A supranational union is a type of international organization and political union that is empowered to directly exercise some of the powers and functions otherwise reserved to states. A supranational organization involves a greater transfer of or limitation of state sovereignty than other kinds of international organizations.
The European Union (EU) has been described as a paradigmatic case of a supranational organization, as it has deep political, economic and social integration, which includes a common market, joint border control, a supreme court, and regular popular elections.
Another method of decision-making in international organisations is intergovernmentalism, in which state governments play a more prominent role.
Origin as a legal concept After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Albert Einstein spoke and wrote frequently in the late 1940s in favour of a "supranational" organization to control all military forces except for local police forces, including nuclear weapons. He thought this might begin with the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, and grow to encompass most other nations, presenting this as the only way to avoid nuclear war. He broached the idea in the November 1945 and November 1947 articles in The Atlantic Monthly that described how the constitution of such an organization might be written. In an April 1948 address at Carnegie Hall, he reiterated: "There is only one path to peace and security: the path of supranational organization."Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Crown/Bonanza, 1954), p. 147 (emphasis in original); cf. pp. 118–61. See also Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), ch. 22, pp. 487–500. Thanks to his celebrity, Einstein's ideas on the subject generated much discussion and controversy, but the proposal did not generate much support in the West and the Soviet Union viewed it with hostility.
With its founding Statute of 1949 and its Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which came into force in 1953, the Council of Europe created a system based on human rights and the rule of law. Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, initiated the debate on supranational democracy in his speeches at the United Nations,Schuman's speeches at the United Nations 1948. 1949 . at the signing of the council's Statutes and a series of other speeches across Europe and North America.
The term "supranational" occurs in an international treaty for the first time (twice) in the Treaty of Paris on 18 April 1951. This new legal term defined the community method in creating the European Coal and Steel Community and the beginning of the democratic re-organisation of Europe. It defines the relationship between the High Authority or European Commission and the other four institutions. In the treaty, it relates to a new democratic and legal concept.
The Founding Fathers of the European Community and the present European Union said that supranationalism was the cornerstone of the governmental system. This is enshrined in the Europe Declaration made on 18 April 1951, the same day as the European Founding Fathers signed the Treaty of Paris. Der Schuman Plan. Vertrag ueber die Gruendung der europaeischen Gemeinschaft fuer Kohl und Stahl, p. 21 Ulrich Sahm mit einem Vorwort von Walter Hallstein. Frankfurt 1951. Schuman or Monnet? The real Architect of Europe. Robert Schuman's speeches and texts on the origin, purpose and future of Europe, p. 129. Bron 2004.
"By the signature of this Treaty, the participating Parties give proof of their determination to create the first supranational institution and that thus they are laying the true foundation of an organised Europe. This Europe remains open to all nations. We profoundly hope that other nations will join us in our common endeavour."
This declaration of principles that included their judgement for the necessary future developments was signed by Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), Paul van Zeeland and Joseph Meurice (Belgium), Robert Schuman (France), Count Sforza (Italy), Joseph Bech (Luxembourg), and Dirk Stikker and Jan van den Brink (The Netherlands). It was made to remind future generations of their historic duty of uniting Europe based on liberty and democracy under the rule of law. Thus, they viewed the creation of a wider and deeper Europe as intimately bound to the healthy development of the supranational or Community system.
This Europe was open to all nations who were free to decide, a reference/or an invitation and encouragement of liberty to the Iron Curtain countries. The term supranational does not occur in succeeding treaties, such as the Treaties of Rome, the Maastricht Treaty, the Treaty of Nice or the Constitutional Treaty or the very similar Treaty of Lisbon.
Distinguishing features of a supranational union A supranational union is a supranational polity that lies somewhere between a confederation that is an association of sovereign states and a federation that is a single sovereign state. The European Economic Community was described by its founder Robert Schuman as midway between confederalism which recognises the complete independence of states in an association and federalism which seeks to fuse them into a super-state.La Communaute du Charbon et de l'Acier p. 7 Paul Reuter, preface by Robert Schuman. Paris 1953. The EU has supranational competencies, but it possesses these competencies only to the extent that they are conferred on it by its member states (Kompetenz-Kompetenz). Within the scope of these competencies, the union exercises its powers in a sovereign manner, having its own legislative, executive, and judicial authorities. The supranational Community also has a chamber for organised civil society including economic and social associations and regional bodies.
The union has legal supremacy over its member states only to the extent that its member state governments have conferred competencies on the union. It is up to the individual governments to ensure that they have full democratic backing in each of the member states. The citizens of the member states, though retaining their nationality and national citizenship, additionally become citizens of the union, as is the case with the European Union.
The European Union, the only clear example of a supranational union, has a parliament with legislative oversight, elected by its citizens. To this extent, a supranational union like the European Union has characteristics that are not entirely dissimilar to the characteristics of a federal state like the United States of America. However, the differences in scale become apparent if one compares the United States federal budget with the budget of the European Union (which amounts only to about one percent of combined GDP) or the size of the federal civil service of the United States with the Civil Service of the European Union.
Supranationalism in the European Union
Historically the concept was introduced and made a concrete reality by Robert Schuman when the French Government agreed to the principle in the Schuman Declaration and accepted the Schuman Plan confined to specific sectors of vital interest of peace and war. Thus commenced the European Community system beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community. The six founder States (France, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) agreed on the goal: making "war not only unthinkable but materially impossible". They agreed on the means: putting the vital interests, namely coal and steel production, under a common High Authority, subject to common democratic and legal institutions. They agreed on the European rule of law and a new democratic procedure.
The five institutions (besides the High Authority) were a Consultative Committee (a chamber representing civil society interests of enterprises, workers and consumers), a parliament, and a Council of government ministers. A Court of Justice would decide disputes coming from governments, public or private enterprises, consumer groups, any other group interests or even an individual. A complaint could be lodged in a local tribunal or national courts, where appropriate. Member states have yet to fulfil and develop the articles in the Paris and Rome treaties for full democracy in the European Parliament and other institutions such as the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions.
Schuman described supranational unions as a new stage in human development. It contrasted with destructive nationalisms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that began in glorious patriotism and ended in wars.Schuman, Robert. [Pour l'Europe] Paris, 1963. He traced the beginning concept of supranationality back to the nineteenth century, such as the Postal Union, and the term supranational is used around the time of the First World War. Democracy, which he defined as "in the service of the people and acting in agreement with it", was a fundamental part of a supranational community. However, governments only began to hold direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, and then not according to the treaties. A single electoral statute was specified in the treaty for Europe's first community of coal and steel in 1951. Civil society (largely non-political) was to have its own elected chamber in the Consultative Committees specific to each Community as democratically agreed, but the process was frozen (as were Europe's parliamentary elections) by Charles de Gaulle and other politicians who opposed the Community method.
Today supranationalism only exists in the two European Communities inside the EU: the Economic Community (often called the European Community although it does not legally cover all State activities) and Euratom (the European Atomic Energy Community, a non-proliferation community, in which certain potentialities have been frozen or blocked). Supranational Communities provide powerful but generally unexploited and innovatory means for democratic foreign policy, by mobilising civil society to the democratically agreed goals of the Community.
The first Community of Coal and Steel was agreed only for fifty years. Opposition, mainly by enterprises that had to pay a small European tax of less than 1% and government ministers in the council, led to its democratic mandate not being renewed. Its jurisprudence and heritage remain part of the European Community system.
De Gaulle attempted to turn the European Commission into a political secretariat under his control in the Fouchet Plan but this move was thwarted by such democrats in the Benelux countries as Paul-Henri Spaak, Joseph Luns and Joseph Bech as well as a large wave of other pro-Europeans in all the Community countries.
The supranational Community method came under attack, not only from de Gaulle but also from other nationalists and Communists. In the post-de-Gaulle period, rather than holding pan-European elections under a single statute as specified in all the treaties, governments held and continue to hold separate national elections for the European Parliament. These often favour the major parties and discriminate against smaller, regional parties. Rather than granting elections to organised civil society in the consultative committees, governments created a three-pillar system under the Amsterdam Treaty and Maastricht Treaty, mixing intergovernmental and supranational systems. Two pillars governing External policy and Justice and Home affairs are not subject to the same democratic controls as the Community system.