Joseph H. H. Weiler, in his work The Dual Character of Supranationalism, states that there are two main facets to European supranationalism, although these seem to be true of many supranational systems. These are:

• Normative supranationalism: The Relationships and hierarchy that exist between Community policies and legal measures on one hand and the competing policies and legal measures of the member states on the other (the executive dimension)
• Decisional supranationalism: The institutional framework and decision-making by which such measures are initiated, debated, formulated, promulgated and, finally, executed (the legislative-judicial dimension)

In many ways, the split sees the separation of powers confined to merely two branches.

Comparing the European Union and the United States

In the Lisbon Treaty, the distribution of competencies in various policy areas between member states and the European Union is redistributed in three categories. Competences not explicitly listed belong to lower levels of governance.

Democratic deficit in the EU and other supranational unions

In a supranational union, the problem of how to reconcile the principle of equality among nation-states, which applies to international (intergovernmental) organisations, and the principle of equality among citizens, which applies within nation-states is resolved by taking a sectoral approach. This allows an innovatory, democratic broadening the number of actors to be included. These are present not only in the classical Parliament which has slightly different functions but also in the Consultative Committees such as the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions which the treaties give powers equivalent to parliaments in their areas but which are at present still developing their potential. In the European Union, the Lisbon Treaty mixes two principles (classical parliamentary government with a politically elected government) and a supranational community with an independent European Commission.

Governments are also trying to treat the Lisbon Treaty as a simple classical treaty, or even an amendment to one, which does not require citizens' support or democratic approval. The proposed Lisbon Treaty and the earlier Constitutional draft still retain in the European Union elements of a supranational union, as distinct from a federal state on the lines of the United States of America. But this is at the expense of the democratic potentialities of a full supranational union as conceived in the first Community.

Other international organisations with some degree of integration

The only union generally recognised as having achieved the status of a supranational union is the European Union.

Although the Soviet Union was created under an initial ideological appearance of forming a supranational union, it never de facto functioned as one, and constitutionally was a federation; see Republics of the Soviet Union § Constitutional status for details.

There are several other regional organisations that, while not supranational unions, have adopted or intend to adopt policies that may lead to a similar sort of integration in some respects.

• African Union (AU)
• Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
• Benelux, a political union of Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Though part of the EU, EU treaties contain an exception that EU law does not preclude further Benelux integration.
• Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Central American Integration System (SICA)
• Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a successor organization to the Soviet Union
• Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations
• Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (Gulf Cooperation Council) (GCC)
• Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO)
• Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)
• Group of 77 (G77) is a coalition of 134 developing countries, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. It was founded by non-aligned states during the Cold War.
• Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI)
• Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC)
• Organization of Turkic States
• Pacific Alliance, a Latin American trade bloc
• South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
• Union of South American Nations (USAN)
• Union State, a union of the Russian Federation and Belarus

Other organisations that have also discussed greater integration include:

• Arab League into an "Arab Union"
• Pacific Islands Forum into the "Pacific Union"
• Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) into the "Latin American Union"
• East African Community into the "East African Federation"
• Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC)
• Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)