The place of citizens in the European project
Ulrike Guérot
The place of European citizens must be upgraded in the political system of Europe, as citizens, not nation states, are the sovereign. To do this, the first thing is to recognize that being a ‘European citizen’ means actually much more that feeling vaguely European because of Erasmus or travel or so, as often conveyed in European discussions. Citizenship always has a profound legal and normative underpinning. The citizens who are together in a political body and who form a democracy are equal in front of the law. This is what characterized the belonging to a state, and not cultural affinity. Theodor Schieder, a conservative German historian, wrote in 1963 already: “The subjective commitment to a (…) state remains the only element of the political belonging, not language, national spirit or national character. A nation is a community of citizens”. De facto, as much as Europe achieved a single market and a single currency, a single citizenship is now the task of today’s Europe. The Brexit case demonstrates clearly, that millions of European citizens are losing their European citizen’s rights, if and when Brexit happens. Citizens agreeing on equal law (‘ius aequum’ in Cicero’s words) found a Republic. A citizens Europe, about which is much talk, is thus ultimately a European Republic.
National elites have fiercely resisted every attempt to build channels of communication, processes of mutual recognition or transnational voting and party systems — all of which would allow peoples of different nations to merge their interests; and to represent the arbitrage of their political interests through a European two-chamber parliamentarian system, in which the European citizens were to be the sovereign of the system and not only in hold by delegated power through the EU Council. Such moves would have challenged the monopoly of representation by the national ruling classes, both internally and at the supranational level, and diminished their position as the inevitable conduits between ‘their’ people and the European institutions. In other words: the desired ‘politicisation’ of Europe, where political decision-making would be organised beyond nation-state sovereignty, never took place.
Remember that citizens are sovereign
The political system of the EU, with the Council at its heart, inherently mirrors this pattern: projects in the collective interest of all European citizens, whether a common refugee policy or a European unemployment scheme, are systematically torpedoed by ‘national cards’. If Europe wants to become a democracy, politics must trump national affiliation: the Council must go.
It is also time to let go of the EU and to move away from the idea of a United States of Europe. It is time to discover the place of citizens in the European project and to remember that citizens — not states — are sovereign. As French sociologist Pierre Rosanvallon put it, the EU was built on a lie. The lie is that the EU is equally a union of states and a union of citizens, as promised in the Treaty of Maastricht. But the union of citizens does not exist. Brexit is the best example: if European citizenship really existed, the United Kingdom as a country could leave the EU while Brits could remain citizens of the union. In reality, they will not. Here is the betrayal.
Upgrading citizens within the European political project ultimately means striving for a European Republic. When citizens embark together upon a political project, they don’t go for ‘united states’; they create a republic. A republic is created by people who decide to be equal before the law. Nationality is not in the definition. A republic does not have ethnic contours or prerequisites; rather it has, in the definition of Cicero, ius aequum — equal law — for all citizens.
We cannot create a democratic Europe without practicing. To be a European citizen one must practice duties and rights of citizenship like swimming, riding a bike or piano play. »Only of her character of the citizens creates and receives the state and if political and middle-class freedom makes possibly«, Friedrich Schiller wrote. The European citizens urgently need a learning experience to internalize their role as part of a political body. Since learning is all about experience, these lectures have to be not only cognitively formatted but also addressed towards experiencing and practicing. Since, as everybody knows, one learns not only in a cognitive way, but above all through experience; otherwise one would not have to touch the hearthstone. Only if one learns by experience, that that what one practices, also goes, is better namely always, one leaves, how with Bicycle, sometime the supporting wheels away, in this case him Nation state.
A republic consisting of autonomous regions
A European republic would then be a federation of many regional units without a national intermediate body. A federation must always be small to be close to citizenship. For this reason, the European federalists have a central role in the regions in the sense of the principle of subsidiarity. We are increasing the importance of the regions in the political system Europe, that is, its decision-making power and autonomy. All this changes happen without any nationality Plebiscite, by the mandate of the republic citizens. The everyday decisions remain in the province and the metropolises, the supra-regional issues go to the republic.
The European provinces and metropolises as constitutive carriers of a European republic would be crucial in a veritable post-national Democracy by means of a European House of Representatives. All regions and there inhabitants would have equal rights in terms of European elections , and a European Senate consisting of two senators per province or metropolitan region would represent the regions on the next level of governance. Provinces and metropolises would be autonomous and would have a governor.
Both houses together form the European Congress. The executive president of the European Republic is directly elected by the citizens. This model could guarantee for a strong European Community, with sufficient space and space for regional or urban autonomy.
The governors are not the senators, unlike in today’s federal Republic of Germany (where the Prime Ministers of the Regions are representatives in the Federal Council, the second chamber).The European republic guarantees a common administration and infrastructure for all European citizens, without denying different cultures and mentalities. “Unity in diversity” is the initial guiding principal in the European community that has never been really determined in a binding model. The EU, but never has found as a model for the decentralized, multiethnic design or a truly federalist entity beyond centralism.
In 2016 Ulrike Guérot was appointed as Professor at the Danube University in Krems, Austria. Since then she is leading the department for European Policy and the Study of Democracy. Moreover, she is the founder of the European Democracy Lab in Berlin, dedicated to the idea of a European Republic. Before her work in Krems and Berlin Ulrike Guérot has worked in international think-tanks in Paris, Brussels, London and Washington. Her first book “Why Europe needs to become a Republic! A political utopia”, was published by Dietz in 2016. Her latest Work “The new civil war — the open Europe and its enemies”, published by Ullstein is a bestseller in Germany. Since September 2017 she is the holder of the Alfred-Grosser visiting professorship at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt.
