EU:The EU will only overcome its "midlife crisis" through a continuing appreciation and "stubborn endorsement" of the democratic ideal, according to an international expert in constitutional theory.
The "potentially reinforcing strength" of this democratic ideal "is crucial to success of the second-half century of European integration", Prof Neil Walker, law professor at the European University Institute (EIL) in Florence, Italy, said in NUI, Galway last night.
Prof Walker was marking the 50th anniversary of the EU's foundation at the NUIG law faculty's annual distinguished lecture in the university last night. This anniversary has coincided with a period of prolonged introspection and regular intimations of new beginnings, Prof Walker noted.
The "beleaguered" constitutional treaty was the most prominent example of this, he said.
The landmark has been heralded with many clichés and slogans but behind them lies the substantial issue of the EU being a victim of its own success, he added.
More and more, the EU was seen and presented itself as a "qualitative departure from the institutional norm" and as a self-standing "three-dimensional polity" rather than a two-dimensional set of institutions or cluster of policy functions, he said. The growing prominence of the EU and its gradual assumption of some of the functions of the state meant that its place in international relations was becoming more, rather than less, ambiguous.
Henry Kissinger's famous question - "who do we call when we want to speak to Europe?" - remained unanswered today, he said.
Where once there was no viable candidate, there now seemed to be too many, he added.
Prof Walker also questioned the rationale and status of the EU's boundaries. Were they selfish and pragmatic, territorial, or cultural?
"Clearly this is a much conflicted question," he said, adding that Europe's success made the issue "ever more urgent".
The EU's democratic deficit was intimately related to a sovereignty surplus, he said. Sovereignty was no longer an exclusive attribute of nation states making up the 27-member union, but was also claimed by the EU itself, he said. This sovereignty surplus was the deep cause of the democratic deficit.
The net effect of the EU's challenges to the substance and form of state sovereignty had resulted in a split - by which sovereignty was now "spread around in a quite unprecedented manner".
This, in turn, was splitting the need for democracy, he said.