The Non-State Nature of the European Union

Abstract

This book chapter defends the argument that the Lisbon Treaty has not altered the ultimate truth of European integration: the EU is and will remain the creation of each Member State for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the EU may only act if it has the power to do so, power conferred on it by an exclusive and unanimous decision of the Member States. As a result, the EU is certainly no “superstate” — an imprecise but prevalent assertion — and the possibility of a superstate ever emerging reveals some phantasmagorical thinking. Ironically, one may even argue that the Lisbon Treaty has reinforced the “conservatory elements” of the Union’s constitutional order. As a result, statehood is indubitably an inappropriate characteristic to attribute to the EU and it would still seem accurate to describe the EU as an ongoing “experiment in transnational politics” whose original political and legal nature of the EU continues to make it a sui generis entity.