The European Union is not a
military alliance like the contemporary NATO or the ancient Spartan League. Nor
is the E.U. merely a free-trade agreement like NAFTA. In terms of the history
of federalism, the E.U. instantiates “modern federalism” rather than
confederalism. Whereas all of the sovereignty lies in the members in the latter,
governmental sovereignty is split between the head and its members in modern
federalism. Both the U.S. and E.U. instantiate modern federal systems, although
the U.S. originally instantiated a confederal system. In likening the E.U. to
NATA, Erdogan of Turkey unwittingly committed a category mistake. This in turn
weakened his attempt to leverage his power in approving Sweden as a country in
NATO with his demand that the E.U. admit Turkey as a state.
Just prior to the NATO meeting in
June, 2023, Erdogan stated at a news conference, “First, let’s clear Turkey’s
way in the European Union, then let’s clear the way for Sweden, just as we
paved the way for Finland.”[1]
Becoming a state in a political union, whether it is the U.S. or E.U., is
qualitatively different than joining a military alliance. Joining the latter
does not involve a transfer of some governmental sovereignty to a federal
executive branch (e.g., the E.U. Commission), legislative branch (e.g., the Council
of the E.U. and the E.U. Parliament), and judicial branch (e.g., the European
Court of Justice). A state in such a federal system is qualitatively different
than a country being in a military alliance because an alliance itself has no
governmental institutions and sovereignty.
To characterize a state in a
union and a country in a military alliance both as “member states” is
misleading. In fact, efforts to do so may stem from an ideological “state’s
rights” (or Euroskeptic) effort to deny that the E.U. is a case of modern
federalism rather than confederalism. In remarking that “almost all NATO member
countries are European member countries,” Erdogan unwittingly fell into the
trap of the ideologues who refuse to recognize that the E.U. and U.S. fall within
the same genre of unions of states (i.e., modern federalism rather than
confederalism).[2] Because
the term country implies full sovereignty, both E.U. and U.S. members are
states in the sense of being semi-sovereign political units in a federal
system. The U.S. states are members of the U.S., because they joined the U.S. from
being formerly sovereign countries (or assumed to have been of such status) and
the members of the U.S. Senate, which is based on international rather than
national law. The Council of the E.U. is also founded on international
principles, wherein political units rather than citizens are the members.
It follows that the countries that are members of UNESCO, the UN, and other international organizations are not states thereof, and should not be referred to as member states. To do so in an attempt to imply that the E.U., unlike the U.S., is also an international organization flies in the face of the very existence of the E.U. Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. International organizations do not have legislatures and high courts and executive branches to implement law and federal judicial rulings. That the Euroskeptic ideology denies this just shows the downside of ideology in general as being intellectually dishonest as regards empirical facts. To want to remake things as they presently are is one thing; to claim or insinuate that things are already different than they are is quite another. I contend that the Turkish president fell into the trap laid by the intellectually dishonest ideologues in Europe.
2. Ibid.
