After World War II when the governments of several European states attempted to form supranational groupings, colonial obligations posed problems that persist to this day. The article traces immediate postwar history, outlining the present relationship between the EC institutions and what remain of member-state Empires, before proceeding to two case studies. The first concerns the ramifications of 'Euroland' in present or past dependencies after European Monetary Union. The second considers the role of European dependencies in military alliances and analyses how one of the founding Treaties was used in the mid-1990s after the discovery that it applied extra-territorially. The conclusion is that the external border of multi-speed Europe is even more variable than it might otherwise be because of the attachments some member states retain to colonial remnants.
European Union member states have different nationality laws. Those with overseas dependencies control access there to European Parliament (EU) voting rights. Gibraltar and French Polynesia are two dependencies in which the existing situation is contested. Gibraltar's British citizens live on EU territory and therefore resent their exclusion from European elections. French Polynesia on the other hand is outside the European Union. Its citizens regard voting for the EP as at best irrelevant; its leaders wish to create a category of French overseas citizenship exclusive of European voting rights. This article compares the two situations and suggests some possible solutions.This article evaluates the particular concerns raised in certain areas at the periphery of the EU over the question of voting rights and the European Parliament. 1 These voting rights are supposed to be the mark of democratic participation. European citizenship, including voting rights for the European Parliament, denotes a privilege bestowed on those who have the full nationality of a member state. A state is a specific geographical area or areas, whose borders may wax and wane and at times be disputed, but which at a given time are generally fixed. The European Union on the other hand is difficult to locate spatially. According to then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, legally one cannot speak of the borders of the EU, but only of the aggregate of the frontiers of member states. 2 Nor is the area of the EU identical to that of the member states. The edges of the EU shift according to the aspect of policy under consideration. For example the Treaties apply fully only to the geographically European territory of member states, not to all their dependencies. Again, the Treaty territory of the EU differs from EU customs territory, although the EU is 1 S. Hall considers the position of certain territories of member states whose nationals do not enjoy freedom of movement in the EU, namely the Faroe Islands, Channel Islands, Manx residents, the OCT and Greenland. See S. Hall, Nationality, Migration Rights and Citizenship of the Union (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1995), pp. 23-30. 2 Answer given by Mr Delors on behalf of the Commission to Written Question no. 2315/90 to the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.