14 - Federalism, borders, and citizenship

Summary

Most people studying Europe in 1970, when the CES was founded, would be amazed at the progress of European integration since then. Of course, the Schuman Declaration was 20 years old in 1970, and the ECSC had been supplemented by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the much broader EEC. But these Communities included only the original six member states (France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux), with the first enlargement still three years in the future, and Community institutions were generally quite hesitant to take any actions not supported by the member states. True, the European Court of Justice had promulgated the principles of the supremacy of Community law, and of its direct effect. Even so, the number and importance of instances where member states were obliged to change their policies remained quite restricted.

Federal aspirations

Perhaps the quality of the change at work was more important than the quantity. Former Commission president Walter Hallstein observed in 1969 that individual Europeans were being affected by the Community's legal system “more strongly and more directly with every day that passes”. He went on to point out that Europeans were “subject in varying degrees to two legal systems – as a citizen of one of the Community's member-states to [the] national legal system, and as a member of the Community to the Community's legal system”. This was a new experience for many Europeans, but it was “not a new experience for citizens of countries with federal constitutions” (Maas 2007: 21).

Raising the idea of federalism suggests that some people might be less surprised at the progress of European integration. Federalists like Altiero Spinelli and Ursula Hirschmann had proposed as early as 1943 a European “continental” citizenship alongside national citizenship. In the aftermath of World War II most European political leaders supported creating a common European legal status for individual citizens. Thus Winston Churchill in 1948 called for “a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship” and hoped “to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European as of belonging to their native land” (Maas 2017).