INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF SELFDETERMINATION WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION
ECPR, 4TH PAN-EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON EU POLITICS
EU Institutions and politics
(Conflict resolution and Regional Autonomy)
25-27 September 2008
Francisco Letamendia
(Political Sciences)
University of the Basque Country, (UPV-EHU)
INTRODUCTION
This paper considers self-determination, national pluralism and conflict resolution in
the European Union. It aims to explore the following hypothesis:
-The relationship between the principles of sovereignty and integrity of the States
and the principle of self-determination that is the basis of the national conflicts, may be
evaluated from a normative perspective?
- To what extent the UE politics defined as “europeanisation” regarding its
immediate peripheral regions may be considered a precedent of its involvement in solving
internal national conflicts.
-Common general principles with respect to the EU involvement in ethno-national
conflict resolution can be established from the Basque and Northern Ireland case?
ANORMATIVE
THEORIES
CONCERNING
DETERMINATION AND CONFLICT SOLVING
NATIONAL
SELF-
It is no easy task to tackle the normative aspect of national self-determination and
conflict resolution. It should reflect the current in-depth debates, still not concluded,
regarding the morality of secession, the value of pluralism, the relationship between
globalisation, transformation of the Nation-State and plural nation-building...., while
tackling areas not sufficiently developed, such as the morality of conflict resolution and
the normative value of national solidarity in today's societies. The following pages contain
a critical overview of the aforementioned debates, along with the exploration of new
aspects.
1 -Normative theories regarding self-determination
1
The wave of national conflicts in the territories of the former soviet Eurasia and
Central and Eastern Europe that occurred at the end of the bipolar world at the last 80s and
first 90s led to the elaboration of normative principles from which these processes could be
ethically examined. Yet its theoretical orientation was that of individualistic liberalism that
dominated the normative theory of that time, reluctant to understand the collective rights
of the national groups.
The reworking of the normative theory in the 70s had been the result of a dual
evolution: that of social sciences as a whole, which had moved away from the positivist (or
behavourist) paradigm of nature sciences where the emphasis was on empirical and not
interpretative observations, and that of political philosophy, which had slided from a
contemplative conception that aspired more to understanding than prescribing towards
political institutions (Parekh, 1996). Rawls was the pioneer of the new approach: he made
justice the central concept and constructed a complex perspective of the relationship
between justice, equality and liberty in advanced democratic societies. Yet the Rawlsian
theorisation of the social contract, used to ensure that dignity, equal treatment for everyone
and lack of discrimination were to be preserved, did not go beyond the conceptual
framework of Locke’s Social Contract, which did not hinder either the exclusively
individualistic basis of the social contract nor the monist and universal nature of the
political entity ("commonwealth", or State) created by that contract.
The two normative theories that polarized the self-determination debate in the 90s,
that of just cause and that of election, oposed each other since they dissociated the two
elements of Locke's dichotomy, the autonomy of the individual and the interests of the
State, but they did not question the logic of the model. The just cause theory converted the
State into an absolute ethical referent. The election or plebiscite theory turned individual
autonomy into the moral fundamentals of self-determination. But both were blind theories
as far as pluralism was concerned, that did not question either liberal-individualist
perspective or state monism of the Lokean-Rawlsian model. This monism explains why
the debates consider the morality of only one of the possible options of self-determination,
that is, secession.
Buchanan, the exponent of just cause, or remedial, theory, opened up the debate in
1991 with a defence of the ethical value of the principle of the territorial integrity of the
States. The international order protects democratic States from internal or external threats,
with secession being one of these threats. Recognising this right would allow territorially
concentrated minorities (of which no definition is put forward) to brandish this threat as a
means of blackmail and weakening the democratic “voice” to the benefit of the “exit”. Yet
– and this is the consequence of the Rawlsian theory of justice – the State may lose its
legitimacy. If a non-democratic treatment of its minorities results in genocide, the unfair
occupation of their territory, or the permanent violation of human rights, in this case, and
only in this case, self-determination would be justified. This, assimilated to secession,
would be based on the same justice reasons that orientate the individuals’ relations with
the State, and the relations among individuals: it would the last resource, or the remedy, to
an unbearable grievance (Buchanan, 1998).
The procedural theories of self-determination, which propose introducing a clause
on secession in the constitutions of the democratic states, are de facto variants of the
remedial theory. W. Norman shares Buchanan’s view regarding secession as a threat for
democracy. The constitutional clause would act as a mechanism disincentivating
secession, testing at the same time whether the State is united by consensus and not by
force. As it requires a clear question in the self-determination plebiscites and establishes
the need for obtaining more than simple majorities (up to 2/3 of the voters in the Norman
proposal), the vanity secessions would fail, and only would be taken into account those put
forward by national groups where the vast majority, based on just cause, wish not to be
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assimilated by the State in question. The clause would act in this case to save the
negotiations on the practical consequences of the secession from the relative force of the
parties in conflict. 1
The plebiscite or election theory of Philpott (1998) and Nielsen (1998) extends to the
collective field the principle of individual autonomy: self-determination, also identified
with secession, is a basic right, rooted in democratic-liberal theory, accessible to any group
by the majority of its members. The principle of autonomy, inspired on Kant, considers
that just as one human being should not be dominated by another, no group should neither
be dominated by another. Secession requirements and the resulting formation of a new
State arise from democratic requirements: having a majority, being as democratic-liberal
as the previous State, protecting the rights of minorities, and meeting the requirements of
distributive justice. There are no references to territory or to ethnicity: the claim is
accessible to any group, and there are no limits to “clonal” secessions.
Another normative perspective, the communitarian theory, inspired on Hegel, has been
criticising the individualist fundaments of the liberal theories of justice since the 70s. The
communitarians challenge the liberal ego as it is vacuous, as it works against our
perception of ourselves and as it ignores our community insertion. They think that the ego
is situated, or embedded, in existing social practices. Self-determination is then exercised
within these social contexts, and not by distancing itself from them (Taylor, 1994; Miller
& Waltzer, 1996).
Communitarian theories provide the nation, and therefore national selfdetermination, with an ethical burden. Yet even if they overcome individualist liberalism,
they do not necessarily question state monism. Furthermore, organic communitarianism
may attribute a stifling moral contents to the monocultural state, becoming the theoretical
framework that turns national self-determination into the exclusive attribute of the States.
Miller’s theory, a symbiosis of communitarianism and republicanism (normative
theory that stresses civic duties and the democratic participation of the citizens), gives an
ethical meaning to the principle of nationality. Belonging to the national “us” makes it
possible to accept the personal sacrifices required by distributive justice, creates a
favourable context for protecting a common culture, and fosters the participation of
everyone in designing a collective destiny. Yet Miller underestimates the importance of
the cultural identities of sub-state national groups. Even though he accepts the existence of
majorities and minorities, and acknowledges that belonging to a minority is a worse option
than making part of the majority, he does not see any reason for the former to become the
majority in its own territory (Miller, 1998). Following Buchanan’s line of argument, he
considers that secession aggravates the relationship between majority and minorities.
The individualist-liberal fundaments of these theories have also made them blind to
the question of territory. However, every process of national self-determination questions
the cohesion of the triad that sustains the Nation-Sate: power, population and territory. The
practical consequence of such blindness has been the de facto acceptance of the principle
of the intangibility of territorial borders. Yet, as M. Moore states, this principle generates
serious practical and normative problems when solving national conflicts - the most
1
Norman’s approaches have been made more complex following the 1998 sentence of the Canadian Supreme
Court in response to a question of the Ministry of Justice of Canada on the legitimacy of the secession of the
province of Quebec. The ruling concluded that Quebec was not entitled to separate unilaterally. But if a
secession plebiscite based on a clear question was approved by a clear majority, the Confederation should
recognise the demand for secession and the Federal government negotiate it in good faith. Given that the
Supreme Court based its sentence on the following “four relevant principles” which it believed underlie the
Canadian Constitution, federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and respect of minorities, Norman concludes
that secession would be the extreme logical consequence of the federal division of powers (W. Norman, 2003)
3
relevant topical example is that of the Balkans -, and on the other hand, it has not always
be assumed as such by the international community.
Historically, the theory and practice of self-determination has been divided into two
phases (Moore, 1998). From halfway through the 19th century until the end of World War
I, a Wilsonian ethnic conception predominated, according to which each ethnic group
living in a historical territory was entitled to be encapsulated in a State. This conception,
emerging from the tension – and being the instrument – of the disintegration of the central
European empires, was followed by the non-ethnical - or rather multi-ethnical - territorial
intangibility to be found following World War II: self-determination was sought to apply
to the colonized peoples that resided inside the frontiers drawn by the former imperial
powers, irrespectively of their cultural or linguistic composition. The layout of the new
States led to innumerable conflicts, but their frontiers, backed by the USA, the USSR and
the international community, underwent a phase of surprising, -and fictitious-, stability:
only one case of secession was accepted, that of Bangladesh with respect to Pakistan,
backed by India. This stability was broken at the start of the 90s in Eastern Europe.
Moore criticises the territorial conceptions of the two historical phases of selfdetermination. Exclusively resorting to ethno-cultural arguments, she says, is only
undisputed in those rare cases when the national group forms the vast majority of the
territory. Where there are majorities and minorities, those arguments are only valid inside
each group and can therefore not be generalised. The conception based on administrative
limits, indifferent to culture and ethnicity, generates deep injustices in the States that
contains a state-national group, or staastvolk, as many of the external and internal borders
were drawn under the control of the dominant group. The territorial issue then refers us
back to the majority-minority relationship.
Yet, the debate between liberals and communitarians is lacking in arguments
regarding this question, and should be tackled from a different conceptual framework:
pluralism. It should also be remembered that globalisation has converted the concept of the
politically impenetrable and culturally homogeneous State into an anachronism. The
reworking of a normative theory of national self-determination then involves the two terms
of the Lockean dichotomy, in the sense of the transformation of the Nation-State and the
plural, and not merely individual, nature of the subjects of the contract. If leading
communitarian authors figure in this debate, it is due to their contribution to pluralism.
In fact, the national conflicts regarding specific territories are only strictly dual
(national group versus State) if the national group is territorially concentrated, the
administrative borders coincide with the ethno-cultural ones, and the members of the
group as a whole mobilise for self-government. Yet, there are usually (Moore, 1998;
Miller, 1998; Nielsen, 1998):
-parts of the national group concentrated outside its administrative limits
-diverse national minorities within the territory of the national group
-ethno-cultural minorities that are not seeking self-government and selfdetermination, but rather their rights and culture being preserved within the existing State.
-ethnic immigrant groups, which do not share neither the culture of the State majority
group nor the one of the territorialised national group, but rather their integration in the
host country.
- in some cases – North and South America, Australia-, indigenous groups that state
their claims as original peoples.
The typology does not finish here. The political nature of the mobilisation of the
national group makes these situations possible (Horowitz, 1998; McGarry, 1998):
-members of the national group in favour of the state status quo
-members of diverse minorities, or immigrants, who voluntarily participate in the
mobilisation of the national group.
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-unionists against any self-determination that might include secession.
-citizens with dual (nested) identities, based on shared feelings of belonging both to
the State and to the national group
-irredentists seeking to recover compatriots concentrated in territories on the other
side of the borders.
The requirements demanded by the international community to recognise new States
are likewise valid as grounds for the democratic relations between majority and minorities
in case of complex territory issues. Halperin and Sheffer see them as follows: peaceful
conflict resolution, renouncement to the use of force, respect to the rights of the minorities,
self-decision of their political status, local autonomy, and shared sovereignty in the
territory of those minorities (in Horowitz, 1998).
BEUROPEAN
UNION:
SELF-DETERMINATION,
PLURALISM AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
NATIONAL
The European Union, a supra-state political construction devoid of sovereignty but
with binding capacity (Morata, 2000), is the most complete example of the complex
interdependency in the new international order, and the world space were the effects of the
globalisation on the transformation of nation-states are most visible. It is therefore a testing
bank par excellence to establish to what degree the prescriptions of normative theory
regarding national self-determination, pluralism and conflict resolution have been taken
into account.
1-The EU and self-determination in its periphery: Europeanisation and
conditionality
In the more than fifty years of EU history, the construction of peace has been a
fundamental aspect of European integration. Its initial objective to prevent new wars
between its member states was gradually replaced by its role as a driving force for peace in
the world. From the end of 80s, the belief began to grow in the EU that its external
activity should be directed at protecting human rights through international agreements,
such as the Lomé Convention, and to a conception of conflict management that would
made social and political change by peaceful means possible. This activity became more
intense when its political profile was highlighted, as was the case at the end of the 80s and
the beginning of the 90s, during the period between the Single European Act and the
Masstricht Treaty. Yet this period coincided with the opening of the third phase of selfdetermination on its eastern periphery. If the effects of the break-up of the Soviet Union
were outside its sphere of influence, the same was not true with what happened in
Yugoslavia. The international community that had to recognise the self-determination of
the new States, in reality a consortium formed by the UN, the European Union, the
Council of Europe, the OECD, NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund,
and the interests of the USA and the Russian Federation, let the EU take the centre stage in
the construction of new Europe. This it did while taking into account the reluctance of the
international community towards the proliferation of micro-States and the attempts against
the territorial integrity of the States, and its rejection of secession.
The EU tackled national self-determination from the perspective of conflict
resolution. Yet its objectives were more aimed at preventing the escalating of the war and
to preserve as far as possible the described principles of the international world order than
to defend the normative value of reconciliation in the territories at conflict. It applied the
contradictory principles of election, or expression of the democratic will of the majority of
the people, and respect of the administrative borders, to the territorial contents of self5
determination. In the Balkans, these borders were not identified with those of the
Yugoslavian State as a whole, but with those of its Federal Republics. Such an
interpretation contradicted the 1974 Yugoslavian Constitution, which defined Yugoslavia
as a “civic nation”, distinguished between "constituent peoples" (Serbs, Croats, Slovens,
etc), with an internal state referent, and "nationalities" (Kossovar-Albanians, Hungarians
from Vojvodina…), with an external state referent, declared the Federal Republics to be
made up by its several constituent peoples, and attributed the right of self-determination to
each of the constituent peoples, but not to the Republics (Detrez, 2003).
The Yugoslavian State and its staatsvolk, the Serbs, considered the demands for
independence from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to be anti-constitutional and therefore
illegitimate, as it had not been decided by all its constituent peoples, and from Kosovo, as
it was inhabited by a "nationality" that was not entitled to self-determination. On the other
hand, the Serbs recognised the secession of the Montenegrins, the main constituent people
of the Republic of Montenegro. The recognition by the EU of the self-determination of
Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but not of the Serbian Republics of Krajina in
Croatia and Rpska in Bosnia, along with its ambiguous attitude towards Kosovo, was
based on a mixture of liberal normative principles, such as election and just cause, together
with others related to the less openly declared motives of real-politik, based on the
interests of the dominant State that is Germany.
In any case, a EU action model towards the problems arising on its close peripheral
regions emerged and was defined by the term "Europeanisation” (Coppieters & Sakwa,
2003; Coppieters, 2004). Europeanisation is a process driven by the European Union that
combines the conflict resolution with some type of integration of the parties involved in
the European institutions. By applying its own model of multi-level governance and of a
variable geometry political arena, the EU acts as a third level player in the conflict having
a bearing on the management of the conflict -, i.e., it involves the parties in a cooperative
process-; on its transformation, which has to glide from incompatibility/antagonism to
compatibility/tolerance; and on its resolution, which must end its destructive aspects.
Conditionality and socialisation are the mechanisms applied to achieve these ends.
Conditionality is based on the cost-benefit model: a short-term “carrot and stick” policy
would aim to obtain changes by the parties in line with the EU's direction as a response to
the benefits offered, such as technical and financial assistance, access to the community
market, invitation to start negotiations about membership... As far as the socialisation of
the negotiators and their respective societies in community principles is concerned, the EU
would not influence as a player, but rather as a "context" that facilitates social learning and
provides medium/long term non-traumatic solutions, consisting in regional integration,
federalisation, shared sovereignty…
The EU has followed three models when managing conflicts related with selfdetermination (Coppieters, 2004). It has applied Model I as its standard, coherent with its
favourable prejudice to the principle of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the
States. This consists in providing the solution of a common State, applying conditionality
to the parties in conflict and offering the global entity a privileged access to the resources
and institutions of the EU. In Yugoslavia, a multinational State, the EU applied the
principle of the integrity of the limits to its pre-existing units, the Federal Republics, but
did not recognised the self-determination of the internal minorities of these units nor of the
autonomous territories, such as Kosovo, which did not constitute Republics.
Model II consists in favouring only one of the parties, based on the democratic
nature of its regime and on the reasonable postures of the negotiators, forcing the "nonreasonable" entity to change its approaches and return to the negotiating table. Yet by
identifying democracy with belonging to the EU, it has unilaterally increased the
negotiation resources of some of the parties in conflict. That was the posture taken by the
6
EU in the Cyprus conflict, where it fostered a joint political solution for the island but in
fact favoured the Greek-Cypriot State, a current member of the European Union (and
backed by Greece, a member of the EU since 1981) in prejudice to the Turkish Republic of
North Cyprus, whose state is backed by Turkey (Tocci & Kovziridze, 2003).
Model III consists in accepting the secession with reluctance and as the “last resort”,
offering a privilege access to both parties if they come into line with the “aquis
communautaire”. In the conflict between Serbia and Montenegro, Model III has finally
overtaken the I, which was the model preferred by the EU (Noutcheva & Huysseune,
2004).
It is not the first case of “velvet divorce” in central/eastern Europe: it happened in
1991-92 when Czechoslovakia peacefully disappeared with general consensus and the new
states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia appeared. Finally, consensual secession is a
process that detracts from EU conditionality, as it is based on the principle of sovereignty,
which forces the internatonal community to respect the agreements that democratically
emerge from inside the States2.
2- The EU and national pluralism
Examining the action of the European Union in the resolution of internal national
conflicts requires a prior question to be tackled, which is the structure of opportunities
offered to national pluralism. The internal architecture of the European Union has opened
up to multi-level governance experiments where the different levels of political action
(European, state-wide, regional and local) undertake relations of cooperation or conflict in
a variable geometry arena, whith the EU's influence acting here more as context than as
player. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the EU recognises national pluralism. I
shall analyse the implications of this situation with respect to the rights of the minorities;
the dynamics created between regionalisation and minority nationalism; the relationship
2 A different case has been Kosovo’secession. Most countries of the EU have accepted a nonvelvet, hostile divorce, that is, the self-proclaimed Kosovo’independence against the will of the divided
Serbian State, because of USA’ pressures, placing the EU in an unclear position regarding its principles
on self-determination. See below T. Ferenczi’ comments (Le Monde, 22/02/2008) on an article of B.
Coppieters about “Kosovo and the Principles of Just Secession” (CEPS Policy Brief, November 2007):
“After just and unjust wars, now we have just and illegitimate secessions. By accepting the
independence of Kosovo, most EU countries have judged the conduct of the Kosovar leaders legitimate.
By refusing the notion that Kosovo’s choice might constitute a precedent justifying other instances of
separatism, for example in the Caucasus, they have proved that they apply the principle of the selfdetermination of peoples selectively. According to the political expert Bruno Coppieters of the Centre for
European Policy Studies, a just secession rests upon six conditions: the defence of a just cause, good
chances of success, correct intentions, a decision made as a last resort, the recognition of a legitimate
authority, consideration of the proportional relationship obtaining between cost and benefits. The first
two points, in this case, are beyond question: the ethnic cleansing carried out in the ‘Nineties justified the
secession of Kosovo and there are good chances of success. However, Coppieters is less sure when
assessing costs and benefits. More importantly in an international perspective, however, the
independence of Kosovo could lead to problems between Russia and the West of a magnitude that would
far outweigh Pristina’s anxiousness to achieve independence. Lastly, the author of the report is not even
convinced that all possible solutions were explored before arriving at a unilateral declaration. Kosovo’s
self-proclaimed independence does not, therefore, satisfy the criteria of a just independence, which in
turn proves that philosophy cannot supplant diplomacy, which is based mostly on realism.”
This model has been kept in mind by the Russian Federation, whose Parliament has recognised
later on the “de facto” Abjatia’ and South Osetia’ secessions as a result of Georgian war.
7
between European citizenship and national pluralism; the possibilities of development
nationalism; and the interrelated transformations of national minority nation-building and
State nation-building .
Rights of the minorities: It is the combination of state monism and individualism
inherent to Lockean liberalism, which has based the scaling-down conception of the
minorities and of its rights that governs on the international sphere, which explains, as
Jáuregui states (1997), that the practical advances made in the European Union in this field
have been irrelevant. As can be seen from the work of Horowitz (1998), and of Z.
Nicolás (2005), the EU has inherited the definition that the international community tends
to give to the non-colonial national groups as "national minorities", with the right to
develop, and see respected, their cultural, language and ethnical characteristics, but
likewise forcing them to respect the institutional structure and the principle of territorial
integrity of the States in which they are located.
International organisations, such as the UN, UNESCO, the Council of Europe
(particularly in the Protection of National Minorities Framework Agreement signed in
1995) have standardised their legislation. This Agreement defines the minorities as groups
of people concentrated in the territory of a State with their own cultural, linguistic,
religious and ethnic characteristics, who seek forms of legal protection in order to preserve
them. Yet the Agreement recognises cultural diversity, not as a collective right, but rather
as the right of the individual members of the community, which is limited by the
aforementioned principles of territorial integrity and the institutional autonomy of the
Member States. The legislation on the national minorities, taken to be ethno-cultural
entities without political profiles, has therefore been incorporated into the 2002 Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe.
However, the religious, linguistic and ethnical differences that defend those rights,
together with the trans-frontier cooperation policies, may become in a bland instrument
that showcases national groups whose territory is divided between various States.
Therefore, and despite its reducing character, the recognition of the rights of members of
the national minorities continues to be a desideratum and a specific claim in specific States
of the EU, from the double perspective of their recognition and their practical
implementation. (France, for example, based on its Republican doctrine, only recognises
the legal status of the citizens, not that of linguistic and/or national minorities)
-Minority nation-building and state nation-building: The nation-building processes
of the EU stateless nations (visible at least in three states of the prior Europe of the 15, the
United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium, and latent in many other, without even considering
what may be the case in the new members), far from being retrograde movements, solve
collective action problems in the complex context of globalisation and crisis of the nationstate (Keating, 2002). Its identities have dispensed with the unsupportive and based on the
past ethnic referents (the racist accusations launched against them are empirically false)
and use the most robust base of culture. Their political programmes take note of the
erosion of the concept of traditional sovereignty, which allows the secession costs to be
reduced. Self-determination appears under the formula of the right to decide, a formula
without strictly defined profiles, which do not comply with opportunism, but rather the
common uncertainties to all the players regarding the changing meaning of selfgovernment in the world of transnationality.
Creating own institutions is part of the functional trend towards decentralisation and
regionalisation of EU societies. Therefore, national groups put forward demands for
asymmetric demands to the States. But these have their own constitutional territorial
distribution systems of power, whose design has not been usually decided based on the
8
federal principle of the agreement between the political will of the different demoi, but
rather the force of the number of the votes of the staatsvolk, or majority group of the state.
This is in line with a conception of democracy that allies the defects of state monism and
individualism of liberalism 1.
When putting forward their demands, the demoi face a double theoretical and
political barrier. At a practical level, the plurinational states of the EU have adapted their
conception of nation-building to the context of pluralism and globalisation to a much
lesser degree than the national groups. On the other hand, the morality of secession has
been much more widely debated at normative level than the morality of self-decision.
When the accomodation of the national group in the State is inadequate and not
proportional to the intensity of the national identity and the requirement of its recognition
in the form of self-government, and such a will is democratically expressed through the
territorial representative bodies, there is not prevision (as there is in Canada regarding the
secession, or sovereignty-association, plebiscites) that would forces the State to negotiate
in good faith the new institutional accommodation of the national group.
It generates an ambiguous situation. The increasing functional decentralisation of the
States territorialises the cultural and linguistic policies and fosters regional development,
which gives greater power to the minority nationalisms. Yet the reconstruction of the
Nation-State based on the recognition of the multiple national identities, (Keating, 2002),
is dragging behind, in the same way that solving the problems of the divided societies
based on the principle of shared sovereignty has been shown to be a difficult task to
channel (even though the logics of the conflict resolution has produced some results in this
case, as in Northern Ireland).
Plurinationality has caused in the EU (and not only in it) the emergence of two
antagonistic models of federalism, the symmetric and asymmetric, or plural, models
(Caminal, 2002), accompanied by their respective discourses. While the majorities see
federalism as a symmetric decentralisation mechanism aimed at democratically
reinforcement and to the better management of public issues, the minorities want
federalism to provide the recognition of their identity and to their right to decide, along
with self-government. Symmetry is seen by the minorities as an attempt to reduce them to
a regional division of the majority. The majorities object to asymmetry as they consider it
denies equal treatment of the citizens, and because it favours some territorial identities at
the expense of others (Fossas, 2002).
Yet asymmetry takes into account the existence of regions and nations in
plurinational States, where the lack of differentiation complies with the standardised and
centralist will of one of the parties, the majority. It does not generate inequality between
the citizens nor gives more power to one of the parties. What changes is the place where
the power is exercised, at a central level for the citizens of the majority, at the level of their
respective nations for those of the minorities.
The asymmetric self-government demands of the demoi generate different responses
in the States, which may take them into consideration, but which may also fall in the
temptation to stop them and foster the regions with a low identity profile and a lower level
of development, based on the their "equality" discourse. They may sometimes cause state
identity reactions among the majority, likely to become the dominant discourse of specific
parties (as is currently the case of the Spanish Partido Popular).
The exasperation of these reactions, which are often out of proportion with respect to
the entity of the minority threats, and which could be defined as “statism”, in reality is in
response to the hidden motive, frequently not even thought of, of the erosions of the old
stable identities based on sound state referents that are brought with the world of
globalisation. Statism not only expresses the will of the majority to impose its domination
on the minorities. It is the expression of the reactive cultural guidelines that deny the very
9
existence of the minorities, by virtue of which any of their claims is considered to be
absurd and ends up being assimilated to treason and crime.
The statism only sees a world of states in black and white, without any shade of grey.
It considers any demand for recognition by the demoi as an attempt at secession. It is
therefore a self-prophesising reaction, since it stirs up the antagonistic reaction of the
national minorities of demanding their own old-style sovereign State. It becomes so a
factor that delays and hinders the adaptation of the demoi to the multi-level and
asymmetric world of the European Union.
It highlights the practical utility of the aforementioned normative theories. Even
though they can be criticized, they contain useful contributions for societies with unsolved
national conflicts. In reality, the only deadlock, which is fortunately absent from serious
theory, but very present in the world of the media and in practical policy, is statism which
denies the very existence of national groups and national conflict, and therefore consider
the search for any ensuing solution to be inane. In fact, negating the conflict is the stark,
and therefore atheoretical, expression of the oppression of the national groups at the hands
of the staatsvolk, or state majority.
3 – Internal conflicts resolution: Northern Ireland and the Basque Country
Can the European Union play a role in resolving internal national conflicts, where
the territory of the national group is part of one, or various, Member States? Can the interterritorial cooperation policies fostered by the EU help to resolve the conflict when it is
crossborder in nature? Yes, but only, (which reduces the relevance of the EU action), when
the initial decision comes from the States in question.
The European Union is in fact a club of States. The Member States, affected by the
global European construction process and by the specific integration processes, are not the
object, but rather the subject of those processes, and it is up to them to initiate and play the
leading role in them. The claims for self-determination by the internal national group
therefore receive a very different treatment to those in the European periphery. Ever since
it was founded, the EU has not recognised any secessionist process in this sense. However,
the results of the Europeanisation of the national conflicts of Eastern Europe and its
increase political profile post-Maastricht has converted the EU into a third-level player
involved in conflict resolution not only in its peripheral region, but also inside the Union.
There is the precedent of its attitude towards the Northern Ireland conflict.
When the Irish and British governments signing the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement
created the International Fund for Ireland and sought international aid, this took four years
to materialise, and only after the EU had been directly invited by both Governments. Yet,
this occurred in the pre-Maastricht stage.
It all changed following the new Downing Street Declaration by the two
Governments in 1993. The reaction of the European bodies was immediate, as they saw
"the great benefits it would bring to the Region, to the States and to the EU as such". An
initial pluri-annual programme (1995-1999) was set up, PEACE I, which was part of the
Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (SSPPR). These well-funded
programmes financed initiatives in Northern Ireland and the southern border counties of
the Republic of Ireland, which allowed the former to benefit from the structural funds of
Objective I even though it did not meet the community requirements.
The “Europeanisation” of the Irish question was reflected in the three Strands of the
1998 Stormont Agreement (Meehan, 2006). The Agreement included two innovative
institutions: a new Irish and British Intergovernmental Council and an Irish-British
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Council, with representatives from the two Governments, of the devolved institutions in
Northern Ireland, in Scotland, in Wales, in the Isle of Man and in the Channel Isles. Even
though the origin of this last proposal was unionist, it is the outcome of a more relaxed
idea of sovereignty in the heart of the European Union and of the power sharing in the
United Kingdom.
The impact of the European Union on north-south relations has political and
economic dimensions. The Peace 1 and 2 programmes under the SSPPR have a clear
transfrontier dimension. INTERREG I and II, in turn, have triggered local initiatives by the
business associations, local politicians and volunteers in crossborders networks. Strand 2
of the Stormont Agreement has led to the Unionists recognising the legitimacy of the
nationalist interests in the cooperation, and accepting that common north-south interests
exist. This has been institutionalised in the North-South Ministerial Council, with
representatives from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, whose sectors are
agriculture, fisheries, transport, river highways, tourism, rural and urban development,
education, health, certain aspects of social security and the environment.
Europe has also had a positive effect on the intercommunity relations at the level of
civil society. The SSPPR has institutionalised the transcommunity partnership. There are
26 districts with members from the business world and trade unions, from different parties,
from volunteers in the communities. It has not provided the “great solution”, but it has
facilitated it. The principle of shared power, which is EU inspired, was behind the
distribution of the ministries in the Stormont Agreement being proportional to the force of
the community parties.
Finally, the dissociation of human rights with respect to the State fostered by the EU
has resulted in the direct appeal made by Strand 3 of the Stormont Agreement to the
European Human Rights Convention as the peacemaker principle.
Could the Northern Ireland model be used for resolving conflicts in the territory of
crossborders national groups that unlike Northern Ireland lack referential states?
Declarations were made when PEACE II was implemented that lead us to believe that this
could be true. The introduction to a Commission Paper on the Programme contained
phases such as: “The experience could inspire similar methods in other regions… (as) it
has generated lessons for the political future in Northern Ireland and the border counties of
Ireland, and throughout the EU” (Filibi, 2005). The model being extended to other
conflicts is therefore not dismissed a priori.
Yet the EU’s interest in the Northern-Ireland peace process is mainly due to the fact
that two of its Member States are involved. In fact, the identities in conflict in Northern
Ireland have Ireland and the United Kingdom as their points of reference. Therefore,
relations between the Irish and British States have progressed much more quickly after
Stormont than those of the nationalist and unionist communities in Northern Ireland.
The situation of other national conflicts within the EU, and specifically the Basque
case, is very different. Here, the national identity, without any external points of reference,
directly enters into conflict with that of the staatsvolk of two European States, Spain and
France. The situation becomes more complicated when the latter has entrenched itself in
the point of view that the Basque conflict “is a Spanish domestic matter".
The insertion of the Basque Country in the State of the Autonomies, which has been
in force since the Spanish Constitution was approved at the end of 1978 by a referendum
whose results were deeply different in the Basque Country than in the rest of the Spanish
state, was problematic in some cases, and the response in other cases was to resort to a
range of means, including the use of violence. The lack of the minimum base for
coexistence accepted by all the sectors and the ensuing traumatic situation has led, since
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the end of the 80s, to the successive formation of a series of political networks, the AjuriaEnea Pact, the Lizarra-Garazi Agreement and the PP-PSOE Pact, which were aimed at
both political “normalization” and achieving peace. Yet none of these network were able
to generate a viable dynamics that could trigger, and even less so implement, these two
processes.
As the result of the repeated historical failures, the three sides of the Basque political
triangle in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, the Spanish Socialist
Government in conjunction with Basque socialism, the PNV-EA coalition, which has been
the cornerstone of the Basque Government during the last two terms in office, in alliance
with Izquierda Unida-Ezker Batua, and the organisations of the “izquierda abertzale” (the
nationalist left), resorted to specific ways of conflict resolution between 2001-2006, which
despite being very different did not mutually exclude each other.
When it was the opposition party, the PSOE approved the Santillana document on
“La España una and plural” (united and plural Spain) in August 2003. The planned
reforms aimed to adapt the State of the Autonomies to the European expansion and the
forthcoming work on the European Constitution, to globalisation and to the increase in
immigration, and to the greater demands being made by the citizens to the institutions.
These were its key points:
-reforming the Senate, in order to allow the Autonomous Communities to participate
in the formation of the will of the State
-the integration of the autonomic Spain in Europe, by means of mechanisms to allow
the Autonomous Communities to participate in UE decisions.
-the reformation of the Statutes of Autonomy, which would have to respect these two
premises: they had to be in line with the Constitution, and obtain a wide consensus by
means of qualified majorities.
In September 2002, Lehendakari Ibarretxe (the Basque President) submitted his
proposal for Basque self-government to the Basque Parliament, based on a Status of Free
Association with the Spanish State, which would increase Basque self-government in the
following terms:
- Legal recognition of the identity of the Basque people and its right to decide its
future.
-Free relations between the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and
Navarra. Capacity of relations with Iparralde.
-Capacity to autonomously institutionalise Euskadi.
-Preservation of its cultural identity.
-Creation of its own socio-labour, economic and welfare sphere.
-Establishing a bilateral system of guarantees with the State that would prevent the
unilateral modification of the Pact.
-Having its own say in Europe and in the world.
At the end of the process, the pact reached with the State, or the project approved by
the Basque Parliament, would be ratified by a referendum. The referendum should take
place, it was stated, against a background “without violence and without exclusions”.
The text was approved by the Basque Parliament with an absolute majority in
December 2004. Yet the Spanish Congress refused to hear it two months later, with the
PSOE in power.
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In November 2004, Batasuna, the central party of the izquierda abertzale, released its
Anoeta document, which listed the following undertakings to “go to the root of the
conflict”: respecting the different sensitivities of the Basque people, resolving the
differences peacefully and democratically, and basing the agreement on the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and of Political and Civil Rights proclaimed by the UN.
It proposed “two spaces for dialogue and agreement":
1- an agreement between trade unions, social and political players regarding the
setting up of a new scenario where any political status could be decided, which should be
approved by the citizens of Euskal Herria (the Basque Country in its three territories).
2- an agreement between ETA and the Spanish and French States regarding
-- the demilitarisation of the conflict
-the prisoners, deportees and refugees
-the victims
ETA backed the Anoeta declaration in January 2005.
In May 2005, Spanish President Zapatero introduced a parliamentary motion to end
terrorism in Spain through the dialogued end of violence. It was approved by absolute
majority with the votes of all the parties of the Chamber, including the Basque parties,
except for the PP, which considered the approach to be an insult to the people who had
died.
ETA announced a permanent ceasefire in March 2006. It was broken in December of
the same year with the destruction of Terminal 4 at Madrid-Barajas Airport, which resulted
in two victims being killed, against a background where there had been a lack of gestures
of the Spanish Government in the field of penitentiary policy and the lack of steps towards
forming the table of Basque parties. ETA stated in its communiqué that the cease-fire was
still in place. This statement, even though it is incongruent, allows to continue to believe
that the convergence of conflict resolution projects of the sides of the Basque triangle
continues to be possible, even if not certain.
The attitude of the EU institutions towards the Basque conflict has been more
ambiguous, and rather different, to that adopted in the Irish case. The European Council
and the European Commission would praise ETA’s permanent ceasefire declaration in
March 2006. The European Parliament reflected this opinion in October 2006, in a
declaration that was not bland, as it had to overcome the resistance of the Spanish Partido
Popular to the “internationalisation of the conflict”. Yet it should be remembered that the
parliamentary text, which approved "the peace initiative of the democratic institutions of
the Spanish State" and stated its opposition to violence and its support for compensating
the victims, identified the conflict resolution more with the end of terrorism than with the
right of the Basque people to its self-government; and that that text was not even approved
by the majority of the MPs of the European Popular Party.
CONCLUSIONS
The attitude of the European Union towards the self-determination processes in its
peripheral regions and towards national pluralism and conflict resolution within the Union
draws a painting in chiaroscuro. When the national groups are split by frontiers, the
principle of territorial integrity of the member states is only slightly modulated by the joint
influx of the rights of minorities and the crossborders cooperation policies.
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Theories on the morality of secession from the 90s contain positive aspects for the
demoi. Buchanan’s theory of self-determination as the answer to the injustice strengthens a
theoretical line that is linked with defending human rights. Norman’s procedural theory
constitutionally specifies the terms of the justice. Philpott’s election theory allows a logical
link to be established between self-determination and participative democracy. Miller’s
nationality principle relates it, not only with culture, but also with welfare, equality and the
construction of the social nation. Moore’s contribution offers a solid based to combine the
long-term ethno-cultural factors with the democratic mobilisation of the national group.
Yet the liberal theories are inspired by a Lockean model whose unique referents are
the individual and the State, and the communitarians, by a Hegelian cultural monolithism
which ignores the double perspective of national pluralism and the ensuing complex
territorial problems. Furthermore, these theories have been tentatively applied to the
peripheral regions of the EU and never within the Union. The individualist conceptions of
the rights of minorities, which defend the rights of their members to preserve their
language and culture, but that do not tackle the problems of collective action and political
participation, are the results of those influences. The ensuing reservations of the Member
States to their implementation should not be forgotten.
The theoretical understanding of pluralism comes from very different theories, those
of language games, the deconstructionist ones, typical of a world without a centre. The
exploring of the multi-culturalism of today's societies is down to them. Yet more progress
has been made in constructing normative fundaments of multi-culturalism that in
plurinationalism and the nation-building processes of the national minorities, an area in
which the conflict between the principle of national self-determination and that of
territorial integrity of the State is mediated, and sometimes replaced, by the conflicts
between national minorities and the majority and between the different minorities. In fact,
there is no theory of the morality of national self-decision in parallel to the theory of the
morality of secession.
Conflict resolution theories have contributed a normative fundament to national
conflicts in deeply divided societies, consisting in the reconciliation between the different
fractions. Yet this ethical conception stans up to a pragmatic approach that submits conflict
resolution to the objective of preserving the international order of States.
It has been said that the European Union, a multi-level government and variable
geometry political playing field, may develop as a context the extension of the various
formulas of power-sharing, and foster the reconciliation and the consensus in the territories
where national conflicts exist. Yet, has that really occurred?
In its peripheral regions, the normative drive of the liberal principles of just cause and
election have been diluted and submitted to the dictates of real politik. The practical
developments of Europeanisation have been put before either the principle of the territorial
integrity of the States or, as in the case of Yugoslavia, the integrity of the pre-existing
administrative units, i.e., its federal republics.
We might question if the proliferation of self-determination referendums in these
eastern peripheral regions, the acceptance of their results when the EU appraises the
existence of “legitimate authority”, and the territorial unit where it has been held (which
finally rules out the centralist alternative of the holding of referendums in the framework
of the State) may serve as a precedent and be a driving force to the exercise of the selfdecision of the internal national groups of the EU. Yet the recognition of plurinationalism,
a prior requisite in that respect, even though it is making progress, is still insufficient in its
various facets.
The conception of the rights of the minorities, shared by the international community
as a whole, is individualistic and restrictive. Yet in conjunction with the crossborder
cooperation policies boosted by the EU may highlight the trans-state national groups.
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On the other hand, the EU is neutral towards the type of territorial distribution of
power implemented in its member states, and therefore has nothing to say about the
constitutional relations between national majority and minorities, nor between the latter.
The technocratic nature of the European regional policy strengthens this neutrality.
However, the dissociation established by the EU between citizenship as a European sphere
of enjoying rights (with the inconsistencies that we have seen with respect to extracommunity immigration) and nationality as the link between individual and State, opens a
window of opportunities for minority nationalisms. The multiplication of economic
regulation scales and the reduction of the regulatory role of the States likewise allows the
hatching of a "development nationalism"
The nation-building of the national groups uses de facto these opportunities offered
by the EU to solve collective action problems and formulate asymmetric demands to the
States. Yet state nation-building has not evolved in a parallel direction, so the minority
claims may either be taken into account or provoke statist identity reactions in the State
and among its staatsvolk, with the result of negating the conflict and not recognising the
existence of the minorities.
The role of the EU as the guarantor of world peace together with the precedent of the
actions in its close peripheral regions is like to encourage a sliding toward an indirect
intervention in resolving internal national conflicts. Such a thing occurred in the Northern
Ireland peace process. Yet the doubt remain as to whether such an intervention has not
been exceptional and due to the fact that such a conflict involved two of its member States,
as the identities of the citizens of the Northern Ireland was divided between Irish and
British state referents.
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