Question

Why did European citizens believe in the value of sovereignty

Answer 1

Answer:

Within Europe and the Union national and European political decision makers have several different views of sovereignty. Political science often defines it as the ability to achieve a goal or to assert one's will. More commonly sovereignty can be defined as supreme authority, over which there is no other higher authority. This is often the sense given to the term and used by Europhobic populists when they call for a return to national sovereignty, of which the European Union is said to have deprived their State. In this sense sovereignty seems to be understood as a freedom, which means not being, or no longer being forced to do what others want us to do. However, in the Union approaches to sovereignty are complex, since positive and negative ideas of it coexist. In simple terms we can lay out a dominant model in which some see a defensive kind of sovereignty, a means of protection from external threats, whilst others see it rather as a means to attract external assets by transferring certain competences to the supranational level, to increase the visibility of their individual interests and assets by pooling the latter. This model, which in fact pitches national protection against regional integration, opposes two types of State. On the one hand, there are the former dominant States like France and the UK, which are still attached to certain attributes of sovereignty; on the other, there are smaller States that are more oriented towards taking greater advantage of cooperation. Although this model conceals the complexity of views regarding sovereignty, it does however tend to explain the existence of different political agendas and ways of exercising power in Europe. Hence, sovereignty does not appear to be considered in a uniform manner. It opposes those who see it as an opening to those who see it as a means to closure, both on a national and European political level, which can seriously affect policy in Europe. The aim is now to place these ideas of sovereignty in the context of the 21st century, to refine the study of these complex relations, which are not sovereignty but sovereignties.