Roughly a month before the
2019 elections of the representatives in the
E.U.’s Parliament, Matteo Salvini, the leader of an anti-immigrant party at
the state level in the state of Italy, announced the formation of a far-right
party—also anti-immigrant—at the federal level. Because far-right parties at
the state level are dubbed “nationalist,” at least by The New York Times, that
paper suggested at the time that such nationalist parties federalized can seem
“incompatible with a transnational body.”[1]
I submit that any such thought of even apparent incompatibility stems at least
in part from a lack of understanding of the E.U. itself, as well as federalism
and thus the place of states from the perspective of the federal system rather than a state. In short, the paper implicitly took the perspective of the states
in writing about the upcoming election. The paradigm chosen by the paper reflects the far-right ideology in the E.U.,
and is thus not neutral. In fact, the slant is inherently helpful to the Euroskeptic
and anti-immigration political agendas.
The paper’s uses of nationalist and transnational, for example, are misleading. Both terms imply that
the E.U. is an international organization, or “bloc,” which was not the case
even when the E.U. came into existence. We
can translate the term “nationalist” as used by the far-right parties in terms
of two senses relevant to the federal level. The term could mean “Euroskeptic,”
or, in American terms, “anti-federalist.”[2]
Euroskeptic, unlike nationalist, is a
term from the perspective of the E.U.
because a Euroskeptic is a person who wants less power at the federal level and
more at the state level. Nationalism, on the other hand, is a stand-alone term
without implicitly or explicitly suggesting the existence of a federal system.
In fact, nationalism implies a
sovereign rather than a semi-sovereign state. In the cases both of the E.U.
and U.S., complete governmental sovereignty encompasses that of both
levels, hence both federal unions are nations even if not recognized as such. In discussing a federal election, terms
that make sense in terms of federalism should be used.
No contradiction exists in
having an anti-federalist or Euroskeptic party active at the federal level. In
the U.S., the anti-federalists became Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party.
Having a weaker central government paired with stronger state governments as
the central pillar is consistent with federalism because ending the federal
system itself is not being advocated. In contrast, a nationalist party at the federal level does not make sense unless
the federation is a confederation of totally sovereign states, which does not
apply to either the E.U.
or U.S. because of the feature of dual sovereignty (i.e., both levels have
some governmental sovereignty). Whether most of the sovereignty is at the state
or federal level does not matter; in both cases, neither level has all of the
sovereignty. If a nation has full national sovereignty, then the affairs of semi-sovereign
states in a federal system cannot be labeled as nationalist. In such a system, and from its perspective, using nationalist to refer to the state level
is incorrect. Neither does the national-transnational divide apply because
transnational organizations do not themselves hold even some governmental
sovereignty. Simply put, the E.U. is not an international or transnational organization,
even if “nationalist” ideologies at the state level want to insist otherwise.
Besides meaning Euroskepticism
in regard to federalism, nationalist can
also refer to an anti-immigration platform. In 2019, the Republican Party at
the federal level in the U.S. was strongly anti-immigration, especially in the
White House. Both how many immigrants are allowed and the respective
involvements of the state and federal governments are matters that involve
federalism, rather than only the states. So to equate anti-immigration with nationalism at the state level is
flawed. In fact, to use nationalist for
either Euroskepticism or anti-immigration is faulty because “national” concerns
do not reduce two platform items. In other words, the term is too broad for its
use in characterizing the federal involvement
of either a state-level or federal party at the federal level. I suspect the
term was being used anyway as a way of furthering the far-right ideology. As noted
above, even the media was implicitly (or intentionally) helping.
As for the E.U. being
“transnational,” this term is a misnomer. To be sure, the European Council
represents the state governments just as the U.S. Senate does. Both the Council
and the Senate can be said to be transnational in that the member-states are
semi-sovereign. Both bodies are based on principles of international law. For
example, polities rather than individuals are the members, and thus represented,
in the bodies. Qualified majority rule in the Council and the filibuster in the
Senate reflect the fact that the respective members retain residual
sovereignty. By the way, qualified majority voting is itself one way in which
the federal level of the E.U. has some of the sovereignty in the federal
system. Enumerated competencies (in the E.U.) and powers (in the U.S.) are
another source of federal-level governmental sovereignty. In contrast, transnational
bodies such as NAFTA and NATO do not have governmental sovereignty.
Another, glaring (i.e., because
the Times was reporting on the Parliament’s upcoming election) reason why the
E.U.’s federal level is not transnational centers ironically on the E.U.’s
Parliament. Unlike the Council, the Parliament consists of direct representatives of E.U. citizens rather than of
the states. That each state has so many House seats in the U.S. and Parliament
seats in the E.U. does not mean that the seats represent the states or that the
state governments pick the representatives. Even though Americans vote for a specific
candidate whereas Europeans vote for a party, the elected representatives in
both cases represent the citizens rather than the states. This corresponds to
the notion of direct effect, which means that federal-level governmental
institutions can bypass the state governments in affecting the citizens
directly. Transnational bodies and even international confederations, such as
the ancient Spartan league and the early-modern U.S. Articles of Confederation,
do not have legislative bodies that represent and have direct effect on
citizens rather than the member polities.[3]
In fact, whereas the U.S.
Senate and the E.U. Council are predicated on modified international law, the
U.S. House and the E.U.’s Parliament are national
in principle, both in terms of citizens being directly represented and direct
effect. The appellation of national to
a federal-level institution may seem strange to many Europeans in 2019, but
Americans had the same reaction during at least the first fifty years of the
United States because, like the United Colonies before, the U.S. was commonly
viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as an empire.[4]
In fact, the members of the British Empire, whether Ireland or Virginia, had
their own legislatures for domestic legislation.
Therefore, transnational is a misnomer in referring
to the federal level of the E.U. Reflected in its federal institutions, the
E.U., like the U.S., is actually a national/international hybrid at the federal
level. Both citizens and polities are represented, and governmental sovereignty
is split between the federal and state levels.
Regarding the body in the Times’ term, “transnational
body,” to characterize the E.U., again the intent or implication is to diminish
the legitimacy of the federal legislative, executive, and judicial (i.e.,
governmental) institutions in line with the far-right ideology. The E.U. is not
itself a “body.” Rather, the federal level has several bodies, or institutions.
The European Parliament, the Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the
European Council (and the Council of Ministers) are all governmental bodies at
the federal level. They all have institutional interests going beyond particular
state interests and even the summation of state interests, for in a federal
system, both levels have their own distinct interests. Applying logic to
counter ideology, the E.U. itself cannot be a body because the federal level
contains several governmental bodies. Furthermore, to claim that the E.U.’s
federal level reduces to one of its bodies, or even an aggregation of them
denies the distinct interest of a federal level, which can be at odds with
state interests.
So the “confusion” regarding
the E.U. that The New York Times reported as one of the reasons why voter
turnout had dropped in federal elections (i.e., of representatives in the
E.U.’s Parliament) is in part caused by intentional misnomers. These tend to
reflect an anti-federalist ideology that views the federal level as something
less than a government whereas all legitimate legislation is promulgated at the
state level. Hence the states are nationalist
whereas the E.U. is a transnational body rather than national in part. The
term nationalist is used
problematically instead of Euroskeptic or
anti-immigration, and the term transnational body and even bloc are used rather than federal level or even federal government. “Blocs” do not have
legislatures, executive branches (the Commission), and a Supreme Court (the
E.C.J.) as well as competencies in a variety of domains in addition to trade
and even economics. To refer to the E.U. as a “bloc,” like a trading bloc (and
where did the k go?), essentially denies the political development that differentiates the EEC from the E.U.
Specifically, the federal competencies of the E.U. extend beyond economics and
trade and the federal system itself fits under modern federalism wherein
sovereignty is split and the federal level has direct effect (and a legislative
body based on national rather than international principles), rather than under
confederalism wherein the member-countries are sovereign (e.g. the UN). I submit that the terminological “mistakes”
fit and thus implicitly advance an anti-federalist or Euroskeptic ideology that
seeks to minimize the onslaught of federal legislation by going after the
credibility of the E.U. itself.
1. Megan Specia, “European
Elections 2019: How the System Works and Why It Matters,” The New York Times, May 21, 2019.
2. See
Ralph Ketcham, The
Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debate (New
York: Penguin, 2003).
3. Althusius’ text on historical federal thought, based in large part on the Holy
Roman Empire, clearly demonstrates that each level in a confederation acts only
on the next lowest. Only the guilds act directly on the individuals. See
Althusius’ Politica
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1604/2010).
4. Skip Worden, British
Colonies Forge an American Empire (2017).
