Hill Center
for World Studies, Inc.
Sovereignty, Integration, and Security in the European Union Today
The so-called 'Brexit' decision in the plebiscite
in the UK briefly rattled global markets. In the
relative calm of the recovery we can consider
wider implications of Britain's formal separation from the European Union.
The issues that were central to the debate and
vote were the alleged flow of British money to
Brussels and the impact of uncontrolled immigration on British society and economy. The
larger concerns for the UK and many on the
continent are, and will be in the future, sovereignty, security, and integration.
Over the decades since World War II, Europeans have given up elements of national sovereignty, in order to integrate their economies
and to some degree their societies into a trans
-national entity, in order to feel greater political
and economic security. (They have not yet
transferred their sovereign identities to a new
political entity, the nation of Europe. Nor are
they likely to do so.)
There is no greater expression of sovereignty
than a plebiscite. The Brexit vote is unanswerable--except by another plebiscite. A current
surge of passionate feeling about sovereignty
fueled the Brexit vote and is growing in Eu-
Staff Paper, Hill Center for World Studies, Inc. (July 2016)
rope, as it is in the USA in the rhetoric of Mr.
Trump.

A court mandated rerun of the recent election in Austria may bring a radical right
government to power.

Hungary's Right government has blocked
the flow of refugees from Syria.

The nationalist parties in France and the
Netherlands are calling for the roll-back of
EU rule.

Greece continues to threaten to withdraw
from the EU and to reinstitute the drachma.

Within the UK there is the prospect of a
new vote for Scottish independence and
unease in Northern Ireland, as well as
some agitation for the union of Northern
Ireland with the Irish Free Republic.
Taken together the component of the European Union--the Euro, finance and labor regulations, agricultural policies, free movement
without national passports, the single market-constitute an agreement to gain something by
giving up something. The trade-off: diminished
national sovereignty for prosperity, growth,
and security.
When Denmark assumed the presidency of
the Union several years ago, its website characterized the continuity of the effort. The EU's
fundamental structures, institutions and ideas
are to a large degree still based on the original
concept, which was formulated nearly 60
years ago. The starting point for European cooperation was initially to secure lasting peace
in Europe and boost the reconstruction of the
European economies after World War II. By
the commitment of the member states to collaborate in the production of coal and steel,
"commodities which were critical to war industries and also an important part of the trade
between the countries." All this was done "to
ensure the common good."
So great is the integration today that it is impossible to imagine a military threat to the security of the continent issuing from a member
state. But integration for security has been
achieved, not solely by the growth of EU institutions, but by the extension of NATO to include even members of the former Soviet
bloc. Putin's Russia now threatens EU security
by its annexation of Crimea and its continuing
attempts to destabilize Ukraine; hence the stationing of new NATO military units in the Baltic
States. Great Britain will always be a powerful
force in NATO, nor will Brexit threaten the USUK alliance.
Brexit has presented a challenge to greater
economic and social integration, and even to
European geo-political security. What next?
An anonymous official in Brussels put it sharply in a tweet last week:
“The E.U. is kind of trapped. On the one
hand, the instinct will be to move ahead
with further integration and reassure
the rest of the world that the European
Union is not unraveling. But that is very
difficult because of the fault lines that
exist. They are trapped because moving ahead is very difficult. Moving backStaff Paper, Hill Center for World Studies, Inc. (July 2016)
wards is the last thing they want to do.
And the status quo is unsustainable.”