pro Europe - Austrian Embassy Series "National Sovereignty within the EU?"

on Wednesday, 19 October 2011 from 12.30-2pm

at the Residence of the Austrian Embassy, 18 Belgrave Square, LONDON SW1X 8PX.

Speaker:

Prof. Heinrich Neisser

University of Innsbruck

Former MP, Minister and 2nd Speaker of the Austrian Parliament

Discussant:

Prof. Vernon Bogdanor

King’s College London

One of the first-time hallmarks of the EU has been the concept of supranationality: the pooling of parts of national sovereignty onto a higher plane, exercised in the common interest. The result is a system of common multilateral governance, with several actors: subnational, national and above. The EU uses this approach and calls it “supranationality”. But it has its in-built limits: the EU’s duty to respect “national identities” protects member states’ core national competences such as territorial integrity, public order and national security.

Prof. Neisser related the concept of sovereignty within the EU to the equality of all member states, based on mutual respect. This serves to protect smaller member states against overpowering big ones. Contrary to him, Prof. Bogdanor argued that from a British perspective, sovereignty is indivisible and cannot be transferred, shared or pooled: “power must be located in one particular place”. If the eurozone is to survive, a big leap forward must be taken, like in the EU’s founding days in the1950s. Then as now, this involves a gamble. Britain would, however, “remain outside”.

Elisabeth Kögler, Austrian Chargée d'Affaires, summed up the discussion by stressing that the legitimacy of the European project for the European people(s) – the European demos – would become ever more important.

PRO EUROPE is an initiative of the Austrian Embassy in London for discussing European affairs. Its mission is to provide an informal platform for connecting international scholarly and political expertise on European issues, which are relevant for the UK and other European countries, and to discuss international perspectives through scholarship and engagement with practitioners and decision-makers on why governments should be assertive about Europe.

“No European state in the 21st century can lastingly and successfully advocate its interests in the world alone. The major challenges of our modern societies know no borders.” (Michael Spindelegger, Austrian Foreign Minister)