of European wars, but also in response to a spiritual void. In essence, it is post-Christian. The loss of a religious sense of purpose has left a hole in the European soul, which is being filled for many by a belief in the vision of supranational governance. In today’s atheistic Europe, to put one’s faith in global governance and a united Europe is often a subconscious attempt to recover the hope for redemption from this vale of tears, from the world as it is, without appealing to God. The soft utopia that is the EU might be considered the natural, almost inevitable face of Christendom gone apostate.
The resort to unrealistic secular dreams in the absence of religious purpose is doing tremendous damage to democracy and the rule of law. But it’s not too late. With persistence and determination, the EU can be reformed. A democratic Europe of sovereign nation-states can be restored, and the United States and Europe together can renew the West’s commitment to self-government.
* “LGBT” is the abbreviation for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual.” But the terminology in this arena is fluid. Sometimes, the term is expanded to “LGBTI” to include intersex people.
SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
If you spend any time at all in Brussels, the de facto capital city of the European Union, you are bound to hear that the EU is sui generis, Latin for “the only one of its kind.” The EU is unlike anything that came before it, and most definitely not to be understood as anything like an international organization in the usual sense of the term.
The uniqueness of the EU lies primarily in the degree of supranationalism it exhibits.** In fact, supranationalism has been its primary distinguishing feature and the overriding ideal of its acolytes ever since the creation of the EU’s first direct institutional forerunner, the European Coal and Steel Community. In their joint declaration upon signing the Treaty of Paris to establish the ECSC on April 18, 1951, the six signatory ministers said:
It is important to distinguish the terms “international,” “transnational” and “supranational.” To quote John Fonte, “The term international is used mainly to denote relations among sovereign nation-states. . . . On the other hand, transnational means ‘across’ or ‘beyond’ nations . . . the term signifies legal action and authority beyond national laws, constitutions, and officials. Transnational politics is activity directed at the internal political affairs of nation-states, undertaken by both foreign and domestic non-state actors and by foreign states. . . . Supranational means ‘above’ or ‘over’ the nation-state. While advocates of transnational law are sometimes ambiguous about respect for national sovereignty, those who champion supranational law are more explicit about their aim to transfer decision-making authority (sovereign self-government) from the nation-state to global institutions, superior to any national institution.” Fonte, Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or Be Ruled by Others? (New York: Encounter Books, 2011), xxiii–xxiv. The EU could be characterized as either a transnational or a supranational organization, depending on the context. The vision of the global governance advocates in the EU is a supranational future for the EU and the world.
In signing the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Pool . . . the Contracting Parties have given proof of their determination to set up the first supra-national institution and thus to lay the real foundations of an organized Europe.
All European countries are free to participate in such an organized Europe. We sincerely hope that other nations will associate themselves with our efforts.1
WHAT THE EU IS NOT
The EU’s uniqueness comes out in sharp relief when one compares it with other international organizations that might seem at first glance to be similar. What sets the EU apart is the ceding of significant sovereign powers of the member states to the EU itself, as embodied in its institutions.
Take the Organization of American States (OAS), for example. Like the EU, the OAS is a regional organization. Its member states span the Americas, from Chile and Argentina in the south to Canada in the north. Similarly, the EU’s member states span most of Europe, from Spain and Cyprus in the south to Sweden and Finland in the north. The EU boasts twenty-eight member states and the OAS includes thirty-five member states. Both have common institutions, and the OAS member states, like the EU member states, make declarations and cooperate on economic and political affairs.
But after that, the differences begin to outweigh the similarities. The OAS is an international organization of sovereign member states, in which national governments of the Western Hemisphere come together to discuss issues and solve problems in their mutual national interests. OAS members do not give up any sovereignty when they join. In fact, Article 1 of the OAS Charter explicitly stresses the member states’ sovereignty and expressly forbids the organization from intervening in their internal affairs.2 Of course, there are inevitable attempts to hijack the OAS in the service of political agendas that cannot be achieved in the member states by democratic means, notably having to do with LGBT rights and “sexual and reproductive health,”3 but this does not change the basic nature of the OAS as an international organization of sovereign member states, rather than a supranational organization like the EU in which member states pool their sovereignty.
Many people think of the EU as essentially an economic entity based on a free-trade agreement, perhaps like the United States, Canada and Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This impression may derive from the name of the predecessor organization of the EU, the European Economic Community (EEC), or from concepts such as the single market and the European Monetary Union, which gave birth to the euro.
Certainly the EU is, in part, an economic entity. Like NAFTA, it is a free-trade bloc. But it is much more than that. The EU is also a customs union. And this entails closer, more restrictive ties than free trade, as Daniel Hannan, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament, explains: “A customs union involves internal free trade, but also a common external tariff. Its members surrender their separate commercial policies, and give up the right to sign trade agreements. Instead, trade negotiations are conducted, and treaties signed, by the bloc as a whole.”4
Beyond this, most of the EU member states are united by a common currency. Nineteen of the twenty-eight member states share the euro. Most of the other nine member states aspire to have it in the future, but they do not yet meet the qualifications for the eurozone. These are mostly countries that were communist satellites of the Soviet Union, with planned economies. They are still developing as free markets and are expected to join the eurozone when they qualify. The only countries in the EU that qualify for the euro but freely choose (for now) not to join are the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.
THE EU INSTITUTIONS
The EU, as we have seen, differs from international organizations such as the OAS and from free-trade areas such as NAFTA mainly in that the member states of the EU have relinquished substantial aspects of their sovereign powers to the EU institutions. In this respect, the EU is not just an economic entity but also a profoundly political one. It is better described not as an international organization, but as a supranational or at least a transnational organization, with “managing” institutions to which the member states have transferred considerable powers. The principal five EU institutions are the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Court of Justice.
The European Commission is the executive arm of the EU. It administers EU law and policy and enforces its implementation in the member states. It also possesses formidable legislative power, known as the “right of initiative.”