At the root of the matter of Britain's secession from the Union, I submit, is a starkly Euro-skeptic, or Anti-federalist, ideology that viewed the E.U. as a network to which the sovereign state of Britain belongs, as PM David Cameron said before the secession referendum. Unfortunately, this view ran up against the reality of the E.U.'s federal system in which the federal level too had some sovereignty. Even the mechanism of qualified majority voting involves a loss of sovereignty for the state governments. The discordance can be heard in a speech given by William Hague of the British government at the end of May in 2013 in which he advocated that state legislatures should be able to block E.U. laws proposed by the European Commission.[1] At the time, a state legislature could use a “yellow card” to object to a proposal that could presumably be better legislated and enforced at the state level. Hague wanted a “red card” option that a state legislature could use to block legislation. This proposal reflects the Nullification Acts passed by the government of South Carolina in the early 1830s, which prompted the U.S. to resist strongly as the union itself could have unraveled. Aside from the exogenous ideology itself in the E.U., two problems with Hague’s proposal can be identified. I contend that the problems stem from, and thus can point to, the underlying ideology that is inherently at odds with modern federalism, in which dual-sovereignty is a prominent attribute.
Should the state legislatures dominate the EU's legislature? The British state government says yes. Would the Union wither and die? (Source: mapperywordpress.com)
Presumably, such a card from just one of the 27 state legislatures could block a proposal. It would be difficult to imagine virtually any law surviving at the E.U. level. Why then have the E.U. at all then? If every state can pick and choose among federal laws, what force would any federal law have on the state level, given that only the enforcement would only be in states in favor of the law? Without any binding force on the states, the federal level cannot act as a check on abuses of power at the state level. This function of federalism would be limited to the states checking the federal government.
Secondly, Hague was assuming that the European Parliament was not democratic at all, whereas the state legislatures were fully so. However, the members of the European Parliament are directly elected by EU citizens. The representatives represent those constituents rather than states (or state governments). Perhaps the direct representation, which leaves out the state government officials, is why Hague proposed to have the state legislatures essentially replace the European Parliament. To be sure, the legislative districts at the state level are smaller and thus more democratic in this respect, but this point does not render federal legislative bodies like the European Parliament and the U.S. House of Representatives non-democratic. In fact, giving the E.U. voters a direct say at the federal level through their respective representatives is a necessary feature of modern federalism because in it the federal level has at least some sovereignty that does not reduce to that of the states. Put another way, Europeans in the E.U.. are citizens both of their states and the E.U. Accordingly, the people have a right to be represented in both governmental systems--that of the states and the Union.
1. “William Hague Demands Right to Show ‘Red Card’ to European Union,” The Huffington Post, May 31, 2013.
