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Significant. So you will recognize circumseptions.
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Right. Good evening everybody. Can you all hear me all right? The mics don't sound, seem to be very highly amplified. It's quite a small room so I think we'll be all right. I'm Simon Glendinning and I'm the director of the Forum for European Philosophy and I'm one of the people involved in organising tonight's event. I'll get to the rest in due course. But this is the second of two special events under the title in English and I'll come back to that qualification shortly as well. European Identity in QUESTION the first of the talks was held earlier in the academic year in November at the Institut Francais with Pierre Rosen Vallon. And he was talking about the European Union and democracy, which I'm sure will come back again today. And his big theme was to distinguish between two conceptions of democracy. One a majoritarian one, where institutions and regimes were regarded as democratic when they were governed by bodies elected by a majority. So a majoritarian notion of democracy. And he contrasted that with what he called a Unitarian or a unanimity form of democracy, which is where everybody was in some way regarded as belonging to this community. A majoritarian form of democracy is always going to produce a minority who are in some way feeling or being positioned as marginal. When unanimity is what's at issue then everybody in some way is meant to be having a say. And Rosin Valenstein was, was that non discriminatory legislation in the European Union was in a certain way a powerfully democracy forming initiative. So that was our last event. We've got a slight change to the program advertised for tonight. We were going to have John Jungkla, who's the economic correspondent of dyseit, was going to be, was going to be the commentator for tonight, unfortunately at very short notice, just before the weekend he's had to withdraw for personal reasons and we're very grateful to Damian Chalmers who's agreed to replace him. Now Damian himself gave a talk in the Forum for European Philosophy Heart of Europe series of in February on citizenship, which is going to be a theme for tonight's talk. And so he's very well placed to be the commentator. He's the professor in European Law and director of the European Institute at the lse. Tonight Damian will be our commentator for our special guest who is as advertised and that's Richard Bellamy who's the professor of Clinical Science and Director of the School of Public Policy at ucl. As those twin titles suggest, Richard is both a Thinker of the political, a theorist of politics, but also a thinker of politics and policy, practical, concrete issues. And I think that is particularly suited to our theme, our overall theme in English, of European identity in question. It's a question where political thinking is meeting concrete problems in European Union politics today. Richard's the author of books and essays on liberalism, constitutionalism, republicanism, democracy. No one better, I think, to guide us through the challenge of democratic citizenship in Europe today. But before I hand over to Richard to kick us off this evening, I want to make some notes of thanks, because, as I say, the Forum for European Philosophy. Although we're hosting the event here tonight at the lse, the Forum for European Philosophy is only one of four institutions who came together to organise the two special events under the title In English, of European Identity in Question. I'd like to thank the other participants in putting this together, which include Tim Crane, who's here from the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London School of Advanced Studies, Penny Black and Claudia Amphora from the Goethe Institute. And in their program. This was not European identity in question, but maybe Penny could remind me.
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Of that.
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Everything had to be translated not just into German, but also into French, where we had and Sophie Moreau and Paul Fournelle from the Azte to Francais. So together, these four groups in collaboration, put together a proposal for discussion on this idea and problematic idea of a distinctive European identity. And it's interesting that our invited speakers have both picked this up in their own way, in terms of citizenship, in terms of terms of democratic citizenship in the European Union. And now I'm going to hand over to Richard to take that up with us. Thank you very much.
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Okay, thanks. And thank you, sort of. Bill Common, welcome. A curious feature of debates about the EU is that the most contentious position of all is probably a defense of the status quo. Unsurprisingly, Eurosceptics find the very existence of the EU a matter of complaint. But surprisingly, many Europhiles criticize its current structures and processes in almost as strong terms. Moreover, each focuses their criticism so much the same feature of the eu, though they offer different, indeed contradictory, interpretations, namely, the relationship of the EU to its member states. For Eurosceptics, the chief complaint of the EU is that it subverts the authority and integrity of its constituent parts. For an increasingly number increasing number of Europhiles, particularly among political theorists, I should say a key objection has been that it fails to do just that by remaining largely intergovernmental in structure and failing to displace national with A European Post national identity and the issue of European citizenship captures these curiously convergent yet opposed criticisms of the EU particularly well. For Eurosceptics, the very status of citizenship of the EU conjures up the specter of a European superstate and the absorption and supplanting of the member states. For Europhiles, the status represents all that's disappointing about the current eu. Tied firmly to citizenship of a member state, EU citizenship serves in most respects to complement rather than to replace or subvert national citizenship. Instead of signaling the provision of a distinct set of goods by the eu, the rights confirmed by EU citizenship are almost all contingent on residents in another member state, with the associated benefits being provided by that state. Formally, at least, the relevant treaty articles and residence directives don't confer an unlimited right to reside in the host state that are linked to the EU citizen having either independent resources or participating in its economic life, thereby avoiding becoming a burden on its services. Far from being tied to and promoted of any sense of Europeanness or of signaling the transcendence of the whole language of national identity, formal union citizenship simply serves to facilitate cooperation between citizens of the different member states and their access to membership of another member state. In itself, it does very little to create a distinctive attachment to the EU per se. Now, true, the lawyers among you will object that the recent can no doubt Damian will do object that the recent case law of the European Court of Justice has produced an incremental extension of the entitlements of EU citizens that could be said to have partially undermined this picture. But my aim in this lecture is the unfashionable one of defending the formal position. From this perspective, I think the criticisms of Eurosceptics and Europhiles are equally misplaced and misconceived. Eurosceptics overlook the degree to which EU citizenship, like the EU in general, serves to buttress and sustain national citizenship, while many Europhiles appear oblivious to the value and virtues of this very achievement, because in so doing, this EU upholds not so much the supposedly outmoded and possibly discriminatory and unjust modalities of a nation state. In fact, it does a lot to erode those. What it does do, though, is uphold the very possibility for democratic citizenship and the goods it generates, such as rights to be maintained in contemporary conditions. For reasons I'm going to outline, neither the member states or the EU are likely to be able to sustain such practices alone, but the right combination between them can indeed prove complementary and mutually supportive. So my plan in the rest of this lecture is, I hope, reasonably straightforward. What I'm going to start by doing is exploring the nature and purpose of citizenship, noting in particular the links between what I'll call its liberal and its democratic components. I'll then turn to two challenges to democratic citizenship. As we'll see, the chief danger with both of these rests on the way they pull the democratic and liberal elements apart. Then finally, I'll turn to the EU and explore to the extent to which it exacerbates or alleviates these challenges. Okay, so let me start by proposing a definition of citizenship, and then seek both to justify and unpack its component parts. So citizenship, as I see it, is a condition of civic equality. Its aim is to secure fair terms of political association whereby the laws, both in their conception and implementation, treat all those subject to them with equal concern and respect as autonomous individuals. And an intrinsic part of this aim, and the instrumental mechanism for achieving it, is that citizens enjoy political equality in influencing how those laws are conceived and implemented. This definition of citizenship is both liberal and democratic. It's liberal in the philosophical sense of prioritizing the equality of individuals in their capacity for self directed action, an ideal open to different interpretations, reflecting the main ideological cleavages in Europe, be they left, right, feminist, green, and so on. It's being democratic is perhaps more controversial, at least among political and legal theorists, for it's often asserted that the liberal argument is self sufficient at best. Those who take this line argue it may be that democracy helps the preservation of civil liberties better than any other regime. But they claim there's no necessary connection between individual liberty and democracy. Indeed, they're apt to argue that democracy may offer a potential threat to liberal values should majorities become tyrannous or simply myopic and careless. But I want to dispute this argument on both normative and empirical grounds. It's noticeable, for example, that contemporary liberal philosophers have increasingly turned to the ideal, if not always the practice of democratic citizenship as a way of identifying and justifying key liberal values. So in Political liberalism, John Rawls reconceives the idea of the social contract as an agreement between autonomous citizens under conditions of political equality as to the character and content of the rules and principles governing their collective life. And in the variation on this theme, Jurgen Habermas takes as his starting point the preconditions of political equality itself, so that citizens could debate the terms of their political association as equal, autonomous agents. And this derivation of liberal principles from democratic citizenship underlies their normative inseparability. Because we value political equality because as autonomous agents, we want to be able to shape any collective rules and equal basis to everyone else, so they reflect and respect our capacity to have views of our own and make choices about our lives. As I said, though this mutual entainment of liberalism and democracy may be appreciated at the philosophical level, it's less so at the practical level. For while it's rightly assumed by normative theorists that empirically there have been no working democracies, that is, democracies where parties can freely compete and are likely to alternate in power that do not recognize liberal values, they've been less inclined to acknowledge that the reverse is largely true, or almost that university true, too. Liberalism has never been established much beyond the degree of democratization of a given society. That is, beyond the extent to which those with power have been obliged to obtain the voluntary cooperation of others and so treat them as political equals. To some extent. Now, some people may be perplexed that up to this point I've not met rights. For there's a tendency in many recent accounts of citizenship to define it in terms of an ever expanding list of rights. But despite talk of basic rights, rights per se aren't basic. The basis for justification lies in the appeal to a distinct set of independent arguments. And as I noted, many contemporary philosophers couch their appeal to liberal principles which either give rise to or best conceived as rights, in terms of democratic citizenship. And that's because, though rights attach to individuals, they only make sense within social relations that give rise to what Hume and later Rawls called the circumstances of justice, namely, social conditions of material scarcity and limited human altruism and knowledge. It's in these circumstances that we need common rules that treat all with equal concern and respect as autonomous agents. And these rules create fair terms of social cooperation, protecting us from intended or unintended mutual harms, facilitating our ability to plan and interact with each other, and offering an equitable division of the benefits of our cooperating rights derive from the existence of such rules and the arguments that lie behind them. Now, there are four features of this account that need highlighting in their context and are important for what follows. First, the rules from which rights follow operate as and serve to secure public goods, that is, goods that all could be expected to want and from which none can or should be excluded. The aspiration of a system of civil liberties, for example, is to provide the good of personal security in a number of different forms, on an equal basis for all, and, to the extent it exists, is a system from which all benefit and none can be excluded except by the action or inaction of others in failing to respect that system. Second, a public system of rights can only be provided through collective effort and arrangements. Equal rights entail equal duties to sustain them and to ensure collective arrangements exist to uphold them law, courts, police force, hospitals, and so on, even if these public services are supplied by the private sector. Third, some accounts of rights and democracy take as their starting point individual autonomy on its own. But that will only be satisfactory if one can assume a situation that is somehow beyond the circumstances of justice, where the autonomy of each will somehow be the condition of the autonomy of all, a view sometimes attributed to Marx, for example. However, in the absence of any plausible account of how such harmony might be achieved, we must assume that autonomous choices can and do conflict. So we need rules and processes designed to resolve such conflicts under conditions of of equality. Fourth, and finally, and relatedly, reasonable disagreement exists of both a normative and empirical kind as to the best ways of securing collective goods and to some degree over which goods ought to be matters of public concern. In part, such debates turn on the degree to which individuals are or should be deemed responsible for their own choices and the ways in which they should be viewed as equal or as legitimately unequal and therefore meriting differential treatment. Democracy as a system of political equality provides a mechanism for the fair resolution of such disagreements. So democratic citizenship forms, in Arendt's famous phrase, the right to have rights. Accounts such as this that attach rights to citizenship are sometimes criticized on the grounds that they neglect the human rights of those who are excluded from democratic states. However, Arendt coined that phrase in the context of a discussion of the rights of a particular group of stateless persons disaspera Jews. I think this objection could be met by seeing the right to democratic citizenship as the human right. In essence, this is the de facto position in human rights law, which is the creature of democratic citizens states and in practice only adhered to by them. The logic of human rights law is for all states to be democratized and for democratic states to recognize the rights of asylum seekers and of denizens, to naturalize a process that, however imperfectly, is gradually happening, and for the rights of the different democratic states to fashion their laws in their own way. I think what this definition of rights focus attention on is that there are two key components of democratic systemship. First, a political association committed to the provision of certain collective goods and second, a system of political equality in which fair terms for their provision and distribution have been debated and agreed, and those charged with their implications held to account in order to ensure they are organized in a manner consistent with viewing all as equals. In sum, putting together the liberal and the democratic components of citizenship highlights the degree to which principles of justice are, in Rawlsian terms, reciprocal norms of social cooperation between members of a given political community. Now, for all their shortcomings, the established democracies of the member states of the EU have been remarkably successful in establishing such political associations and offering unprecedented protection of civil and social rights as a result of their having institutionalized political equality within working systems of democracy. In the rest of this talk, I want to to look at the challenges to these settlements and the ways that the EU may help or hinder their being successfully met. So what are the two challenges confronting this union of liberal and democratic components of citizenship that characterize the member states? The first challenge concerns the capacity of existing states to deliver certain collective goods within their territory, in part because of its inability to keep both the positive and negative externalities of cooperative behavior within its borders. That you can't reap the benefits of some of your good non polluting behavior, for example, and you suffer the disbenefits of others bad polluting behavior behavior. And this is a problem with the incomplete character of the political association. The second challenge concerns a partial attenuation of the willingness of citizens to conceive of themselves as co participants in the delivery of certain of these goods on a collective basis. This is a problem of a weakening commitment to political equality. In many respects, the two challenges are linked, and indeed each can feed the other. One way of forestalling a failure to cooperate, always tempting with public goods where free riding is possible, is to compel obedience. But for such compulsion to be legitimate, a political association must exist where citizens acknowledge its de facto capacity to deliver that good and its de jure entitlement to do so. The legitimacy of any political authority will certainly be weakened if it's seen as ineffective. But it will also lack effectiveness if it's not seen as legitimate. Not all can be compelled, and an essential aspect of that legitimacy will be that all citizens are socialized into playing their part as political equals in cooperative behavior, so that they possess bonds of trust and solidarity. Democratic participation can reinforce that socialization, not least holding rulers to account and giving people a sense of possession through having their say. But it also trades on it within the member states. This socialization was largely provided by state policies of nation building that accompanied the mass mobilization of required by industrialization and war, both of which ultimately fed into and drove the development of mass democracy. Yet nothing Akin to this socialization process has or is likely to occur at the EU level, Even if the social and political factors existed for it to do so, which they don't, its success would still be inhibited by the fact that such processes have already happened at the member state level. Now, the temptation in meeting these two challenges has been to try and divorce the liberal from the democratic component of citizenship and simply deliver a global rights based form of citizenship upheld by international courts. Many normative theorists have conceived EU citizenship in analogous terms. But if the legitimacy and commitment to rights depends on their instantiation within democratic practices that uphold the citizen's right to have rights, then these solutions won't work. Somehow we need to confront these challenges in ways that preserve the capacity of the liberal and democratic components of citizenship to mutually reinforce each other. So let me now turn to the EU and explore its role in meeting these two challenges and to anticipate. I think it can help meet the first challenge and can certainly avoid exacerbating the second. However, to remain part of the solution, rather than being the cause of the problem, it must continue to complement citizenship at the member state level. So let's start by looking at the first challenge, the incompleteness of political community. The two key areas where it's long been difficult for collective goods to be obtained at a purely national level are economic and security policy. To these have been added a growing appreciation of the importance of the collective good of the environment and the dangers of the public bad of pollution, and the realization that this too requires cross national collaboration. Now, for some time, these three areas have been those where the EU has enjoyed most legitimacy. I don't think this can be explained simply by the fact that these have also been the areas where the EU operates, because security policy has been comparatively weak and has only grown at the EU level as the deficiencies of alternative international arrangements have become apparent. It has always enjoyed high level of support from EU citizens. It's basically executives who don't want to move security policy there. However, those areas where the second challenge, the disengagement from collective participation operates, are even weaker at the EU than they are at the national level. Social rights and political participation are two key areas where there's been some disengagement by citizens. In both cases, support for welfare and for democracy as collective goods remains high. What's expressed is dissatisfaction with the existing mechanisms and personnel. So people say, yes, more social rights, more democracy, it's a great thing. But they still carry on not wanting to disengaging from them. This has produced A certain disengagement from these systems by those able to do so into more individual and private arrangements that don't have the same egalitarian quality, enforcing a fair engagement with the concerns of others. So collective health arrangements get supplemented by private insurance that essentially allow queue jumping within those same services. Litigation and targeted campaigns by pressure groups increasingly supplement and occasionally supplant political parties which have to appeal across the whole range of policies issues with each citizen having an equally weighted vote. So once again, here we have areas where, if you like, there's been a separation of liberal elements from the democratic aspect with inegalitarian results. Support for the EU taking on social welfare responsibilities is very low, over 65% of all EU systems, which means much higher in most countries. Countries regard these issues as exclusively national concerns that the EU shouldn't have any part in them at all. And though EU citizens say they want an EU committed to democratic principles, they're even more disengaged from processes and personnel at the EU level than at the national level. Indeed, they become more so with each extension of democracy at the EU level. For these issues, it would appear that at best, the EU suffers from the same problem as the member states. Indeed, it may be part of the problem. For it's noticeable that across all advanced democracies, support for national political communities and cultures has remained strong and even grown, growing, especially at the sub state level. And that is true as well of the member states of the eu. So, like hardline Euroscepticism, any strong political identification with the Europe is a minority taste. What explains this divergence between support for the EU being involved in collective goods which meet the first challenge, like environment, and lack of support for its being involved in collective good goods associated with the second challenge, like welfare and democracy. Well, part of the explanation lies in there being some truth in the argument of Andrew Murabchik and Nina Mayone that the EU largely operates in areas that are of low electoral salience. In essence, the EU legitimacy is highest in areas that secure win win positive sum for radio efficient improvements and lowest in areas involving redistributions that are zero sum and win win simply aren't that contentious in a way, and they often are very, very technical. And although matters are not quite so simple in that many of the EU's regulatory policies have a differential cost impact and some are more electorally salient than others, I think a broad distinction between these two policy areas can be drawn. That doesn't mean, though, that democracy is simply not relevant to, indeed possibly even a hindrance to securing certain sorts of technical good, as Mahoney and Muravchiks just are, suggest that experts are more trustworthy or better informed in setting emissions targets than politicians say there's no evidence for this suggestion. Indeed, the normative and empirical disagreements even between experts on such matters suggest there are good grounds for deciding such policies democratically. What allows such win win international agreements to work is rather that they can be viewed as securing the right to have have rights of the citizens of the states who are parties to them by reaping the benefits of their positive externalities by having good environmental policies and guarding against negative externalities, as is standardly the case with trade, security and environmental pacts. What's essentially being preserved is the mutual capacity of citizens and states to determine their collective policies in circumstances where each is likely to impact on others. In other words, it's that preservation of the sustainability of democratic citizenship within the member states that's going on in these areas, and that the more such agreements are perceived as themselves involving illegitimate interferences with domestic collective politics policy choices, the less acceptable they'll be. And of course, there is some danger that that is happening in the EU precisely because national politicians hide behind expertise and bureaucracy and fail to negotiate in transparent ways that reveal the domestic benefits of cooperation. But none of that really requires EU level democracy, merely stronger national level democratic accountability on EU issues. Indeed, pushing democracy up to the EU level risks undermining it further. As I noted, those areas where the second challenge operates are precisely the ones where support for EU competence is lowest. And the reason is that in areas where the incentives to defect from common arrangements are greater, then it's going to be all the more important that people are socialised into compliance. Here the EU faces the problem of preemption for both democratic politics and social policy. Quite thick national political cultures exist. These reflect particular ways in which citizens operating under conditions of political equality have come to shape the way these collective goods are understood, so that though all member states share a commitment to welfare and democracy, it's structured in very different ways in each of them. And as I said, there seems to be little pressure to relocate these mechanisms. In fact, to do so would risk accelerating the process of disembedding them from the social context that holds them together. Now, some have argued it's one of the big arguments of Jurgen Habermas, for example, that the EU must take on these responsibilities because it's market driven. Negative integrationist policies have in different ways eroded welfare and democracy at the member state level, producing a race to the bottom on welfare and short circuiting executive accountability in crucial areas. In fact, the first hasn't occurred. The race to the bottom in welfare is not a feature of what's happening in the eu, or certainly not a feature any greater than anywhere else. And the second, that of short circuiting executive accountability, is likely to be exacerbated by a shift to the EU level. The proposed solution of building EU social democracy by declaring allegiance to these principles within the charter or constitution misses the point. These generic values, while shared by pretty much all established democracies, including the most populated parts of the usa, do not in and of themselves constitute a pan European political culture, something that sheer size and linguistic diversity and significantly different institutionalized valuations of these values all work against. Indeed, it would undermine the right to have rights, to have recursively solidified these values in ways that have occurred within the member states already. Worse, and here I think I would differ greatly from Professor Roseanne Boulogne. The legal and political structures likely to be adopted by the EU prove inimical to political equality. The complexity of decision making and the weighting of votes make it second to the United States in its capital counter majoritarian checks and balances. But what do all of those do? What does it mean if you don't have majoritarian democracy done on an equal basis and say everybody now has their say and we're only going to go with policies that everybody will accept? Well, you know, it's a version of the person who can stay in the politics pub longest wins the argument. Some say that the Treaty of Nice was done precisely because the Spanish were able to state that they were used to staying in the pub longer than anybody else. It gives veto to minority privileges, essentially, and the common agricultural policy is a prime minister symbol of this situation. More profound, though rarely mentioned in the democratic deficit literature, is also the way that European integration has produced a certain side tracking of the democratic process through the Americanization of European law. Again, disembedding regulation from established social networks of trust among repeat players produces pressures to adopt more rule governed approaches. Against the background of weak and fragmented governmental authority but strong courts, there are incentives to take to law. Indeed, the EU has actively encouraged such moves to make up for the democratic deficit, often under the banner of citizenship rights. When your plane is late being able to claim rights, compensation is one of those elements. But litigation is far less egalitarian and more focused on individual than the public good than democracy. Notwithstanding class actions and legal aid. Though national legal cultures are resisting change, decisive steps towards a more costly Adversarial and individualistic legal style have occurred. In particular, a new venue for disengaging from national democracy has opened up. Making the EU arrival to national citizenship in these areas would exacerbate the second challenge, therefore, not least because it inevitably pulls apart the liberal from the democratic component of citizenship. Not being able to realize that democratic element means you rely on liberal mechanisms in order to do so. Courts, expert bodies, non majoritarian bodies, etc. Now, the beauty of the current citizenship provisions, I think, lies in them guarding against against this occurring. They seek to allow citizens to move and trade freely between member states, but they constrain such rights by the need not to disrupt the rights enjoyed by national citizens, not least with regard to their access to domestic services and involvement in national elections. This constraint is important if the democratic compact between citizens on welfare, education and other public service services is not to be undermined by fears of welfare shopping by citizens of less well provided states. In the relevant treaties, articles and directives, states have been able to ensure citizens of other member states contribute to the production of collective goods and to protect certain privileges of their own citizens. So basically, you have to reside for a certain time and work before you can claim certain kind of welfare rights. And there are certain particular occupations, etc. Which are tied in specifically with the integrity of states which have been reserved to national citizens. You can't vote in national elections, though you can in local elections. So effectively sufficient commitment of the host state to justify effectively naturalization has to be shown before full access to the rights of citizenship are granted. And in this way, the bonds of reciprocity between citizens created by the process of democratic socialization aren't challenged yet. It's this constraint, apparently upheld earlier in judgments such as Uke and Baumbast, that the ECJ has potentially eroded in Martinez, Sala, Vidar, among others, in a misguided attempt to realize what one Advocate General called the destiny of union citizenship to be the fundamental status of nationals of the member states. I see very few EU citizens sharing this belief in their destiny. A recent poll revealed only 18% of Europeans knew their rights as citizens, and only 41% felt they knew what the term citizen of the EU meant. Indeed, the two people who accompanied me down to this lecture fell into the not knowing the 60% and the 80% who didn't know, respectively. For example, few exercising their EU citizenship rights take up their eligibility to vote in local and EU elections outside their state of origin. A mere 6.5 million in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections often as low as 9% of those eligible. It's hard to resist the conclusion that promoting EU citizenship in this way would risk subverting the very practice of citizenship itself with no advantage to the eu. Again, the real benefit of EU citizenship is being missed. This consists of combining an increasing, increasingly global market with the capacity of citizens to shape their collective public goods in a variety of ways to reflect national political cultures. That capacity is surely the essence of citizenship, and one with no likelihood of being adequately achieved at the EU level. Well, the website advertising this lecture contained a rather daunting list of questions that I guess I was supposed to answer, so, such as, can the idea of European citizenship really be applied to the inhabitants of the diverse collection of nation states grouped in the eu? Can the EU really be a democratic institution? Is more democracy good for the EU and is it effective for its citizens? You may be waiting for my answer. And here it is. I think you might be surprised by it because my answer is yes. Yes to all of those questions. Yes, but with a but. And in a way, the whole of this lecture has been one long but only if its role is that of strengthening the democratic citizenship of the member states and helping it meet the challenges it faces. And that's to be achieved less by democratizing the EU per se and increasing its competences, and more by democratizing how we think about the EU within the member states and deepening our understanding of its important complementary role in confronting the two challenges outlined in this lecture. Thank you.
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Right. I really, really am glad that my name is in fact taking your chalmers.
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Right now.
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Because right now, of course he has to give some kind of commentary response to that wonderful talk. Thank you, Richard. And Damien, over to you.
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Thank you, Richard. As Simon says, it's sort of a tinge of bitterness because I agreed with so much of it that. Thank you. As I understand Richard's argument, and always the job of the commentator is to exaggerate and simplify and therefore distort so they can find a place for them. It's broadly that the nation state provides, if you like, the normative and regulative infrastructure that allows us to have rights and allows rights to be sustained. And that the eu, current EU modus for vendi, generally furthers that in two ways. Firstly, it allows member states to, if you like, provide more public goods. Secondly, it allows them. Richard didn't emphasize this too much, but I took it as a given. It allows member states or it provokes or incites member states to give entitlements to those who might not be traditionally recognized without disembodying the networks of trust that are central to, if you like, any idea of pre commitment or mutual commitment for things such as social or political rights. Now the problem is, he put it far more persuasively than I could, that I agree with him normatively and I agree with his diagnosis of the EU and I agree with his criticisms of the Court of Justice. I mean bar well, not the criticisms were fair bar one or two things on the arcane legal details. Where I would come in with this point of view, like of 99% agreement on which he rightly says is, I think a fairly unfashionable view. Not just because the EU is the politics of insufficiency, but also because citizenship is largely about the politics of insufficiency. To say things aren't too bad never does you a lot of favors in either of those two debates is about the institution of citizenship itself. My, if you like, critique is is it something plastic that just fits in? What does it mean here? And I want to start off with the paradox of ease citizenship that is expressed in Article 17 of the EEC Treaty which says it exists in a very powerful way up near the front of the EU treaty, but it must not affect or replace in any adverse way national citizenship. And Richard captured that quite well that on the one hand this makes no sense at all. Is it really possible to have an EU citizenship that is not contaminated by national citizenship? We don't have two types of politics out there. Yes, there are a few fora that you can go which are called European, but when you look there, as you rightly said, it's domestic players playing a two level game. The overwhelming there is politics or there is law. It can't avoid being contaminated on the one hand by national citizenship. Yet it must be something else and it must be something else that is not seen to challenge national citizenship. And you have to wonder if there is one forum, one venue out there, how this is possible, how it can use the lexicon of citizenship whilst at the still time, if you like, being retaining a certain ethical integrity, not being contaminated by national structures, whilst retaining a separateness. And my answer a little bit, and this is what I'm going to suggest is to do that, and this is why I increasingly dislike the term citizenship, I'm more persuaded by denizenship. There has to be something which creates, and I think it does a little bit, a separate ethic from that of just betterment, of mutual association in the traditional way. It's been associated within the nation state. And let me take this argument through Richard's dichotomy, which works diagnostically, but I will challenge a little bit his argument. One of his arguments was that the EU is, and I'd agree with this, one of its contributions to citizenship is to allow member states to provide better public economy, the environment, security, economies of scale in cooperation in organization of the welfare state, etc. But we have a paradox in today's Europe. Europe's citizens, insofar as it exists, seem to be very keen on this in regard to healthcare, but very opposed. And this is true both in the law and in the. And in the political praxis in relation to education, particularly university education. And what has happened, if you look at the political practice on this, is that health care is a free for all, it's the market free for all in the law and to some extent in political practice, with education, both in law and if you see what the member states are doing, they're saying to get benefits, to get entitlements to grants or easy loans, you have to engage in some sort of social integration, university grants, increasingly only for those who are socially integrated into the member states society. EU citizenship has been unable to avoid that debate, unable to avoid the debate of health commercialism on the one hand, and this other debate that's going on, which is far more pernicious in some ways of you must be socially integrated before you get social rights, which is, if you like, the dark side of one of the dark sides of citizenship, that any sense of entitlements are also justifications for state intervention. So to show social integration inevitably justifies the state regulating the non national. How long have you been here? Are your language skills good enough? Have your children been subject to any sort of ASBOs, etc. And so EU, you know, this public goods is treated in quite an a priori way and I would say EU fails to challenge that enough, whilst at the same time acknowledging the point that it in a very powerful way can increase capacities. And that to some extent is a missed ethical opportunity. I think, I don't think you have to believe in the recreation of the nation state to think that some idea of the public good could be reinvented. And my second point is that in some areas of EU citizenship, I think the EU does that. Now I agree totally with Richard that I think if you look at citizenship as praxis, the sort of telliwork the EU comes off very badly. But I would say, and if you treat effect in a sociological way, it comes off very badly. But I think citizenship exists at another level, at the level of an imaginary. One of the reasons you have citizenship is it creates, just as the nation, just as a liberal subject, a new quality of political legal agencies, that the constituent, which is to some extent, in some ways, the citizenship, is the appointment of an agent to stand. For me, that's what the Federalist Papers stood for, that. Now, traditionally we've looked at this as the nation. The state has to represent the nation, the political institutions. But one has to say it can also work the other way around, that to some extent the relationship is a converse one of the political institutions coming in to act for the nation, just as the nation is meant to act for the political institutions. Now, the idea of the nation here, this constituent power, is a number of things, I think in modern political settlements. It creates an idea of insufficiency and surplus. The political settlement never exhausts politics. There's always something out there that's not captured, has not been done well enough for the public good. It provides a very good reason why we don't have raison d'. Etat. It also mediates that point of free constitutional origin, what happens when it all breaks down. And it also suggests, I would say, the limits of politics, that the nation suggests, what politics, where politics may be, that this is a finite thing and there has to be a space beyond it. And this is, I think I'd agree with Richard, has worked very well in modern nation states. I think constituent power, once it's seen as a form of political agency rather than as a static thing, is very important. It's a reason for pursuing collective goods and realizing this is an interminable process. But of course, the nation as an expression of this has not always worked that well. And I'm not just talking about genocide. We see it in racist protectionist practices. It can't reinvent itself very well. And European citizenship as an imaginary notion, I think does it quite well. When it talks about European citizenship as insufficiency, it's the nation also is insufficient. It's the idea that we should reimagine political community, political community not just as the foreigner, but as the marginalized within us. I think EU citizenship is most significant in things like disability, race, religious discrimination law. It has a wider notion of the plural good, so that if the constitutional settlement collapses in any member state, it's not the law of the gun, increasingly recognized to be a European state, there has to be some sort of constitutional settlement, some commitment to rights, etc. You see it. In the Copenhagen criteria. It's not the sort of a Gemben thing, right. It's the nation who can never go back and. And political violence all day. What it is, they must be a European nation now, some commitments to civilizational purposes if they're ever going to be let back in the club. And I could go on, but it's more or less 10 minutes now. Now, I think Europe does that quite well. I would say that there is another ethic out there, which is this ethic of the European citizen which says that the nation is a powerful imaginary. But as an imaginary, it's maybe not sufficient in a modern world that there are other things out there. And you find this expressed in some of the laws in a very inchoate and not particularly articulate way. And I think that's quite a powerful thing. I think you find it most powerfully expressed. One had to set up one's own for practical in the enlargement processes when the EU typically is most insistent on things like fundamental rights is, of course, when people have to join the club. And one's seen it in the treatment of minorities in the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, reform of the whole of the criminal code in Turkey, laws on prohibiting homosexuality in places like Romania. The reason these were all reformed was not in the name of the Romanian or Turkish or Baltic nations. In fact, they were arguing the opposite. It was because Europe came along and said, your political imaginary is too stunted for you to spontaneously regenerate yourself. And that, I think, is a good thing. So I think I'm trying to say that Richard's talk was brilliant, but I said there's a third reason to be a conservative and defend the space is correct.
B
Richard, do you want to have a quick reply on that?
A
I think you probably should. Okay, yes. The kind of first issue that you raise, I'm not entirely sure that we can agree as much as. Or maybe I've just misunderstood you because I think that, for example, a degree of social integration or to get access to grants or indeed to health care is a legitimate thing. I think that, for example, in a recent case, Schwartz, where a German citizen argued that the German state should give them the same tax relief that they would get if they sent their child to a private school in Germany, when they sent their child to a private school in Scotland, when the German states said, well, look, if this happens, it has potential effects on tax revenues that we have, and so forth, and they sort of said, well, that just isn't our concern. Well, I think it should be A concern what the impact of some of its policies might be on the tax revenues of a member state. And it shouldn't be pushing through policies which have, are entirely legitimate within a state on grounds of all of them on grounds of non discrimination. If it undermines the commitment to paying tax etc. Within that state in the first place, that is an undermining of citizenship. So I think on there I find that some of the, the moves on health are undermining. I think that some of the moves on education are potentially so too. On the other issue though, I mean I agree and it's, you know, the paper should give the Jews there. But of course you know one of the one thing one should put up front about what is the prime mark of European citizenship at its best it is the principle of non discrimination. And that principle is important in two respects. It's important in taming ipula like the, what you might call the bad face of nationalism, which is the discriminatory aspect. And it's been important in other areas, notably gender areas of pay and getting gender equality in working conditions and so on and so forth. So non discrimination is an important aspect and I think it fits with the general theme of recognizing the right to have rights means that you don't discriminate and put costs on particular policy. So I think it's entirely compatible with the picture that I'm putting forward but it's something which I should put up there as an all important issue. Does that depend though on, on the European imaginary? I don't think so. I mean, you know, I think the commitment of you know, the states which join the eu, join the process of enlargement was pretty hard nose to the circumstance that they believed that they were going to get advantages, economic and other advantages from it. They also believed, I think possibly many of them that this one of the great successes of the EU has been locking in democracy in newly democratized countries. So Greece, Portugal, Spain, that's all have been major achievements. And I think there was a kind of pre commitment this is be to going, going to help us sustain our democratic credentials, become part of it. And again you can see that as fitting with the commitment to the right to have rights. I think that it does fit doesn't go necessarily with a belief in Europe. It goes with a belief in this is one mega whereby we can achieve the promise of citizenship offered by participation within our state. And again, you know, my complaint all the time with EU is this seems to me to be a really strong selling point for it. But one which those involved in selling the EU are very reluctant to push forward. And yet because in a certain sense the achievement of European citizenship is not really to be citizenship of the EU at all. That's its great achievement. All of its achievements lie in the way it protects national citizenship and since reinforces it in various kinds of ways. And that strikes me as something something which would go down rather well within most of the member states if sold properly in a way that talking about it as isn't the union really doesn't. Because there just is not that groundswell out there.
B
Right. Thank you, Richard. Okay, we've got plenty of time. I'm resisting for the moment asking the question myself for the I can already see that some of you want to ask. So start there.
E
Which is perhaps the idea that vested interest sometimes exaggerated the tension between simply national democracy and European liberalism and so can pass off decisions that they actually make as something which is of course one of them by Europe. Like blending from like certainly in terms of economics but also human rights legislation. Quite often with economics is perhaps because the argument can't be one public and we never could. And with something like human rights is ultimate credits and then the publics are eligible and the argument can't be high therefore being posed to seem objective in some way. But it seems to me that speaks about the crisis of national democracy are a problem with legitimacy and a gap between the political class and the public which then leads to this idea that the European political thing. So we went back to the right defense of the status quo. You see certainly the meal the right. There's nothing wrong constitutionally but the way that European is organized. But it's certainly a problem with massive democracy and life dealing with that the effects of expert in the European idea. So that I learned the dimension that arise around the idea of controversies are they really just situated in natural borders.
B
Thanks.
A
Could you give me an example for human rights?
E
Something like the problems that governments have with convincing people about human rights legislation. Remember last year, a year before there was an event to idea Bill of Rights which would be popular and they didn't actually have a foundation to do that. They were quite able to counterpose the idea of something which is popular as democratic substance to it. Something which is picked up by lawyers in Europe. It seems to me that typically solved the problem. It seems that he pointed out a real problem there which isn't necessarily in the European Constitution. The fact that the values that that European politicians tend to believe in are not necessarily being shared by the public.
A
Against your well, you Know, it's just that I'm very, I'm very skeptical of that argument. I have to say. I think one can find as many instances of courts striking down rights passed by legislatures as courts recognize picking up on rights that legislatures would not recognize. So you know, I just dispute the argument you're making. I just don't believe it's true. Indeed you haven't been able to give me a concrete example.
B
Do you want to have any kind of self defense there?
E
Perhaps a better example which is the economic party. The whole kind of idea about liberal economics, it's not really part of domestic politics. We don't argue about economic policy and I think capitality between new labourers passing monetary policy to the bank of England and the management the idea, because I think you're right, something not true. The fact that Toro has passed from African government to Europe but the idea that you can pass it on, it's been done elsewhere, there are.
A
Well that surely is a grave failure of politics to Dunbar. I mean in Britain of course it's not entirely the case because the governor of the bank of England is answerable to exchange, sacked by him, et cetera. And essentially the interest rate targets, inflation targets rather are set by the government. It's the interest rates which get set separately by the bank of England. If there's deemed to be a failure or whatever, they are removable. One of the great problems with the European Central bank is that it is so distant from those kind of political pressures at all because there isn't a European public sphere cage of having the kind of impact that actually occurs. One thing we do know is that kind of on the whole banks follow poles within domestic arrangements because there's huge.
B
Does your view have a corollary then for national currencies? I mean if you think that the European Union doesn't citizenship level should support strong nation states, would you say that European financial policy should really support strong national currency?
A
Well, I do think there is a problem with having the European currency to the degree to which it's removing certain kinds of economic policy from the control and I mean the argument for doing that is standardly because politicians will be tempted to create sort of short term inflationary booms in order to promote their electoral chances. Now two things problematic about that. One is that it's not uncontroversial that you should never adopt inflationary policies. Sometimes they can be beneficial and it's also not uncontroversial. But those involved in setting interest rates, etc. Will this therapy have the interests of the economy at large at heart, because they might be influenced by those sectors, financial markets, which have particular access to them. And in that sense, many of the problems accused of politicians who operate with this group too. So to isolate them from any kind of public debate strikes me as being problematic.
B
Okay, that's interesting.
A
It seems to be that one of the problems with the EU.
B
Is that governments are apt to take the credit for things that go away.
A
For things that go bad.
B
And so that's, that's what I heard as well.
A
Oh, did you? All right, so maybe I did misunderstand. Well, I mean, to that extent that is a problem. Yes, but that's, I mean, you can resolve that problem by making what they do in Europe more transparent and more accountable to national parliament. You don't need to have an EU level democratization in order to tackle that particular issue. Okay, yeah, one down here.
C
I have at the moment, my own research interest is in the evolution of physical governance. And one has, I think the curious situation that the Director General for economic and financial affairs seeks national government and organs for viscous survey. It wants to change budgetary calendars. It's not supposed to make it. The national parents are just not interested. It makes these efforts since years. How do you explain that and what does that imply for your notion of citizenship? You know, the attempt of fiscal governance to protect under the rubric of fiscal sustainability, generations that, you know, obligations can be met without cutting benefits from them for them in the future to the extent that we have left over our needs today. In other words, representing citizens of the future that are under the present national democracies today. Because interpret value is like that. And yet national parliaments are more interested in.
A
Yes, well, I mean, I think part of the problem is that they don't see votes in it. That's the. So one might sort of say one of the worst decisions ever made. I mean, there are two things. One, they're very ignorant about what goes on in the world. National parliamentarians, because they have no incentive to do it because votes care elsewhere and European issues per se, except should we be in Europe or out of Europe and not salient in national elections. So, you know, one of the worst things that happened, much as I say, was to create the European Parliament as a directly elected chamber because it sort of undermines any kind of linkage of information or incentive structure which might have occurred. But you know, that's happened now. So I mean, one can obviously there have been, I mean some people think, well, it will come, but you know, at some point European, you know, the electricity, the cotton on, and they're going to force it. And I suppose the growth of in particular of anti European parties within all countries. It's not just the UK which has ukip, as it were, has been an aspect of that. So that might, if European elites, if you like, want to continue with Europe, then maybe you have to get interested in it. I think another thing is suggestions that have been made. We're in the constitutional treaty now, in the Lisbon Treaty of sort of informing European national parliaments of proposed EU legislation. And some people are sort of suggested that just like you have kind of the Queen's speech outlining the national legislative program, at the very same time you should have the kind of speech from the EU as it were, outlining the EU legislative program. So that gets discussed. At the very least, you know, there is a formal point whereby it has to be at issue and that might promote greater interest in these things. But these all are sort of little fixes, aren't they? You don't know how far they're going to work. But that certainly making them informed and then suggesting that they do something like a formal presentation of the legislative program within national parliament strikes me as the one possible way of improving that situation.
B
I've got three questions. Does anybody else have one first?
D
Yeah, I'd like to say that three words are keyword.
A
230 years ago and they sort of denied theology. But at a time increasing globalization, I think we'll always try to achieve that and that is liberty, equality and proceed. I'm in favor of all of those things. Yeah, I should say two practical examples.
B
Of things we would not have here.
A
If it wasn't imposed by the EU would be working time Director preventing junior.
B
Doctors looking after me, after the.
D
Team beaches.
B
That's just to examples of Europe.
A
We rumble and reintroduce them. And if there are dust those regulations that we would never get through the local authority national parliament. This is bloody Brussels. Well, I'm not sure, you know, I'm just not convinced. I mean, look, clean beaches is certainly one where I think unless you've got a European commitment to this, I mean, whatever you do to clean up your own beach, it's not going to will be no good if the people over the way are chucking in cans, etc. And it all washes up. So it's got to be that kind. You've got to have that kind of collaborative incentive to do it. And so in a way, local authorities are quite rational not to go alone. They need in A certain sense to feel that there is a joint commitment there. I mean, the Working Time Directive is slightly different sort of issue, but in a way it's related likewise to. To. I mean, its initiation was to stop particular countries gaining advantages from working people to death, et cetera. So, you know, it's one of those win, win type attempts to resolve a collective action problem. So I think, you know, you've got to look at the sorts of issues which work well and those are things where you could understand it would be quite rational for a government to say, well, we've got to, you know, it's not that people don't want them. I don't see the huge movement for dirty beaches out there. I mean, you know, to say that this is something that wouldn't be popularly exceptional seems to be extreme, extraordinary or, you know, sort of. Oh yes, I demand to have a tired doctor. I mean, no, no, I mean these aren't things which, you know, democracies are resisting. But what they might be resisting and legitimately are circumstances where they won't reap the benefits of making that policy unless there's a collaborative commitment to it on the part of your box. Now that is a democratic concern and that's all that's being achieved here.
B
And in a way, presumably that comes under your incompleteness of political citizenship. That there is a level of the EU does play a positive role in that case. Exactly, yeah.
D
Carry on.
A
Large chunks of restaurant reliable documents using the same. What I'd like to ask is what.
B
Your views might be on the forthcoming.
A
Possible breakup of some of the member states, such as the eu, Spain or France or Syria or future democratization of.
B
Anything should be talking about from the European Union.
A
Well, I mean, I think one aspect of it is of course it reveals that the trend within the member states is to greater effective allegiance to sub units within them is one reason for. For regarding with great skepticism the view that a European identity is on the cards because the trend is precisely in the opposite direction. Nonetheless, in the circumstances, in the way that I have portrayed it, if you like, in the condition of working with smaller and smaller units, then the incompleteness of political association is going to be greater. That first challenge the EU is going to resolve. But I think the danger of the EU exacerbating the second challenge is also enhanced in that situation. So that's what one has to look to and guard against.
D
So.
A
But I think that is the new situation. Of course, the other thing is that you might have some. They think there is going to be a Lombard Kingdom re established. But you know, there are some parts of Europe which are where disengagement from the made mistake could also lead to disengagement. That's interesting.
B
Again, does it follow really then from your view of the function that the EU is already performing, that it not only tolerates a certain kind of.
D
What.
B
Might call regionalization, but in a certain way encourages it because it takes up so much of the slack of incompleteness, as it were. The benefits of economies of scale, as it were, can all be taken at that level. And so desires for homogenous communities, a kind of classical nationalism, which was one of the things that you thought it was also quite good at getting rid of. It's actually paradoxically encouraging.
A
Yes, I think that's right. And there's quite a lot of evidence for that. I mean the EU regional policy is very mixed in but indeed it does have one. It's one that deliberately seeks to create Euro regions which have nothing to do with the actual kind of regions of effect that exist within Europe. But for the regions themselves, they see precisely that possibility. The Scottish Nationalists party used to to have, you know, Scotland in Europe was one of its slogans and that was sort of echoed I think in a number of other parts of Europe too.
B
Okay.
A
Any more?
D
Yeah, I'd like.
A
As the world has been more or less resources and scopbling talent precious. Do you not think about that? We're going to go away. We're going into Star wars.
E
We're going to have a space going.
A
To be not a terrestrial empire, Celestial Empire. And you know, by the time we've actually formed the European fraternity, we've been colonizing Mars and all the rest. No, The next generation.
B
One more here and then we may have to stop.
A
About the idea of imaginary when it relates to the idea of citizenship. It's true that very striking fact pointed out that there is this homogeneous value system striking things the rapid climate nurturing to value having an army all the things that were so similar event 100 years ago you would see soldiers on the street. J wrote a poem again who does an offensive soldier love it or something but no one in the European consensus now. He so there are these very powerful changes part of what we mean by naturally. But I wonder whether that involves the idea of taking on those values, involves the idea of linksystem of this.
C
Unity.
A
Rather than existing itself as adopting that. Which are often the people who reject the institute.
D
I think what I was trying to say, I almost certainly said it very inarticulately. Two things One of which relate to your punching. I said the first was the fragility of citizenship as another use necessarily gets ideologized. The second point about the potential for European citizenship to, should I say enlarge and pluralize our imaginaries, if that's not too much of contradiction in certain terms. It's not. There's a space up there with European values which can, as you rightly say, be as homogenizing and as artificial and as. As essentializing as the national one. Is that when I have the idea of imaginary. It is. You look in the mirror and you see yourself in some sort of idealized whole. Now what Europe says is that the mirror nation states are looking at it is a little bit tired and faded and maybe they've got the balance between the I and the we in how they do things. Maybe it just needs rethinking. I don't think they said there's a European space. What it calls for is for domestic politics to constantly be reinterpreting itself, if you like, in a new mirror. It puts a new mirror and says, well, if you're looking at you of yourself, you don't look quite as pretty to some other people. And should you not think about. I don't think it has. I mean, that's what I would advocate against. I would be very strongly against the sort of thing that you rightly critique of just sort of a super level cosmopolitan value system. And I don't think it has to be your opinion. I just think that point of external self critique, almost feeling that there is an external reference, even though it's you that's saying it. Quite useful.
B
Thanks, Damien. Well, the devastating external critique that I was going to supply is going to have to take place on some other occasion because we've run out of time. So instead I'd like to thank Richard and Damien in the normal way. Thank you very much.
A
Yeah, no, that was helpful. I mean, my aim is to write it up. Yes, very close.
D
I mean, I know the.
A
That. No, no, that, that was. That was.
B
That.
A
That's right. I wanted to add all of those things, but then I ended up just having a day to rewrite. It is one of the jobs of the summer. Okay, well, we're going to dinner, aren't we?
D
I hope so.
A
Yes, yes.
D
Hi. Thank you so much.
A
There.
C
Yeah, no, but I, I don't need it.
D
I'm just.
C
It turned off during the thing. Oh, it did on its own, but I mean, it was towards the end.
A
Boy. Exactly.
D
You know, don't go there.
B
So they were right to do that. He was also right to say, I don't really want.
A
It. It, It. Sa. It, It, It, It.
Two Challenges to Democratic Citizenship: Is the EU the Solution or Part of the Problem?
Podcast: LSE Public lectures and events
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Date: 7 May 2008
Speakers:
This episode tackles two major challenges facing democratic citizenship in Europe and interrogates the role of the European Union (EU): does the EU provide a solution to contemporary issues of citizenship and democracy, or is it part of the problem? Richard Bellamy presents a robust defense of the current structure of EU citizenship, arguing it is often misjudged both by Eurosceptics and Europhiles. His analysis is followed by commentary from Damian Chalmers, who expands and questions aspects of Bellamy’s position. The discussion further includes thoughtful questions and interventions from the audience on legitimacy, human rights, political identity, and the evolving relationship between the EU, member states, and citizens.
Quote:
“For Eurosceptics, the very status of citizenship of the EU conjures up the specter of a European superstate ... For Europhiles, the status represents all that's disappointing about the current EU.” – Richard Bellamy ([11:58])
Bellamy’s Defense:
Key Concept:
“The beauty of the current citizenship provisions, I think, lies in them guarding against [the erosion of national citizenship]. They seek to allow citizens to move and trade freely between member states, but ... constrain such rights by the need not to disrupt the rights enjoyed by national citizens.” ([42:22])
Bellamy’s Conclusion:
Memorable Moment ([46:55]): “My answer is yes to all those questions … but only if its role is that of strengthening the democratic citizenship of the member states … less by democratizing the EU per se, and more by democratizing how we think about the EU within the member states.”
Public Goods and Social Integration:
The Imaginary of Citizenship
Quote:
“Indeed it does … the Scottish Nationalists party used to have, you know, ‘Scotland in Europe’ was one of its slogans and that was sort of echoed in a number of other parts of Europe too.” ([85:10])
Quote:
“I would be very strongly against the sort of thing that you rightly critique of just sort of a super level cosmopolitan value system. … that point of external self-critique, almost feeling that there is an external reference, even though it's you that's saying it. Quite useful.” ([90:19])
Richard Bellamy ([11:58]):
“Eurosceptics overlook the degree to which EU citizenship … serves to buttress and sustain national citizenship, while many Europhiles appear oblivious to the value and virtues of this very achievement…”
Richard Bellamy ([13:10]):
“Citizenship as I see it is a condition of civic equality. Its aim is to secure fair terms of political association whereby the laws … treat all those subject to them with equal concern and respect as autonomous individuals.”
Damian Chalmers ([48:32]):
“Is it really possible to have EU citizenship that is not contaminated by national citizenship? … It can't avoid being contaminated … by national citizenship.”
Richard Bellamy ([70:59]):
“... it's not uncontroversial that you should never adopt inflationary policies. Sometimes they can be beneficial, and it's also not uncontroversial that those involved in setting interest rates, etc., will … have the interests of the economy at large at heart…”
Audience ([77:57]):
“Liberty, equality, and fraternity ... two practical examples of things we would not have here if it wasn't imposed by the EU would be the Working Time Directive … and clean beaches.”
Analytical, Theoretical, and Pragmatic:
Both speakers balance normative political theory with practical policy examples, debating the real-life effects of EU structures.
Engaged and Self-critical:
Speakers frequently challenge one another and themselves, with a willingness to probe assumptions (“Maybe I misunderstood you …” – Bellamy).
Witty and Accessible:
Occasional humor and accessible analogies lighten intricate constitutional debates (e.g., “the person who can stay in the politics pub longest wins the argument”).
The EU, far from simply being a democratic deficit or supranational threat, plays a crucial role in buttressing democratic citizenship within its member states by enabling them to face the challenges of globalization and collective action. However, its legitimacy and function rest on complementing—not replacing—national citizenship, with real dangers lurking in attempts to overreach its remit. Both speakers advocate nuanced appreciation for the EU’s capacity as a support structure for democracy and pluralism, not as an alternative to national communities, and suggest that reimagining citizenship—within member states and in the EU context—requires humility, transparency, and constant democratic renewal.