Affiliated with the University of Nicosia |
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EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY OF LISBON: QUO VADIS? By Guy Harpaz
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Jean Monnet Lecturer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem President of the Israeli Association for the Study of European Integration |
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On 2 October,
2009 the Irish electorate, in an obligatory and legally-binding
referendum, approved the Treaty of Lisbon. That vote, followed by the
signing of the Lisbon Treaty by the Czech President on 3 November, 2009,
completed the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty and paved the
way for its entry into force (December 2009).
The Lisbon
Treaty is an ambitious albeit disguised constitutional document, which
provides the EU with a comprehensive and advanced constitutional,
institutional, socio-economic regime, a regime designed to enhance the
EU's legitimacy, cohesiveness, effectiveness and actorness, thereby
enabling it to face some of its internal and external challenges.[1]
For these purposes the Lisbon Treaty granted international legal
personality to the EU, abolished the
In overcoming the numerous challenges which faced the EU during the
eight-year constitutional process (2001-2009), the EU has proved to be a
modern phoenix. Yet that success cannot absolve the EU from facing
significant challenges that lie ahead. That success does not necessarily
epitomize wide, deep-seated support in Ireland and beyond for the EU.
Instead, there are widening
elite v. grass-root
gap and a representative democracy v. popular democracy gap, which can
be linked to the democratic deficit, the legitimacy
deficit and the
Community deficit from which the EU suffers. Moreover, the ratification
process reveals that European integration is at risk of falling hostage
to irrelevant considerations, petty national politics, the equivocal
will of a (small) Member State or that of a national leader. The
ratification process further teaches us that neither a more legitimate,
transparent and inclusive reform process nor a revised Treaty that
offers procedural guarantees in terms of participatory democracy would
necessarily ensure European public support or strong European identity
and affiliation. In future constitutional-institutional reforms, EU
legal bureaucrats would thus have to be innovative and creative enough
to be able to equip their leaders with the legal tools for the changing
needs of the EU and its polity, while refraining from drafting grand
constitutional reforms or Treaty revisions which might expose the EU to
yet another ratification saga. Constitutionalism may thus prove to be
"Out" while more low-key technocratism may prove to be "In". |
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International Affairs Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved
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