Political Union Means Democracy

Political union. It is a term that haunts and distorts the UK’s debate on the European Union. Political union is presented as the root cause of all the UK’s issues with membership of the EU - the ‘first sin’ of British politicians and the ultimate explanation for the result of the 2016 referendum and for the current turmoil surrounding Brexit. It is very common to hear Eurosceptics say that European integration would be just fine if was only focussed on economics and kept away from ‘ever closer union’. Yet the reality is that political union is an essential part of the future of Europe, the UK included, and to pretend otherwise will not lead to the restoration of the nation-state but to an increasingly technocratic and apolitical regime. Put another way, what we need is not to avoid or seek to amputate political union, for the sake of democracy we need to complete it.

To fully detail this argument, we first need to understand what political union is anyway. Beyond the populist fearmongering of a ‘European superstate’, what does this term actually mean? Well, to start with, not all political unions are created equal. Throughout history political union has taken various forms, some temporary, some durable, some centralised, some decentralised. In the most general sense, political union means states coming together to form a common government. This new government would have, in at least some areas, ultimate jurisdiction over the whole territory. The EU has elements of this, though they remain weak and areas of legal ascendency for European governance rarely deal with the key policy areas that most citizens are motivated by (like taxation or the armed forces).  Going deeper into the term, there are two main types of political union. First, we have simple incorporating unions. Here all the previous states are effectively dissolved into the new state, where the new central government has total and ultimate sovereignty over the entire area. Most states in Europe have unified through this process. However, incorporating unions can have an additional feature – they can seek to preserve the interests of the component states. In this instance, the states are able to retain features of their independence, like separate legal traditions or the recognition of at least notional border lines. If the EU is heading towards any political union, it is this second form.

The inherent suggestion in a lot of attacks on political union that it is a plot to deliberately eliminate the existing states and national identities of Europe is therefore unfounded. Even those who advocate for full political union are not calling for a centralising, homogenising form of political union. Many feel European but no one is seriously seeking to abandon their national identity entirely or to force others to do so. The construction of Europe has a unified political entity is fundamentally different in character to the construction of nation-states in the past. Political union will not create a European nation-state. Any European state would be one that lived alongside, rather than in opposition to, the national identities and cultures of Europe that we know today. 

Now that we know what we are talking about and can discuss this idea outside of caricatures, the obvious question is why should we want this anyway? Given where are today, why is it so important to promote political union and to bring it to its conclusion? Indeed, some argue that it is neither necessary nor desirable. For a long time in the UK, Eurosceptics argued that we could retain all the benefits of economic integration and do away with the unpleasant business of political union. Now, since then a number of these advocates have moved to much more extreme positions, but their old turf has been taken over by a group of ex-Remainers and so the argument lives on. Certainly, there is a superficial logic. The overwhelming weight of evidence shows that economic integration is good for the states involved. Trying to maintain that is exactly what rational, evidence-driven policy should lead to. But if you are to keep, and deepen, a European economic space, then it will have to be governed somehow. Someone, somewhere, will need to make the rules for this European economy and these rules will have to be enforced. Sometimes, changes in the economic environment (either gradual or sudden) will require changes in policy and someone will have to make the decision on which way to go.

The question of political union is therefore the following: who should make these decisions? You can argue against political union but be honest about what this will mean. Under the current system it’s a mixture of collective decision-making in the Council, in the Commission, in national governments, and in the European Central Bank. The first and third represent the elected governments but here decisions can be slow, cumbersome and disjointed. Indeed, leaving the governance of the European economy entirely to national governments is simply not practical, leading to ineffective solutions and potential aggravating crises and divergence in Europe. The other bodies meanwhile have legitimate roles in enforcement of existing policy but do not (and never will) have the democratic legitimacy required to enact substantial policy changes. What they can do however is respond relatively rapidly and coordinate Europe-wide actions. In the absence of political union therefore, governance of the European economy is, over time, being steadily transferred to the most competent bodies currently available. However, these bodies are also the least democratic currently available.

In the case of the UK, the situation would be even worse. At least within the EU, there is partial political union and so citizens do get some input into the governance of the European economy. If we accepted the argument of those who believe that economic integration does not require political union at all then we would find ourselves outside of these political structures, without any formal representation from our national government, with no votes or vetoes and with no Commissioner. What democratic input we had would be lost and our relationship to the wider European economy would become entirely technocratic.

It is to resolve this dilemma, the tension that exists both in the status quo and in the nationalist alternative between competency and democratic legitimacy, that full political union is necessary. In other words, political union is not in opposition to European democracy, it is the necessary condition for European democracy. Full political union would mean a European government equipped with the full range of economic policy tools to govern the European economy - this would be competency. Full political union would also mean that this government was directly elected, likely formed through a parliamentary system - this would mean democracy. This government would therefore have all the necessary powers but it would be the votes of European citizens that would inform how it used its powers, rather than the internal cultures and orthodoxy that currently drive not only European institutions but international organisations in general.

So yes, let us continue to advance economic integration to help preserve and develop the prosperity of Europe and its citizens, but let’s be honest about what that will require in the political realm. Attempts to cut out and depoliticise economic policy are fundamentally undemocratic and bound to provoke a populist backlash. Political union must therefore be embraced as the only route through which we can expand democratic control over our economy. Europe will have centralised technocracy or it will have democratic federalism - it is only the latter that will guarantee citizens the control they are demanding.

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