Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
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Vol. 41, Nº 76 (2023), 172-185
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
The European Union as a
supranational association and the
problem of state sovereignty
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.4176.09
Inna Kostyrya *
Oksana Biletska **
Marina Shevchenko ***
Olena Kropyvko ****
Taras Lysenko *****
Abstract
The objective was to analyze the European Union EU as a
supranational association, which, in turn, leads to problems of
state sovereignty. The methodology employed consisted of general
and special scientic methods. Sovereignty is an archaic political
construct. There are two opposites: one focuses on the state and
proclaims that sovereignty resides in a particular level of government, the
parliament and the government derived from it; the other is the multilevel
approach that presents sovereignty through a new prism, claiming that the
concept itself is obsolete, challenging globalization and integration. The
ability and right of existing states to exercise supreme authority over their
territory, control access to it and defend their citizens has become more
dicult to exercise. To conclude, globalization, transnational trade, culture
and travel are just some of the factors that have challenged the eective
capacity of the state. To adapt to these transformations, sovereignties
are joined or shared with other states, as states are the main actors in an
organization such as the EU because their interaction is so complex and
intense that it has modied their independence.
* Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of the International Relations Department of International
Relations, Faculty of PR, Journalism and Cybersecurity, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts,
36 Yevhena Konovatsia st, 01133 Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2654-8472
** Candidate of Cultural Studies, Associate Professor Department of International Relations, Faculty
of PR, Journalism and Cybersecurity, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 36 Yevhena
Konovatsia st, 01133 Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1785-9607
*** Candidate of Cultural Studies, Associate Professor Department of International Relations Faculty of PR,
Journalism and Cybersecurity, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 36 Yevhena Konovatsia st,
01133 Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0960-513X
**** Candidate of History, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Political Science,
Department of International Relations and Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities and Pedagogy
National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine Heroiv Oborony Str.15 building 3,
of. 207, Kyiv Ukraine 03041. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3289-884X
***** Assistant Department of International Relations Faculty of PR, Journalism and Cybersecurity, Kyiv
National University of Culture and Arts, 36 Yevhena Konovatsia st, 01133 Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4879-9646
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Keywords: national sovereignty; obsolete sovereignty; supranationalism;
supreme political authority; independence.
La Unión Europea como asociación supranacional y el
problema de la soberanía estatal
Resumen
El objetivo fue analizar la Unión Europea UE como una asociación
supranacional, lo que, a su vez, conduce a problemas de soberanía estatal.
La metodología empleada consistió en métodos cientícos generales y
especiales. La soberanía es una construcción política arcaica. Hay dos
opuestos: uno, se centra en el Estado y proclama que la soberanía reside
en un nivel particular de gobierno, el parlamento y el gobierno derivado de
él; el otro, es el enfoque multinivel que presenta la soberanía a través de un
nuevo prisma, armando que el concepto mismo es obsoleto, desaando
la globalización y la integración. La capacidad y el derecho de los Estados
existentes de ejercer la autoridad suprema sobre su territorio, controlar el
acceso a él y defender a sus ciudadanos se ha vuelto más difícil de ejercer. Para
concluir, la globalización, el comercio transnacional, la cultura y los viajes
son solo algunos de los factores que han desaado la capacidad efectiva del
Estado. Para adaptarse a estas transformaciones, las soberanías se unen o
comparten con otros Estados, ya que los Estados son los principales actores
de una organización como la UE porque su interacción es tan compleja e
intensas que ha modicado su independencia.
Palabras clave: soberanía nacional; soberanía obsoleta;
supranacionalismo; autoridad política suprema;
independencia.
Introduction
When European states emerged from the Middle Ages, creators
worked to consolidate territorial possessions and rationalize territorial
administration. The main goal of this period was to consolidate territory,
often dispersed because of the dangers of inheritance or conquest. Thus,
Austria gave up territories in southern Italy for the north, and France
absorbed Franche-Comté, Alsace, and Lorraine, contributing to its eorts
to replace the disorderly: “Pré carré, or straight line of division” and the
chaotic 1659 border of the southern Netherlands (Abramson et al., 2022).
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Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
That is, the main goal of these ocials was to build increasingly ecient
states bound by well-institutionalized boundaries. These increasingly
eective state institutions played an important role in facilitating economic
exchange between people who did not know each other, for example by
providing clear rules and enforcing norms (Abramson et al., 2022).
In the absence of eective state-building, individuals often relied on
narrow and exclusive groups within which they could reliably engage in
commerce. In sixteenth-century England, individuals formed exclusive
associations to provide credit when the state was unable to provide a stable
currency at all times (Abramson et al., 2022).
Although frequent transfers of territory redrawing borders were part
of the broader process of European state-building, at the local level they
hampered eorts to build eective states. Regions with multiple border
changes lagged behind, as territorial transfers interfered with state eorts
to consolidate control.
Since the early days of the integration process, scholars have tried
to establish how and to what extent integration and globalization have
transformed sovereignty, both de jure and de facto. Although early theories
of EU integration painted supranationality in contrasting colors, they only
indirectly addressed the question of sovereignty.
The gradual transformation of the EU raised a critical question: How
can power, united in a supranational union halfway between a federation
and an international organization, be exercised collectively in a democratic
way?
In the post-Maastricht era, member states of the European Union
(EU) have been increasingly reluctant to delegate further powers to the
supranational level, citing their willingness to protect their sovereignty. At
the same time, recent crises in various policy areas, such as immigration,
borders, monetary policy, trade, etc., have prompted decision-makers to
expand, albeit in a limited way, the scope of EU institutions.
Not only the refugee crisis and attempts to save the euro but also the
debate surrounding Britain’s exit from the European Union has been a
dominant sovereignty issue. This has provoked an unprecedented level of
debate about the values underlying the EU’s common policy and what many
perceive as a new loss of sovereignty. Thus, the conundrum underlying
notions of “common” or “pooled” sovereignty has once again found itself
at the center of debates around the EU’s legal, economic, and political
legitimacy.
It is therefore important to reevaluate the issue of sovereignty in
the EU in light of contemporary challenges. Although the notion of
sovereignty has been central to the debate generated by the current EU
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Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 172-185
crisis, it remains strikingly under-researched. Big theories do not directly
address the question of sovereignty and tend to limit their reexions to the
opposition between national sovereignty and supranationalism (Zaharia
and Pozneacova, 2020).
Almost ten years after the explosion of the 2008 global and nancial
crisis and its European manifestation as the “Eurocrisis,” there is a growing
consensus that the latter has quickly outgrown or changed into a deeper
democratic crisis (Nanopoulos and Vergis, 2019).
EU integration, as a top-down process, had a corrosive eect on
European polity, delegitimizing the very idea of Europe’s political unity, and
at the same time promoting the growth of populist movements against the
EU. Because of the obvious shortcomings of the European project, the only
powerful narratives that seem to be populist rebuttals in blaming Brussels
and, above all, are the conclusion that EU institutions are democratically
delegitimized and cannot provide basic public goods such as employment,
security, currency and the like (Longo, 2019).
This article is aimed at summarizing the understanding of the European
Union as a supranational association and at the same time understanding
that it is a problem of state sovereignty.
1. Literature Review
Various scholars have investigated this problem, and their results and
conclusions have been used in addressing this issue.
In their work Zaharia and Pozneacova (2020) emphasis to the process
of framing supranational and intergovernmental theories in a historical
context to determine their signicance in the development of the European
Community. The concept of supranationalism was developed by Albert
Einstein, Winston Churchill, Robert Schuman, and Jean Monnet. At the
beginning, this concept was expressed, on the one hand, in terms of the
need to create a supranational organization in control of military and
nuclear forces. In addition, these eminent persons noted the possibility of a
supranational economic union.
It should be noted that the intergovernmental theory was described by
Stanley Homann, Alan Milward, Jerey Garrett, and Andrew Morawczyk.
According to them, the state is the main actor in the process of European
integration, and its role cannot be limited even in the best periods of
European integration. The adaptations of intergovernmental theory, on the
one hand, analyze the importance of the state in the European Community,
but, on the other hand, note the process of formatting preferences in
national state policies.
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Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
One response to the desire for a more democratically legitimate Union
and to meet citizens’ expectations about political institutions, which
today are channeled mainly into radical populist messaging, is certainly
to increase participation and extensive access to the processes under
discussion. This is all happening under the umbrella of Institutional Change
in the EU, following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, as an innovative tool
to involve people in the debate on politics and lawmaking at the EU level, by
supporting and submitting legislative initiatives to the Commission, which
aimed to create conditions for a new dialogue between political institutions,
civil society, and people, to “transfer the social sphere formed by citizens
using their rights and freedom in political freedom” (Longo, 2019; 32).
The transformation of the Economic Community into a political
union has sparked debates about how they change the nature of national
sovereignty. Throughout the 1990s, scholars tried to understand the
emergence of the new European conguration and the transformation of the
concept of sovereignty by introducing a wide range of metaphors, indicating
that sovereignty is unied and shared. They also tried to understand the
implications of a model of unied or shared sovereignty.
Does the abolition of the national veto, with a shift to qualied majority
voting in most areas of EU decision-making, combined with a top-down
European legal system, mark Europe’s transition to a post-sovereign, a
post-national political order based on human law? Or should it be perceived
as a pre-sovereign conguration that “divides and distributes sovereignty
in a way that eliminates the arbitrary power of any single agent or agency”?
(Brack et al., 2019).
Carmen (2022) points out that from the perspective of defenders of
state sovereignty, the EU was a somewhat unintentional and ultimately
undesirable evolution of the treaty creating a common economic space. The
EU could be considered unintentional because once it became operational,
individual states lost unilateral control over many of the changes made by
successive treaties, and undesirable because it encroached on larger and
larger areas of domestic politics.
The signatory states of the 1957 Treaty of Rome began a process
that culminated in a regional organization that gradually asserted legal
supremacy over the member states, thereby weakening the ability of these
states to decide how to manage their own economies and other related
economies. Civic nationalist views defending the idea of national self-
determination and the value of state sovereignty can be interpreted as
supporting this more skeptical view of the EU.
Over the past two decades, the formation of large coalitions has increased
in the European Union (EU), even in countries that have had no previous
political experience with them. Along with the signicant growth of both
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new and radical parties, large coalitions signal the growing fragmentation
of contemporary European politics (Morini and Loveless, 2021).
An anti-essentialist perspective helps to better understand the
phenomenon of Brexit and right-wing populist strategy in the United
Kingdom. The success of the “exit” vote in the referendum was due to
the ability of those defending exit from the EU to articulate a range of
demands, in some ways heterogeneous. Tony Blair was largely responsible
for the Brexit. He implemented a program that beneted the middle class
in the south of England, which completely abandoned the more industrial
northern regions. Neoliberal globalization has really devastated these
sectors, and the Brexit referendum exit camp has managed to portray the
European Union as the source of all the problems these communities face.
The Brexit has become hegemonic, highlighting a whole series of
demands. In the construction of the people, heterogeneous demands are
constantly being articulated. It requires a hegemonic qualier that becomes
a symbol that represents the demands; over which the people gather. The
people of the exit campaign clustered around the symbol of the Brexit, which
denoted all the heterogeneous competitions that were in fact resistance to
the post-democratic conditions created by neoliberal hegemony.
Those leading the campaign for exit managed to express this not as a
consequence of neoliberal hegemony, but as a consequence of belonging
to Europe. On this basis, the decision was to take back control and leave
the EU. This became the cement that crystallized the collective will. This
collective freedom was not an expression of existing demands; there were
no such demands against Europe. These demands were constructed by the
discursive campaign “Leave” (Moue and Ouziel, 2022).
2. Methods
The article is based on scientic works, articles, as well as the constituent
documents of the EU. The functioning of these organizations is clearly
evident in the fact that on the one hand, there are supranational bodies,
on the other hand, that successful integration is not necessarily connected
with the creation of supranational bodies.
The methods of research have been selected taking into account the
specics of the goals and objectives of this work. In general, a systematic
approach based on a combination of the dialectical method of scientic
knowledge of international legal phenomena and processes, as well as
general scientic and special research methods was used.
The methodological basis of the work consists of interdisciplinary and
integrated approaches. The interdisciplinary approach is based on the
178
Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
application of theoretical developments of jurisprudence, philosophy,
history, political science, economic theory, etc., which enable the fullest
comprehensive study of European integration and identify its impact on
the state sovereignty of the European Union countries.
Consequently, the comparative legal method is used in the study of the
content and signs of superpower. In turn, the logical-legal method allows to
nd elements, signs, and models of supranationality.
In the study is used a comprehensive approach aimed at revealing the
multidimensionality and multifactoriality of ontological determinants
of the integration process, contributing to the elucidation of connections
between the various structural levels of public power in the EU.
The hermeneutic method was used in the interpretation of the constituent
treaties and legislation of the EU, constitutions, and other sources of
national law in the aspect of clarifying the powers of Union institutions, the
legal regulation of issues related to the implementation of state sovereignty.
The use of system-structural and structural-functional methods helped
to consider the EU as an institutional-functional organization of power, the
legal order of the EU, giving it a character of integrity, as well as to dene
the degree of complexity of the political system of the EU.
The historical-legal method was used to cover the issue of the evolution
of approaches to the unication of European countries.
In turn, the comparative legal method was used to clarify the legal nature
of the EU as an integration association, identifying a trend to strengthen
the supranational foundations in its institutional mechanism.
3. Results
Together with attempts at new forms of regional integration, the end
of World War II ushered in a new phase for shifting territorial boundaries,
political forces, and institutional structures on the European continent.
From the outset, this sparked various political and scholarly debates about
the further reconguration of state sovereignty, with federalists advocating
the unication of former, mostly belligerent, nation-states into a European
federation (Brack et al., 2019).
Common values are the basis for establishing the institutional structure,
dening the goals and objectives of the integration association, and legislating
them. Common foundations give integration processes sustainability and a
certain direction. The fundamental values remain largely unchanged and
are generally preserved and proclaimed in all the founding acts of the EU.
They may be formulated in dierent ways, undergo certain changes in the
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relevant documents, but they remain unchanged in their essential content.
The fundamental values laid down based on integration determine the
nature and ways of achieving the set goals.
In practice, such goals and objectives are formulated and implemented
as part of the development strategy, which may also undergo certain
changes at dierent stages of the development of the integration process,
depending on internal and external conditions. The objectives are directly
related to the tasks, which are enshrined in the regulations and statutes.
These are, rst of all, founding treaties, as well as acts adopted to ensure
their observance. Comparing the European Union with other geopolitical
centers of power, it is necessary to bear in mind a number of its fundamental
peculiarities.
The formation of the single market and the eurozone, contributing to the
convergence of conditions in the EU countries, smoothing the dierences
between the national and regional models of the participants of these
associations, did not deprive them of their national identity (Organisation
for economic co-operation and development, 2019).
The commitment to common ideals, principles, and values is one of the
most important conditions for the formation and stability of integration
associations. Law does not establish values and ideals, it only consolidates
and conrms their existence, builds upon them, and relies on them to ensure
their fullest and most eective implementation (European parliament,
2021).
In the EU, the governance process is no longer carried out exclusively
by the state, but by various supranational, state, and non-state actors
in a polycentric and non-hierarchical system of governance. From this
perspective, it seems that the political supremacy does not belong to the
member states or to the supranational bodies of the EU, but between them
is exercised in dierent ways and combinations according to the sphere of
politics.
Over time, the EU has developed into a unique system of multi-level
governance, in which national governments are limited in their ability to
control the supranational institutions they have created at the European
level. Who decides and how is not always clear in a policy that brings together
28 member states, a wide range of institutions, bodies, expert committees,
national agencies, and national institutions in constant interaction with
their domestic and international counterparts (Zaharia and Pozneacova,
2020).
The EU continues to consist of sovereign actors in international
economic relations who have transferred only part of their sovereignty to
supranational bodies, choosing European values as a guide in state-building
processes. Within the EU, states often act for themselves but join forces
180
Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
against third countries at the supranational level. A “Europeanization of
values and nationalization of interests” is taking place (Razumkov centre,
2021).
Regarding the new European Union candidates, it is important to note
that Central and Eastern European countries wishing to join the European
Union must undertake public administration reforms at the national
level to meet the Copenhagen and Madrid criteria for European Union
membership. In turn, such reforms are expressed in the adaptation of EU
values by introducing qualitative multisectoral reforms in order to bring
national legal systems as close as possible to EU law (Gerasymova et al.,
2021).
In the liberal intergovernmental mechanism, “domestic social actors”
are embodied, in essence, as economic producers who contribute to shaping
the advantages of states and the “winning set” available to them during
intergovernmental negotiations (Figure 1). In view of this, postfunctionalism
is the only theoretical approach that emphasizes the primacy of domestic
politics and the possible pressures it can have on reducing the level and
scope of integration (Webber, 2019).
He also notes the relevance of politicizing issues related to identity and
sovereignty, especially for explaining crises. For example, the migration
crisis, the illiberal challenge, and Brexit can be explained in part by the
moderating eect of the politicization of identity and/or sovereignty issues
by political actors at the domestic level. These crises mobilized collective
identities, which some saw them as sovereignty issues, and any attempts to
depoliticize these issues had the opposite eect (Börzel et al., 2019).
Figure 1. Liberal mechanism of formation of supranational European Union
(author’s own development).
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 172-185
Although post-functionalism does not oer a particular development
of the concept of sovereignty per se, it emphasizes the need to go beyond
the binary opposition of national sovereignty versus supranationalism and
shows how important internal actors and events are for understanding EU
integration and its crises (Brack et al., 2019).
Daring to categorize the European Union, it is necessary to agree with
Villasmil (2022), who point out that it is the timely resolution of the crises
in dierent democratic societies that will determine the continuation of this
form of government in time, a situation that requires a specic scientic
study of each experience of polyarchy in the hands of an interdisciplinary
team and, more importantly, still through the support of an organized civil
society that wants to build a better reality.
According to Bellamy, state sovereignty matters because people living
in states have a long history of self-government. Liberal-democratic states
give their citizens room to create and shape the institutions governing their
social and economic lives to ensure freedom and justice, including political
and social rights. But a proper assessment of state sovereignty does not
require the abandonment of supranational institutional schemes that bring
states together.
Indeed, supranational institutions such as the EU oer states a number
of important advantages, including regulating their interactions to avoid
interstate domination, addressing collective action, and cooperating to
better meet the needs of their citizens. But to be consistent about respect
for state sovereignty, cooperation among states is best realized through
a “consensus agreement among democratic states,” acting as democratic
representatives of their citizens (Bellamy, 2019).
Since the famous Maastricht ruling of the German Constitutional Court
in 1993, there has been a constant debate around the “No demos” thesis. In
their ruling on the Maastricht Treaty, German judges argued that there were
no pan-European demos that would underlie a possibly fully democratic
European polity. Thus, the main problem with popular sovereignty in the
EU is the impossibility of nding a sovereign who could grant powers to
joint institutions (Rose, 2019).
On the one hand, the fact that dierent people remain distinct
means that they retain control (i.e., veto power or withdrawal) over the
constitutive rules of state structure; on the other hand, it also implies that
dierent European peoples are obliged to exercise their sovereignty “only
in agreement with all other members of the state or people.”
Today’s political practice, however, shows that a) on an intellectual
level, the concept of democracy has no political or social consensus, and b)
on a practical level, shared sovereignty is not (yet?) an operational concept;
rather, it tests the limits of dierent types of sovereignty in everyday politics,
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Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
igniting vivid conicts with destructive potential for democratic order in
Europe (Brack et al., 2019).
4. Discussion
Institutionalized cooperation among states does not diminish the
sovereignty of member states and their people but can preserve and enhance
it. It becomes possible: by creating the conditions of external sovereignty,
providing for the protection of states from undue interference by other
states, or by enabling states to increase their internal capacity to promote
and protect the interests of their citizens.
In general, one can agree with the normative framework and the need
to dene more precisely the relationship between state sovereignty and
supranational institutions. But, contrary to the arguments, one cannot
see how a supranational structure like the European Union can be created
without reducing the sovereign power of member states.
Over the past decade, the EU has been confronted with a “polycrisis”.
While it may seem that the EU is in a state of permanent crisis, this time is
dierent, as the European project has never had to face so many challenges
simultaneously, over such a long period of time, and with such a high price
to pay for inaction (Brack et al., 2019).
Over the past 10 years, not only have some Eastern and Central
European countries consistently challenged the legitimacy of the EU
and the Commission to take action when national governments adopt
legislative changes that put pressure on the liberal constitutional order and
the independence of their judicial systems, but more recently they have
challenged the necessarily supranational institutions to defend the common
values on which the EU was founded. This debate has raised fundamental
normative, political, and legal questions about the nature of the EU’s
political regime and its role in protecting shared values and preventing
member states from putting those values under signicant pressure. This
is an existential threat and a political challenge to EU integration (Brack et
al., 2019).
The result of the Brexit referendum on June 23, 2016, came as a shock
not only to those remaining in Britain but also to pro-Europeans throughout
the EU. Apparently, pro-European adherents signicantly misjudged the
support of most of their preferences. It is plausible to expect that an event
with such visibility and ramications will aect the shaping of beliefs and
benets not only among British citizens but also European citizens outside
the UK (Delis et al., 2020).
183
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 41 Nº 76 (2023): 172-185
Conclusions
The EU is an example of an orderly condence-building process,
allowing governments to steadily cede elements of national prerogatives
to supranational institutions. In an eort to lay the foundation for greater
integration to make future wars in Europe impossible, a gradual approach
was adopted, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community as
the area where the benets of cooperation after the war were most evident.
Based on this, the Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic
Community were signed in 1957.
The 1978 decision of the European Court of Justice established the
principle of mutual recognition of judgments in any one state among all
other European states. The Single European Act of 1987 abolished the
requirement of unanimity in decision-making, and then streamlined
Europe in 1992 and abolished border controls. The European Parliament
evolved from a deliberative group of national parliamentarians to a directly
elected body.
The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 called for a common currency and gave
legal meaning to the concept of Union citizenship. The Lisbon Treaty in 2009
expanded European competence, strengthening the European Parliament.
There have been ups and downs, and countries have progressed at dierent
rates, but the Union has expanded to 28 members.
Since the end of the twentieth century, the EU is believed to have suered
from a signicant legitimacy crisis, combining symptoms of a structural
democratic decit on the one hand and a general lack of eective solutions
to common problems on the other.
Since the creation of the European project, the external relations of
the European Union and its member states have been central to their
development at the international level. A striking feature of international
relations today is the increasing number of international organizations
and international agreements, as well as the growing range of issues they
involve. This naturally encourages the EU and its member states to make
active use of their external powers. While the EU has gained a lot of external
powers - because of treaties and case law - member states can still take
autonomous actions, as long as they do not violate EU law.
Sovereignty is at the heart of conicts over membership, as the Brexit
showed. Although in the past “closest union” was the only way forward, and
the return of sovereignty was unthinkable and legally impossible, the Lisbon
Treaty allows member states to withdraw from the Union in accordance
with their constitutional requirements. The extent to which leaving the EU
allows a return to the world of “early sovereignty” is unknown, and Brexit
is an interesting case in point. Similarly, the conicts in Britain over the
184
Inna Kostyrya, Oksana Biletska, Marina Shevchenko, Olena Kropyvko y Taras Lysenko
The European Union as a supranational association and the problem of state sovereignty
Brexit reveal a fundamental tension between dierent types of sovereignty,
in particular between popular sovereignty and parliamentary sovereignty.
These crises demonstrate that conicts of sovereignty occur at dierent
levels, in dierent domestic situations, and involve dierent spheres of
politics.
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Esta revista fue editada en formato digital y publicada
en enero de 2023, por el Fondo Editorial Serbiluz,
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela
Vol.41 Nº 76