The European Community and the state: assumptions, theories and propositions

Students of the European Community in the early 1990s cannot but be struck by an apparent paradox. On the one hand, pressures towards an increasing centralization of arrangements under the heading of political and monetary union seem to have increased, and are frequently linked in public discussion with the concept of federalism. On the other hand, a number of members, most obviously Spain, Portugal and Greece, even the new Germany, are obviously using the Community to develop a sense of their own identity as separate states, and, although the British have been most prominent in opposing federalism, no member government has shown any inclination in speciic terms to abandon its sovereignty. This paradox is hard to understand and is perhaps too easily dismissed with the retort that the Community is sui generis, or that the supporters of further integration have simply not understood its constitutional implications, as the Bruges Group has argued.