I am somewhat curious as to whether it is a fair analogy to say that the EU is similar to what the United States was before the Civil War/War of Northern Agression, regarding secession. We have a group of different states, each calling themselves sovereign. Joined together into a large who-knows-what. I have never read the charter/articles/whatever that binds them together. I can see where there could be similar concepts of a ‘rebellion’ if, say, country X started gaining a considerable amount of power, and then decides to leave the Union.
So, my question is: Do the EU separate states think that they can secede, and is there a provision for it in their constitution? Do they think that they can and will they be nuked if they try to walk?
I’m sure that there is a definite answer, seeing that ambiguity helped fuel the US unpleasantness of 1861, but I am not curious enough to do research, but I am curious enough to ask here because I’m sure that somebody here knows.
As I understand it, there is still no EU constitution as such, just a series of treaties and mutual trade agreements linking its member countries loosely together. Any country could withdraw from the EU when it wished simply by abrogating the applicable treaties and trade agreements after giving proper notice, and the EU wouldn’t have either a legal basis or military capability (as a group) to prevent it from doing so.
There would certainly be political consequences and economic fallout from such a withdrawal, but I highly doubt it would ever come to war.
I would say that, given the fact that it doesn’t have a constitution, the EU is much more like the US under the Articles of Confederation than the US after the constitution was ratified.
Yes the can leave. Greenland was part of the EU or rather it’s predecessor and it left.
Greeland is part of Denmark but isn’t part of the EU. Greenlanders are citizen of the EU but are restricted in certain things like voting unless they live in Denmark
The treaty that was billed (somewhat inaccurately) as the “EU Constitution” did have a provision allowing for members to unilaterally leave, but the treaty was never ratified, so I don’t think any such formal mechanism now exists. That said, even without a formal mechanism, I’m sure a member that wanted to leave would be allowed to do so without it coming to blows, as indeed Greenland has already done. The EU isn’t really that analogous to the antebellum US.
Plus part of the point of the EU was to encourage Europeans not to keep massacring eachother, so a war to preserve the EU would be kind of depressing.
It wouldn’t even be called a secession, it would simply be abrogating various treaties. There would be direct economic consequences as any country considering it would be withdrawing from their largest market which is gonna screw any economy.
It’s not even theoretically possible it would result in military activity.
S. Carolina is an odd choice for an example, since they made a move towards succession over the Gov’ts right to levy tariffs on them in the 1830’s, and it went so far as Congress authorizing Jackson to use the military to bring them back into line. I don’t think they were under the illusion in 1840 that they could succede without it coming to blows.
I meant that calling it a Constitution reinforced the idea of it as the organizational document for a nation-state, which causes confusion like that expressed by the OP. Your right that that was the actual name of the treaty, though I note that the successor treaty dropped the ‘Constitution’ moniker.
The (not yet fully ratified) Lisbon Treaty does set up an avenue to countries to leave; previously there was no explicit method of doing so, and the phrase ‘ever closer union’ in the original Treaty of Rome implied, at least, that they couldn’t.
Withdrawing from the EU does not imply that there would be a cut-off in access to the market. If Austria (for example) wanted to withdraw from the EU but maintain free trade/customs harmonization with the rest of the EU, why would that be an impossibility? If Switzerland can negotiate that, why can’t an ex EU nation?
I think the point is they would have to negotiate that; they couldn’t unilaterally secede and expect to have free trade accorded to them as a matter of right.
Not as a matter of right, maybe, but us EFTA nations partake in the EU single market through the EEA (European Economic Area) and the Swiss have a deal of their own so I, personally, don’t think that if a nation were to succeed in secession from the EU, it would necessarily have trouble trading with the EU afterwards. From where I’m standing, I’d say the sum of the EU needs its parts more than they do it, anyway.
The EU is a horribly run, undemocratic mess of a thing and as soon as it stops expanding, it will implode. Whether secession is an actual possibility is something I can’t say for sure, though… the commie bastards running my pathetic excuse for a government are opening negotiations with the EU pretty much as we speak, so I’m anxious to find out, myself.
As is noted above, Greenland managed to do so. Nobody ever actually believed that it simply could not be done.
I have heard a few Lisbon Treaty supporters (and supporters of the EU Constitution before that, which included the same provision) claim that Eurosceptics should support the Treaty because it “for the first time” allows member states to leave, but this argument has been pretty much laughed out of the debate because there has never really been any serious doubt that a country that really wanted out could get out.
It’s a bit of an academic discussion anyway. I don’t think there are any countries seriously considering leaving.
Greenland is a Danish colony, for one thing, and is of no importance or even use to the EU and the EU did not exist in its current form when Greenland left, nor does it meet the Copenhagen criteria so it couldn’t join the EU now if it wanted to.
Read the Lisbon Treaty in all its cross-referencing glory. I dare you.
And it’s not really just an academic duscussion; citizens of the UK, for example, do seem to prefer the EEA over the EU and we Icelanders will not join unless we are assured that we could leave again, and no such assurances have been forthcoming so far.
