During the European elections, the life of ideas opens a file on political Europe. Not to repeat the debate between federalists and sovereignists, but to take note of the real advances of European construction, while questioning the problems that this construction poses to the democratic objective.
Clearly expressed refusal of the French and the Dutch of a constitutional treaty intended to lay the foundations of a common political space ; disavowal of universal suffrage by impressed leaders to renew, in another form (the Lisbon Treaty) which seemed to have been rejected ; deep disinterest of populations for European elections ; suspicion with regard to institutions deemed well technocratic: the list is long of the events which prevent believing that the political construction of Europe, a clearly displayed ambition, surely advances. We can rejoice, think that there is only national democracy as a national and that since there are no European people, the European institutions are condemned to be distant. On the contrary, we can deplore it, to consider that it is failing to fully assume its federal ambitions that Europe is broken and that it belongs to it, by organizing a European public space, of building a common political culture.
Little assured of herself, hesitant on the form it must give itself, political Europe is built, however. Very paradoxical construction, which mixes real democratic advances and institutional obscurities, clearly displayed intentions and pragmatic arrangements. It is this contrasting reality that this file wants to illustrate. It is well invented a European citizenship, carried by specific and guaranteed specific rights (see Etienne Pataut’s test). This citizenship, far from being only legal, is fully political: from it is built new struggles and new forms of mobilization from which it is necessary today to take the entire measure (see the test of Justine Lacroix). The fact remains that if European law is advancing, the harmonization of community and state courts is far from perfectly analyzed. Indetermination reigns in this area, where the power of interpretation of judges dominates (see the essay of P. Brunet). It is also the opacity that surrounds the decisions taken in the Council of the European Union, revealing the difficulties for the member states to exercise their sovereignty (S. Novak) in common.
This file will also include four reviews:
- Y. Bertoncini, T. Chopin, A. Dulphy, S. Kahn, Ch. Manigand, Critical dictionary of the European Union (Armand Colin).
- O. Beaud, Federation theory (Puf))
- Jc Barber, The long march to social Europe (Puf))
- H. Laurens, J. Tolan, G. Veinstein, Europe and Islam. Fifteen centuries of history (Odile Jacob).