These new attributes of sovereignty join two symbols adopted in 1985: the official anthem of the EU, Beethoven’s setting of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy, and the EU flag, a circle of twelve golden stars against a blue background, which is now the featured emblem on more automobile license plates throughout the EU than any national flag. The importance of this accumulation of symbols is difficult to exaggerate. In the EU universe, such symbols mean more than they do elsewhere. Taken all together, they vest the EU with the readily recognizable trappings of state sovereignty. In this context, it should not be forgotten either that the European Parliament has been a directly elected parliament since 1979.
How is all this best to be understood? The road from the ECSC to the EU of today has been long and winding, with many twists and turns and several switchbacks. But somewhere along the way, Europe truly was transformed. A continent of sovereign nation-states has become a continent of EU member states. And the governments of these member states have ceded, step by step over more than six decades, an incalculable magnitude of sovereignty to Brussels. This drawn-out, elite-driven process has largely escaped the notice of average Europeans. Certainly, in its bureaucratic obfuscation, its rarefied, legalistic complexity and its self-contained universe of insider jargon, the EU has developed in a way that most people have not had the time or energy to comprehend. The institutional growth of what is now the EU has come about through an unbending and dogged pursuit of “ever closer union,” imposed from the top down, by a process shrouded in obscurity and crowned with a series of significant triumphs. In the next chapter we will examine the role that this key three-word phrase, “ever closer union,” has played in the history of European integration.
THE CLOAK OF CONSTRUCTIVE AMBIGUITY
As we have seen, the EU and its institutional predecessors have been undergoing virtually continuous change. This includes tremendous growth in size and membership since the ECSC was launched with six founding members. Since the first new member states joined in the 1970s, the EU has reached the point where now, with twenty-eight members, it stands on the cusp of becoming almost pan-European. Just as importantly, though, the EU has steadily been changing institutionally over the course of six decades. Ever more power has been transferred, step by step, from national capitals to Brussels. According to best estimates, anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the laws affecting the average Swede or Italian or Spaniard or Dane have their origin in Brussels.1 And almost all of this has happened not in a straight line of logical progression, but along a curvy, sometimes broken path on which reality differs from language, practice diverges from law and regulation, and the European Union (like the ten different “configurations” of the supposedly one Council of Ministers) can appear to be all or none of the very different things that people of various nationalities and diverse ideologies want it to be.
But through all of the postmodern flux, one key foundational phrase has remained. It appeared at the very beginning of the 1957 Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community, encapsulating the meaning of the entire treaty in three words: the determination of the signatories “to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples . . . .”2
HOW “EVER CLOSER UNION” HOLDS THE PROJECT TOGETHER
In the hearts of believers in the European idea, “ever closer union among the peoples of Europe” is a noble aspiration. Arising as it did out of the postwar European longing for peace, “ever closer union” expressed not just the meaning of the Rome Treaty, but also the essence of what became the EU.
It also encapsulates the EU’s “bothness.” For the supranationalists, “ever closer union” captures better than any other formula their fervent adherence to the ideal of a unifying supranational governance. On the other hand, the phrase lacks clear objective content – and therein lies the key to its success. It is broad and open-ended. It means something, and yet it means nothing. And a key to understanding the EU project as a whole is understanding how the broadness and ambiguity of the phrase “ever closer union” function within the EU, and what these attributes tell us about the EU and the European idea.
Exemplifying the Monnet method at its finest, “ever closer union” leaves open what must for now be left open, namely, exactly what it will ultimately mean. Will it mean political union? Will it mean a common economic governance, but without political union? Will it mean developing as much political and economic cooperation as possible while retaining the distinct member states? Does it mean Luuk van Middelaar’s “in-between-ness,” in which EU elites act in a space “between” the member states and the EU itself, a space apart from both poles?3 It could mean any of these. Anyone can interpret it in any way.
“Ever closer union,” again, leaves room for the “bothness” of the EU – togetherness and separateness, dependence and independence. If one takes the larger phrase, “ever closer union among the European peoples,” one sees the paradox at its heart. Joseph Weiler, one of the most brilliant academic experts on the EU, writes that “one of Europe’s articles of faith” is that “the Community and Union were about ‘lay[ing] the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe.’ Not the creation of one people, but the union of many.”4
Another expression of this “union of many” is the slogan “unity in diversity,” which has become a catchphrase for what EU elites believe is the heart of European identity.5 Contrasting “unity in diversity,” In uno plures, with the U.S. motto E pluribus unum, “out of many, one,” a 1993 experts’ report states: “We are Europeans, and are proud of it. What is happening is that we are realizing our identity. . . . We are many in one: In uno plures, and we want to keep and nurture our diverse cultures that together make us the envied focus of culture, civilization, intellectual life and savoirvivre in the world.”6
So where does the balance fall between unity and diversity? Is one more important than the other? Can both be equally important? In an insightful analysis of EU cultural policy, Cris Shore comments, “From the EU’s perspective, ‘unity in diversity’ is intended to project the idea that the EU seeks to celebrate and promote cultural pluralism. . . . But it also suggests that the EU offers a new layer of identity under which the regions and nations can unite.”7 Shore goes on to assert that the underlying purpose is not safeguarding cultural diversity, but promoting “Europe’s overarching unity.”8 That is probably correct, but no one really knows. And no one is supposed to know. The ambiguity wraps the agenda in the warm fuzziness of a noble-sounding phrase that means nothing and thus threatens nothing. A clearer definition of “ever closer union among the European peoples” would generate much more opposition because there are no unqualified “Europeans.” The Dutch remain Dutch, the Czechs Czech and the Poles Polish. The primary allegiance of the overwhelming majority of Europeans is not to Europe, but to their home country and to their separate linguistic and cultural identities.
But the ambiguity is also for EU elites, among whom there is no consensus on the EU’s ultimate form. “Ever closer union” is vague enough to be put aside by those who are busy keeping the day-to-day machinery of the EU in working order. Many of them are trapped in the EU agenda and need a way to avoid thinking that they might be eroding their own nation’s sovereignty by their daily participation in the EU project. The average national minister from an EU member state spends overwhelming amounts of time attending EU meetings in Brussels, then transposing EU regulation into national law, and finally enforcing laws and regulations that originated in Brussels. In fact, EU and national jurisdiction in virtually every policy area