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What Is Political Union?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Alexander Somek

Extract

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Recent proposals to fix Europe's ailing monetary union have led some to endorse a stronger fiscal union. Such a fiscal union, which would supposedly comprise stronger budgetary supervision as well as a modicum of revenue collection by the Union itself, is taken to mark the step towards “political” union. The article explores the question of what, if anything, is understood by “political” in this context. After distinguishing three possible meanings of political union, the article argues that a true union of this kind would rest its focus on the form of life that can be sustained among Europeans. Surprisingly perhaps, the article concludes that less centralization and unwinding monetary union in its current form may well be more congenial to a political union than hectic bids for fiscal centralization.

Type
Special Issue - Regeneration Europe
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 5: Special issue - Regeneration Europe , 01 May 2013 , pp. 561 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by German Law Journal GbR 

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35 Commentators of an earlier draft of this article have wondered whether it would not be more accurate to characterize the position that follows above as republicanism. I abstain from using the term for a systematic and for a historical reason. Systematically, the place of republican thought has been occupied by positions emphasizing either civic virtue or non-domination. Neither is relevant to the more general point about political self-determination to be made here. Second, traditionalism highlights the temporal dimension of the matter that concerns the demise of our traditional political world.Google Scholar

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