The European Union and the challenge of ‘independence in Europe’: Straddling between (formal) neutrality and (actual) support for member-states’ territorial integrity

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, regionalist forces have been testing the limits of the EU multi-level system by making concrete bids to ‘Independence in Europe’. This article investigates the reaction of the EU institutions in the cases of Scotland and Catalonia. The analysis, based on archive research and elite interviews, points to a certain ambiguity in the behaviour of EU institutions, whereby a claimed neutrality is contradicted by declarations that clearly help the defence of member-states’ territorial integrity. This strategy is applied by all EU political institutions – intergovernmental and supranational alike – and to both analysed cases, independently of whether the independence process is considered legal (Scotland) or illegal (Catalonia). The implementation of this strategy is strengthened by party connections between member-states’ PMs and presidents of EU institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Independence in Europe
• secessionism
• internal enlargement
• EU multilevel governance
• Europe of the Regions

Acknowledgements

A first draft of this article was presented at the Conference on ‘The Effects of Multilevel Governance’, organized by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks at the European University Institute (Florence) on 23–24 May 2019, where I benefited from comments by various participants. The final version has considerably improved thanks to insightful suggestions by two anonymous reviewers. The article is based on research conducted with the financial support of the Italian Minister of Education and University (MIUR), through the funding scheme Programma per Giovani Ricercatori “Rita Levi Montalcini”.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The expression ‘internal enlargement’ had been used with an opposite meaning in 1990; whereby German unification had resulted in a territorial expansion of the then EEC, by including former Eastern Germany, while leaving the number of member-states unaltered (Spence 1992). In the jargon of regionalist parties, ‘internal enlargement’ means an increase in the number of member-states, by including the new independent state, without a territorial expansion of the EU (Dalmases et al. 2011).

2 14 interviews were conducted in the period between February 2019 and January 2020. Three interviewees were senior members of staff, respectively of the European Commission, European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions. One interviewee was from the Spanish permanent representation (Spanish Embassy) at the EU. Ten interviewees were MEPs: 5 belonging to regionalist parties (2 EFA, 1 PPE, 1 ALDE and 1 ENF) and 5 to state-wide parties (1 PPE, 1 PES, 1 ALDE and 2 ENF). 3 of these MEPs were members of the EP’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO).

3 Although the UK’s PM, David Cameron, had already publicly acknowledged, since 2011, that his government would allow Scotland to hold a legal and binding referendum, the Edinburgh Agreement between the UK and Scottish executives formalised that political will and set some basic terms on how to proceed. The political agreement was then followed by a legal act (Order in Council, 2013 No. 242) approved in February 2013, which provided constitutional legality to the process (Mullen 2014).

4 The pro-independence ‘Yes Scotland’ campaign – including the SNP, the SG and the Scottish Socialist party (SSP) - was launched in May 2012; while the unionist ‘Better Together’ campaign – including Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Lib-Dems - was launched in June 2012 (Lynch 2015; Mitchell 2016; Keating and McEwen 2017).

5 A study of Europhile/Eurosceptic attitudes in relation to pro/Catalan independence vs. pro/Spanish unity positions amongst Spanish educated citizens has reached the same conclusion. The EU has been perceived as siding with the Spanish government, and pro-Catalan independence citizens are found to be much more Eurosceptic than pro-Spanish unity citizens (Wagner, Jianna, and Kroqi 2019).