How the Process Goes in the Wider Perspective of European Integration

How the Process Goes in the Wider Perspective of European Integration Presented by: Prof. Stępkowski Date: 22 March 2024 The Main Argument: - Contemporary European Integration is only a stage of a much longer process that started with the modern political changes. • Not necessary the most obvious course of action if considered from current political perspective. - It is post-modern process of creating post-modern state in a way which is analogous to the emergence of modern states. - • It is based on the same cultural / philosophical premises • There are analogous stages of the process All the story is about political and legal modernization • Simple or late/reflexive What The Political Modernisation Is About? - Dislocation of sovereign powers for ever-higher level of social life. • - - Sovereign powers - powers to determine the content of law Simple modernization: Centralization: • Central legislative power abolishing traditional legal pluralism • Feudal corporations >> modern state authorities Reflexive/late/post-modernization: • Transferring sovereign powers from the level of national state to the supranational European level (political dimension) • Emergence and development of judicial review of the actions taken by the public authorities (legal dimension) Karl Marks On Modern State - Communist Manifesto (1840) • Describing economic features of the modern (bourgeois) society emphasized:  The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff. The Modern State - One central (popular) legislative power providing • Unified single market  Abolishment internal duties within state  Unified measures (metric: the Sevres pattern)  Unified currency • Unified legal area  Modern codification movement  Abolishment of legal pluralism - State affirming equality and freedom of citizens • Subjective rights of individuals • Disintegration of traditional social structures/communities  Feudal corporations/gilds/social and economic regulators Modern Theoretical Framework - Mechanical approach to politics instead of organic and ethical • Rejecting of the virtue as a core regulator of public life  Modernity: central position of egoism/selfishness  Politics no longer about granting power to virtuous, but • Introducing: technical system providing accountability of decision makers  Depersonalized mechanisms: disabling individual selfishness.  Law/legality replacing virtue/justice in public life Providing Accountability: - - Twofold control: • Political control • Legal control by courts (judicial review) Political choices under popular scrutiny • - Popular elections of representative bodies Exercising of the political choices subjected to law • Principle of legality / replacing social control of virtuosity • Enforced by means of judicial review. Interesting Regularity - Authorities originally in charge of providing social control • With time overtake the power to influence  Determine the political choices o Deserving social control. - The sovereign power relocated to still upper structures • Extending distance between ordinary citizens and authorities. I. Phase: Feudal self-government >> Modern administration - Feudal corporate structures providing local administration • Subjection to strict control by the royal administration,  Replacement of the feudal structures by the royal administration (centralization of power Police Staat) • Abolishment of feudal structures  Royal administration => true sovereign and transformation into modern state  Constitutional Monarchy (the Rechtsstaat) Phase II: Modern administration v. Parliaments - Original function of Parliaments: • Civil control over the administration • Limited participation in legislation  Only affecting civil freedoms and property • Expanding of civil control  Domination of legislation o Legislation as a means to subordinate administration to Parliaments ➢ Accomplished in early 20 c. - Emergence of parliamentary state • Parliaments = true sovereign powers. Phase III : Modern Parliamentary State >> Post-Modern International Administration - Creation of supranational (international) structures • Promoting economic growth • Promoting international cooperation  Protecting human rights - Some political decisions moved from national parliament to supranational level • "Some": more and more => already majority  National parliaments => implement decisions taken by the international administration in cooperation with national administration IV Currently: International Administration V. Supranational Representative Bodies - International administration – decision - maker - Supra-national parliamentary representation • Political control  Growth of political power o Growth of political importance of EU Parliament - Leading to creation of supranational parliamentary state. Peculiarity Of This Process - It is voluntary: at least partially • It starts with meta-social contract (TEU + TFEU)  Judicial review as means of integration o It is not efficient if would be weakening integration • - - The treaties might be de facto changed by means of ad hoc political decisions National states are transformed to • “Cosmopolitan states” • members of “cosmopolitan Empire" “Elf-disciplined members of the cosmopolitan European Empire” The Post-Modern State - One central supranational legislative power providing • Unified single market  Abolishment custom-tariffs between states  European standards – uniformization within the market  Unified currency • Unified legal area  Provided by legislation with commonly binding judicial interpretation  De facto source of law  Gradual diminishment of legal (national) pluralism o Weaken =>> abolished Affirmation Of Individual Equality And Freedom - Affirmation of fundamental rights of individuals • Versus modern national state  ECtHR + CJEU - Disintegration of modern social structures • Family >> marriage  Redefinition =>> abolishment - Disintegration of human identity • Individual no longer = human being  Animal as individual Modern <-> Post Modern - IDEA of original contract - Creating sovereign state through vesting it with natural liberty of individuals - In theory: to protect individuals in their original identity - In practice: to create individuals of new identity • Free from their social communities but fully dependent of state  Transformation of social relationships. - REAL original contract - (Text) vesting of EU with SOME sovereign power - (Reality) establishment of on- going mechanism of transfer of sovereignty to EU - Finis: post-modern sovereign state • Modern states reduced to functions of local government