Constitutionalization through enlargement: the contested origins of the EU's democratic identity

Abstract

This article demonstrates that the constitutionalization of the EU began with a political struggle to set the rules by which the community would respond to applications for membership. By mobilizing to block Spain's association with the EEC in 1962, European parliamentarians, trade unionists, and others who believed that democratic and human rights principles should be institutionalized within the community established an informal rule governing the community's policy practice that laid the groundwork for the subsequent constitutionalization of democratic and human rights principles within the community's treaties and jurisprudence. It demonstrates the critical contribution to the political construction of Europe made by non-state actors willing to challenge the preferences of member state governments and shows that otherwise weak actors are significantly empowered when they are able to identify their preferences with pre-existing domestic and international norms.

EU governance and European identity

“…Research literature which deals with the landmarks of European unification (Laffan 1998;Thomas 2006) agrees that today's European Union is quite different from the functional agency (Mitrany 1966: 145) and the economic Zweckverband (Ipsen 1972) of preceding integration years. Intensified by the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, the European unification path has developed a power structure of supranational authority (Bach 1999.…”

Regional standards of membership and enlargement in the EU and ASEAN

“…This rudimentary standard of membership was increasingly contested as the use of Association Agreements with European states raised the question of the EC's relations with autocratic states, and triggered a discourse about the normative foundations of the Community (Thomas 2006, 1191)-a process similar to the development of the nineteenth-century Bstandard of civilization^in response to Japanese advances. In 1961, plans of Francoist Spain to apply for association became public.…”

“…While I use official RO documents, media reports, and existing academic literature as sources in both parts, the European case draws to a large extent on Thomas' (2006Thomas' ( , 2017 extensive empirical analyses. The cases are instructive because they display certain similarities in that domestic turbulence in prospective new members sparked normative crises during which actors challenged and ultimately revised the respective ROs' original standards of membership, which had been formulated in geographic rather than substantial terms.…”

“…In 1961, plans of Francoist Spain to apply for association became public. Since an agreement would have made possible eventual membership, the prospect met with strong resistance by the European Parliamentary Assembly and civil society actors (Thomas 2006). The Asssembly's Birkelbach Report (1961, Art.…”

“…The downsides of this move are that the conception of community norms is weakly grounded in empirical observation and that the question how actors constructed and reproduced these norms over time remains unanswered. As Thomas (2006; see also 2 The literature on regional communities is connected to but distinct from approaches focusing on the politics of regional identity-building and its role in enlargement. This strand argues that the admission or rejection of new members is influenced by a language distinguishing insiders from outsiders, and that rhetorical appeals to regional concepts and common identities may be used strategically by members and applicants to elicit beneficial enlargement decisions (Acharya 2010;Chin 1997;Fierke and Wiener 2005;Schimmelfennig 2005b;Sjursen 2002).…”