The Nobel Peace Prize award to the EU, in a moment in which one of the most serious crises of its history is in progress, has a double meaning. On the one hand, it represents the recognition that the most important achievement of European unification is peace. On the other, it underlines that, owing to the unaccomplished character of the construction of the European Union, that precious good can be lost, and therefore the time has come to bring the project to conclusion. The implicit warning in the prize communiqué is that it is necessary to give to the European institutions the powers that would allow them to defeat the disintegration forces and overcome the democratic deficit.   After centuries of war, Europe has never before experienced such a long period of peace as the one following the end of the Second World War. Today it is acknowledged that this is the fruit of European unification. “War is as old as mankind, but peace is a recent invention”, wrote Henry Sumner Maine. War has always been considered as a normal event in political life, the instrument for resolving conflicts impossible to settle through diplomatic means. The European Union is the most important political innovation of our time: it is the most successful attempt to build a new form of statehood at the international level.   National governments have betrayed the revolutionary nature of that project, have made its realization slow and hesitant, so that it still remains unaccomplished. For the governments, peace and European unity are a necessity: the necessity for trying to solve together the problems that the States are no longer able to face separately. For the great majority of the population – that have never seen with their own eyes a war in Europe – peace is simply taken for granted. Only for the federalists European unity is a project. Only the federalists, who have been actively engaged in building peace, are fully aware of the value of that achievement and of the institutional innovation that made it possible.   The relations among the EU States are the most regulated in the world. Its political institutions impose limits to their sovereignty, and these are potentially the model of a constitutionalization process of international relations. That process started with the Franco-German reconciliation and the Schuman declaration of 1950, and with the foundation, the following year, of the first European Community (the European Coal and Steel Community). With that act, France and Germany, which had been divided by national hatred and had fought the three bloodiest wars that history recalls, renounced to deal with the problem of the European order in hegemonic terms and initiated the construction of common institutions as necessary for maintaining peace. The Union enlargement to peoples that had suffered from fascist (Spain, Portugal and Greece) and communist dictatorships (Central and Eastern European Countries) is a grand pacification process between States whose regimes were representing the legacy of divisions that Europe had known respectively in the era of world wars and in that of the cold war. Today the enlargement concerns the Balkan region, that at the end of the last century has known the horrors of civil war. However, Europe's pacification without a democratic and federal government did not bring to its citizens the benefits of a large economic, borderless space and of the first form of international democracy, of which the European Parliament is the laboratory.   The Europe that would have deserved the Peace Prize is the one that does not exist yet. It is the one outlined by Spinelli seventy years ago in the Ventotene Manifesto, where one can read that Europe would fall again in its old mistakes if it will not bring to completion the construction of a federal union. The Europe we have in front of us is the one that has still been unable to bury its tragic past. The one that has dug an ever deeper ditch between its institutions and its citizens. What is the meaning of the return of fascist political movements, of nationalism and racism, of an economic crisis even more devastating than that of 1929, which has produced 25 million jobless people and has progressively dismantled the welfare State to fill up the big hole of sovereign debts? What Europe is that which is continuously splitting to defend national interests and is unable to speak with one voice to the world?   The answer to such questions is written in the Ventotene Manifesto. The national States must cede the control of the economy and security to a European government. The Federation is the new form of political organization that allows to realize Europe's unity in an irreversible way without wiping out the independence of nations, to extend democracy beyond national boundaries, to bring to all the peoples of the continent security and well-being, to propose to the world a model of solidarity among nations as an alternative to violence and national selfishness.   The cost of non-Europe has become unbearable for the citizens, the workers, the young and the women. In order to reconcile the citizens with the European project, it is necessary that Europe goes beyond the austerity policies and promotes a plan of sustainable development, and, simultaneously, starts dealing with the reform of European institutions, crucially needed to overcome its deficit of democratic legitimation. It is necessary to initiate the construction of a European Federation from the euro-zone countries, and fix the schedule and the stages of such a process, that shall lead up to convene a constituent Assembly/Convention within 2013, tasked with the drafting of a Constitution. The Constitution shall be ratified by a referendum to be held together with the European elections of 2014 in the countries that have participated in the drafting of the Constitution.

It was one of those works – the unity between the Europeans built after the war – that men undertake when they approach the brink of the abyss, and decide at this moment to take a look at themselves: when they see the disasters they were capable of, and explore the reasons of a fallibility too callous to be fruitful. And yet, they are not blasé enough, not overwhelmed by the indolence that according to Paul Valéry was the sickness of the European spirit after the 1914-1918 war: the “tedium of rehearsing the past and the folly of always trying to innovate”, the unfitness to recover and learn once again.   The Nobel Peace Prize was given last October to that re-start of history, and to the turning point that was the reconciliation between France and Germany, two countries that in just 70 years had fought three wars. From the pooling of resources vital for both of them – coal and steel, sources of wealth and death – was born the Union we have today. Never before was the link between peace, democracy and rule of law so clear in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. It was as if the invention of Europe were the living proof that signing a ceasefire is not making peace. That to hold together on a continental scale the three goals – peace, democracy, rule of law – we need to go beyond the treaties between States, beyond the non-belligerence between sovereigns that do not recognize any power, nor law, above them.   When Jean Monnet proposed and created the Coal and Steel Community, he explained the reasoning that inspired him: “When we look at the past and become aware of the enormous disaster that Europeans have brought about to themselves in the last two centuries, we are literally annihilated. The reason is very simple: each one has tried to fulfill his destiny, or what he thought his destiny was, applying his own rules”. It was thanks to this awareness that the unity of the Europeans became a model, and for a large part of the world it still is: from the ethnic massacres, from the clashes between cultures and religions, the only way out for the nation-States consist in getting rid of the illusion of being self-sufficient – of the fiction of absolute sovereignty – and in creating common political institutions whose purpose is to fulfil the fate of several associated countries, not of just one. In Asia, in the Middle East, the supranational community method remains the golden path to overcome nationalisms: much more than the solitary American power.   It was a kind of conversion, the one experienced by the Europeans. Instead of the national gaze, the cosmopolitan gaze; instead of treaties between States, a partially-federal union since the beginning, to which the old absolute sovereignties were delegated. Europe is an old dream, but in the 20th century it becomes a practical project, a necessity, giving birth to an institution with state features. An institution that lives side by side with nation-States that admit not only their fallibility, but even their dangerousness for themselves, if they yield to nationalist frenzies. Only after its own Thirty-Year War (the one that goes from 1914 to 1945) did the continent find out that it is not enough to lay down the arms: the most urgent endeavour is to understand why such bloody conflicts arise. “They arise because of the easiness with which the States bring the functioning of their institutions into question”, said Monnet. Better to watch out since the start: wars devour democracies, but it is the degradation of democracies and their institutions that throws peoples with no helmsman into wars.   This was at stake, after 1945: stop the wars, and at the same time give new strength to the institutions, make them less discontinuous. Unity arises by saying no to nationalism, but also to what drives them crazy: poverty, corruption of democracy, and the fading of the rule of law, even before that of human rights. Awarding the Prize in these days is peculiar indeed. Its intent is probably a stern warning but in some way it sounds like a mockery, though we can hardly imagine an ironic jury. It stamps a seal on a progress, but indicates how we risk to fail it. It shows what Europe wanted to be, but it is not yet or any longer. The clashes on the euro, Greece transformed into a scapegoat, the abnormal weight of a single State (Germany): it is not the union we aspired to for decades, but a construction which is de-constructing itself and going backwards rather than complete itself. It is as if the jury were telling us, between the lines: “You Europeans have invented something great, but you are not up to the prize we are awarding today. You are a promised land, but you still live in the desert as the Jews who fled from Egypt”. If Europe will be pleased with the award, it means that it sees only the celebratory surface of the event, not the chaos that seethes beneath.   Such prizes are not simply “received”. They must be meditated, questioned, as ancient Greece used to question the oracle of Delphi. The response does not change over the millennia: know thyself (gnōthi seautón), it repeats. Know the betrayal of your initial promises and the ridicule of your apotheosis. Try to understand why the Union does not arouse hopes any more, but distrust, fear, and sometimes disgust. Left halfway, Europe is not yet the supranational institution that preserves democracy and the welfare State. It is identified with one of its means – the euro – as if the currency and the economic therapies so far devised were its final aim, its horizon of civilization. The obsession with the financial rescue plans and the refusal of any alternative obscured and reduced our concern for democracy and solidarity, and for the project of a Europe that, united, can become a power in the world.   The ideal thing would have been for the Union not to go and receive the prize, but to convey the following message to the Nobel Committee: Europe’s citizens (not the States and not even the common institutions, much less meritorious) will pick it up when the task will be really carried on and accomplished. When we will finally have a Constitution that – as in the American Federation – begins with the words “We, the citizens …”. When we will go back to work, and will shed the tedium of re-starting our history. Technical subterfuges do not last: only institutions last. The turning point is political, mental, and, just like in 1945, it is St. Augustine's maxim that we need to adopt: Factum eram ipse mihi magna quaestio – I had become to myself a big problem, and a big enigma.   Translated by Elena Flor

Compared to former years, 2013 seems to be a better year for the European Union. More and more signs point towards an easing of the sovereign debt crisis: the interest rates for bonds of the troubled European economies are decreasing and the competitive gap between northern and southern European countries is narrowing. Ireland successfully borrowed money from the capital markets and even in Greece there are signs of substantial improvement as well, which brought the rating agency Standard and Poor's to upgrade Greece's credit rating by six notches at once in December 2012. The relatively good news, however, must not bring us to the conclusion that the work is done. Another crisis is still ravaging in Europe without losing any of its severity: the ongoing social crisis.   After the financial crisis originating in the US had spread, governments all over the world were forced to bail out financial institutions, which had gambled away hundreds of billions of Euro at largely unregulated financial markets, bringing the states themselves in fundamental difficulties and even on the brink of payment defaults. The Eurozone, being an incomplete monetary union, didn't have the institutional means to react adequately and was therefore hit particularly hard, but the EU and its Member States showed flexibility and some improvements have been realized or brought on their way over the past years: the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the strengthening of the economic governance (European Semester, “six-pack”, “two-pack”), the strengthening of the fiscal rules (reinforced Stability and Growth Pact, Fiscal Compact) and the start for a banking union, with a single supervisory mechanism and a common resolution scheme. Never again should the tax-payer suffer for the irresponsible behaviour of large parts of the financial industry. All of these measures were important, but they are mainly targeted on solving the Member States' budgetary problems and preventing similar crises in the future. They are not, however, sufficient to guarantee social fairness.   The main paradox of the multi-crisis we are facing in Europe is that the ones who had caused most of the problems, the banks, were able to cash in huge profits, but could pass on the losses to the tax-payers, when the risks allegedly justifying the profits actually occurred. In the same vein, the ones most severely hit by the austerity measures imposed to reduce public spending were the socially weak, especially the elderly, the youth and the unemployed. Thus the hardships of an economic recession with a difficult job market and high unemployment were accompanied by significant cuts in public social spending, leading to social tensions and even unrest and posing an existential threat to many Europeans. In some EU-countries every second young citizen is without job and without perspective. According to the EU's Employment and Social Developments in Europe Review of 2012, unemployment is hitting peaks not seen for 20 years and the risk of poverty and long-term exclusion is on the rise. For those affected, the EU doesn't seem to safeguard their well-being, but is rather seen as one of the main drivers of austerity and its adverse effects on the population.   The year 2013 is the European Year of Citizens, and it is indeed high time to direct our full attention towards the citizens in Europe. Article 3 TEU states that the European Union shall “work for a highly competitive social market economy, combat social exclusion and discrimination and promote social justice and protection”. But while the EU and the Eurozone in particular made considerable steps forward regarding the completion of a genuine economic and monetary union, a European social policy is almost non-existent. How can we expect to win the hearts and minds of the youth, Europe's future, for the European dream, if every second of them is unemployed? For someone blaming the EU for his miserable situation the promises of a "European dream" must sound like a bad joke. There are thus three main reasons to establish a European framework of social rules. Firstly, we have to help the people out of their desperate situation. Secondly, we have to establish a new narrative of European integration. The EU must become the guardian of the citizens' social rights and their well-being. And thirdly, we have to prohibit a ruinous competition for the “best” investment environment through social dumping.   When arguing in favour of a more integrated Europe we, rightly so, bring forward three dominant arguments: The EU preserves peace on our continent, only the EU has the critical size to influence international politics in a globalized world safeguarding European interests and values, and we need to stand together to defend our model of a social market-economy, the “European way of living” so to speak. And indeed, there is an undeniable difference between the market economy of the US and the welfare states of Europe. But although the Member States of the EU share a common understanding that solidarity and burden-sharing are defining elements of a just society, the social standards are varying massively among the Member States and it is time for the European level to act.   Luckily we don't have to start from scratch. The progressive forces in the European Parliament presented key actions for a new European social strategy and the workers' unions and other NGOs enriched the debate with their own proposals. Just very recently the European Parliament asked the Commission to present a proposal to guarantee the information and participation of workers in restructuring processes and due to the Parliament's constant pressure the Commission in December 2012 presented its Youth Employment Package, which includes a recommendation for national job guarantees for the youth, that could partly be financed through the European Social Fund, and the launch of a public consultation on a Quality Framework for Traineeships.   A lot more has to be done. To restore the social balance, we need to make sure that the costs of the crisis don't fall disproportionately on the lower and middle class. Hence, the EU needs to intensify its fight against tax-evasion and tax-fraud, also to secure the Member States' tax base. In the long run only a gradual harmonization of corporate and income taxes will provide a fair competition for investments between the Member States and prohibit tax dumping. In the global arena the EU should urge its partners to shut down the remaining tax havens. With the Thyssen-Report, which gave recommendations to the “Group of Presidents” responsible to draw up a roadmap for the completion of the Economic and Monetary Union, the European Parliament called for a social pact to balance the tightened budgetary rules and austerity measures. This pact should promote a high quality and appropriate financing of public services, universal access to essential health services and access to affordable and social housing. Austerity and spending cuts must not lead to the termination of basic social and public services. Furthermore it asks for the implementation of a social protocol to protect fundamental social and labor rights and to ensure equal pay and equal rights for work of equal value for all. Minimum standards for decent living wages, working hours and unemployment benefits should also be codified on the European level.   Not everything can be realized within the current Treaties. According to Art. 4 (2b) TFEU, the EU shares the competence in the area of social policy with its Member States, but is restricted to matters specifically referred to in the Treaties. Furthermore paragraph 5 of Art. 153 TFEU, which lists the social policy areas the EU can become active in, prohibits any European legislation regarding pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lock-outs. Nevertheless the Lisbon treaty provides some flexibility. A first step would be the activation of the passerelle clause of Art. 153 to abolish the unanimity requirement in the Council and make the ordinary legislative procedure applicable to all social policy legislation. The next Treaty revision, which will take place after the next European elections in 2014, should thus not only focus on institutional reform, but also introduce more competences for the EU in social matters, extend the scope of Art. 113 TFEU about the harmonization of indirect taxes and introduce a legal base for the gradual harmonization of direct taxes. The European level must be enabled to set minimum standards, which can be exceeded and over-implemented by the Member States.   Social rights, however, are only one side of the coin. People are best helped, if they have a decently paid job and can live off their own work and income. The restoration of sustainable growth and the creation of jobs must thus be on top of the agenda. The EU has to play an active role in fostering investments and thereby also needs a realistic budget. In the negotiations for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), decision-makers should keep in mind that in some regions of Europe the EU structural funds are literally the last sources of investments left. In the long term an evolved federal political entity as the EU needs a real federal budget including the possibility to issue EU-bonds, in order to be able to react adequately to exceptional circumstances, e.g. asymmetric economic shocks.   Even more important is to adjust the fundamental understanding of the EU's purpose. There were good reasons to focus on the economy in the beginning of European integration, since a political union was not achievable through a single big step. But we are way beyond the times of the European Coal and Steel Community. The EU is more than a free trade area, it is also more than an economic or monetary union – today the EU takes decisions that affect every single European citizen in many ways. As an evolved federal political system, the EU's primary purpose is thus not to complete, defend or govern the Single Market. Its main purpose has to be to serve its citizens. The single market is not an end in itself, it is an instrument to foster economic growth and produce wealth for the people.   Still, the judgments of the European Court of Justice in the cases “Viking” and “Laval” show that not only the mindset of the people, but also the European law has to be adapted to reality. In both cases companies wanted to transfer jobs from old Member States to new Member States, in order to profit from significantly lower wages. The workers and their unions, fearing for their jobs, were prohibited to use collective measures opposing the companies' plans, because that would constitute an infringement of the freedom of establishment. Not only for the affected individuals the EU again seemed to turn its back on the people in favor of free market rules.   The Single Market is a great achievement and its completion is imperative, but even more important is to put the people first and to establish the supremacy of social rights over economic rights. Ultimately the EU needs to introduce a horizontal social progress clause, either due to a Treaty change or an over-arching regulation, to ensure that the economic freedoms are interpreted subsidiarily to fundamental social rights in case of conflict. In the meanwhile any legislation on the implementation of Single Market rules should include such a reference. Only then we can revive the “European dream” and build a political union that is characterized by a high identification and the active involvement of its citizens. If we want the citizens to show interest in the European Union, the European Union has to show interest in its citizens.

The possible future independence of Scotland is not a simple case of a region of an EU member state gaining independence without any historical rationale. Scottish national identity developed from the ninth century and, after several wars, Scotland may be said to have been confirmed as an independent state in the fourteenth century, when the Treaty of Northampton was signed in 1328, following the Scottish victory over the English in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn. In 1603 on the death of the English Queen Elizabeth I, the Scottish King James VI became also James I of England. In 1604 he proclaimed himself “King of Great Britain, France and Ireland”. There was no substance to a claim to France; Ireland was a medieval conquest by England. (Wales was then treated as part of England for many purposes.) The English and Scottish parliaments remained separate; the legal systems and the post-reformation religious structures were very different. A Treaty of Union between England and Scotland was negotiated in 1706 by representatives of both countries; it was ratified following the passing of complementary Acts of Union in the English parliament in that year and in the Scottish parliament in 1707, thereby creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain. There followed political turbulence associated mainly with the Jacobite revolts in the eighteenth century. These were largely concerned with the succession to the British monarchy – Protestant Hanoverians or Catholic Stuarts. In 1801 Ireland was added to the United Kingdom with the abolition of the Irish parliament after a similar passing of Acts of Union in the British and Irish legislatures; following the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, Ireland was divided with only the north-eastern part remaining in a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the present “UK”. In the twentieth century there was a revival of Scottish independence aspirations. The Scottish National Party (SNP) was formed in 1934 but did not gain representation in the British parliament until 1967. British Labour politicians saw Scottish independence as a threat to the strength of the Labour Party in the British parliament, given the dominance of that Party in Scotland; without Scottish MPs in the British parliament it would be harder to elect a Labour government; after the 2010 General Election Scotland elected 41 of the 258 Labour MPs. Their political solution was “devolution” involving the setting up of a Scottish Assembly to have a restricted range of powers. In 1969 the Labour government led by Harold Wilson set up a Royal Commission on the Constitution to look at a range of British constitutional issues. It finally reported in 1973 with a majority view including the setting up of a Scottish Assembly. In 1970 the government had changed from Labour to Conservative; in 1974 Labour regained power and the government published a White Paper broadly accepting the Commission’s proposals. After one unsuccessful attempt at legislation and a change of Prime Minister to James Callaghan, the British parliament passed the Scotland Act 1978 providing for a Scottish Assembly to be set up if in a referendum in Scotland 50% of those voting and 40% of the electorate voted for it.   A referendum in March 1979 failed to produce the qualifying majority determined by the legislation; 51.6% of those voting voted yes but with a turnout of 63.8% this was only 32.9% of the electorate. From May 1979 to May 1997 the UK had Conservative governments which did not progress with devolution proposals. However a Campaign for a Scottish Assembly was formed embracing non-Conservative politicians, trade unionists, local councillors and religious leaders leading to the drafting of a Claim of Right for Scotland signed by many people and then to the foundation of a Scottish Constitutional Convention chaired by the clergyman Canon Kenyon Wright, which published a manifesto “Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right” in 1995 which outlined a structure for the Parliament. The SNP withdrew from the Convention objecting to the Labour Party strength in it. The significant involvement of the main churches should be noted – more notice is taken of them in Scotland, for example by the media, than in England. The Labour government under Tony Blair elected in 1997 implemented its manifesto promise to proceed with a policy of devolution for Scotland and Wales. A pre-legislative referendum in September 1997 produced absolute majorities for two proposals: 74.3% for a Scottish Executive and Parliament to be set up and 63.5% for the Parliament to have tax-raising powers. The British parliament passed the Scotland Act 1998 creating the Scottish Parliament and executive (now described as “government”). At the opening of the Parliament on 12 May 1999, the chair of the first session, the veteran SNP member Winifred Ewing, declared that “the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707 is hereby reconvened”; not a fair historical statement. The two first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003 produced coalition governments of Labour and Liberal Democrats.   The third election in 2007 led to a minority SNP government; the last election in 2011 led to a majority for an SNP government, a remarkable outcome given that the Labour creators of the electoral arrangements anticipated that the only possible election results were Labour or Labour-led governments. As at January 2013, the party strengths are: SNP 65; Labour 37; Conservatives 15; Liberal Democrats 5; Green 2; independents 4; unaffiliated (the Presiding Officer) 1; total 129. A referendum on independence was a promise in the 2011 SNP manifesto and after the election the First Minister Alex Salmond stated that such a referendum would take place within five years. The British government since the 2010 election has been a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives (traditionally known as “Unionists” in Scotland) are historically committed to the unity of the UK. Their attitudes are affected by their lack of UK MPs elected in Scotland – only one out of the total 306 Conservative MPs elected in the 2010 General Election. The Liberal Democrats are committed to federal systems of government for the UK and for the EU, and have stood by this in making policy for Scotland. The cabinet minister responsible for Scottish issues within the British government’s responsibility is Michael Moore, a Liberal Democrat. During a visit to Brussels in December 2012, he said that the Scottish government did not have the legal powers to hold a referendum; to end uncertainty the Edinburgh Agreement of 15 October 2012 between the British and Scottish governments provided for the presentation of the necessary legislation to both parliaments, so that detailed rules could be made by the Scottish government in accordance with Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998. On 11 January 2013 the (British) House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee advised that such legislation should be passed and as at mid-January 2013 the legislation is progressing through the British parliament. Some issues arouse popular concern in Scotland: taxation; freedom of movement over the border with England. While the SNP has traditionally been a unilateralist party opposing military alliances, a party conference in October 2012 agreed that an independent Scotland should seek membership of NATO. This might end doubts about the British and American submarine bases in Scotland. The British army has significant numbers of its members in Scottish regiments; they are significant employers. Fishing is a major activity in many parts of Scotland; would an independent Scotland be able to defend its interests without British support? Other popular concerns in Scotland include continuing allegiance to the British monarchy and receiving the services of the BBC.   Ministers of the SNP-controlled Scottish government assumed and stated as a fact that an independent Scotland would continue as part of the European Union. Others had doubts about this. The Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament, announced in February 2012 that it would conduct an inquiry into the economic implications on the UK of Scottish independence. In October 2012 the acting Chairman of the Committee, the former member of the European Commission Lord Tugendhat, wrote to the Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso asking for the Commission’s view on the way it would handle an application on behalf of Scotland for EU membership. A Scottish Labour MEP, David Martin, asked a written question as to whether the view expressed in March 2004 by the then Commission President Romano Prodi, that a newly independent region of a member state would cease to be part of the EU and it was open to European states to apply to join the EU under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, still applied; Mr Barroso replied on 3 December 2012 that it did. Mr Barroso replied to Lord Tugendhat on 10 December repeating the same sentiment. In December 2012 Mr Martin put a Written Question to the Commission asking if it would consider negotiating with a part of a member state which had voted for independence before the moment of separation and whether it would be a function of the UK government to conduct such a negotiation.   During his Brussels visit, Mr Moore expressed the view that the outcome of negotiations was far from certain. An independent Scotland would not have the clout of a larger state. “How will they sort out the Schengen agreement? How will they negotiate an opt-out from the Euro?”. The Scottish government was further challenged on this issue by the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament, and on 13 December 2012 the Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stated that she had written to Mr Barroso; she wishes to meet him to have discussions, but it is uncertain if he will meet her. On 17 December 2012 Sir David Edward, formerly a judge of the European Court of Justice, expressed views more supportive of the SNP position. He said that account should be taken of the spirit of the EU Treaties, more than of conventional public international law including doctrines of state succession, unless the Treaties provide no answer. His opinion is that the EU institutions and all the member states would be obliged to start negotiations before separation took effect, covering the future relationship of both Scotland and the rest of the UK with the EU. “The results of such negotiation are hardly, if at all, a matter of law”, he wrote. The Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was accused of not complying with the Scottish Ministerial Code in his timing of seeking legal advice on the EU membership issue; a formal complaint was made by the Scottish Labour MEP Catherine Stihler, whereupon Mr Salmond appointed Sir David Bell, Principal of the (English) University of Reading and an independent adviser to the Scottish government on the Ministerial Code, to conduct an investigation. Bell found that there had been no breach of the Code but recommended that the part of the Code, relating to legal advice should be redrafted to make it clearer and more accessible. If Scotland is admitted to the EU, there are issues over the use of the Euro. Would it be obligatory? Would this create a currency border within the UK? Would an independent Scotland continue to receive services from the Bank of England, the central bank of the UK? Scottish lawyers in London are among those who have expressed reservations about this possibility.   It should be remembered that the Leaders of the parties in the British coalition declared in their “Programme for Government” in 2010 that “no further powers should be transferred to Brussels without a referendum”. The coalition agreement is intended to apply only until the next General Election in May 2015. The Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed to hold a referendum to approve the terms of a renegotiation of British membership of the EU after the 2015 UK General Election; this assumes that he will be in power. The Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband is less enthusiastic about holding a referendum if in government. So the nature of UK membership of the EU may change. A further possible complication is that the next Scottish General Election, now postponed to 2016 to avoid a clash with the UK election, might change the composition of the Scottish Government. This threatens the SNP’s hopes in sorting out the issue between a referendum in October 2014 and ending negotiation with the EU, it hopes in July 2016. For various reasons largely stated above, a pro-independence vote in the Scottish referendum is not a foregone conclusion. An opinion poll conducted in December 2012 and January 2013 by Angus Reid for the Sunday Express produced the following result: Yes 32%; No 50%; Not Sure 16%; Will not vote 3%. In the UK, apart from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also enjoy differing systems of devolution. The Labour government of Tony Blair had plans for Regional Assemblies in England, but such a system only exists in London; a referendum in the North East of England rejected such a plan in November 2004. The UK might be defined as a unitary state with some application of federal principles in certain parts of its territory. A traditional constitutional view supports the concept of the primacy of parliament, whereby the British parliament dispenses some power to other bodies but retains the right to take it back. The question of how the EU should cope with Scotland becoming independent and wishing to be within the EU needs to be considered in the context of a discussion of how rigid should the EU’s structures be. Can continental people cope with the acceptance within the UK of the English, Welsh, Scottish and (partly) Irish nations within the British nation? An important contribution to the discussion is a paper for EPC by Arno Engel and Roderick Parkes “Accommodating an independent Scotland: how a British-style constitution for the EU could secure Scotland’s future”. They suggest ways in which the EU collectively might try to prevent acceptance of Scotland becoming independent and remaining in the EU from becoming a model for other parts of member states trying to follow Scotland’s example. One possible solution involves the acceptance that the Scottish experience of independence in the past is more deeply seated than that of some regions in other member states. Engel and Parkes appear sympathetic to the idea that the EU might imitate some of the UK’s constitutional practices, at least to the idea of accepting asymmetry in its structures. At the time of writing (mid-January 2013) many questions are still open. Most federalists hope for a democratic EU, a federation of national states. Some are less concerned to preserve the national states and attach more importance to regions within them. Some willingness to accept “variable geometry” within the EU and individual member states will serve to assist the future development of the European Union.   The author is grateful for advice given by Dr Andrew Blick and for assistance from friends in Scotland but remains solely responsible for the contents of the article

Two years have passed since the Libyan Revolution, but living conditions are still very poor and the provision of state services in various sectors has on average become lower even than during the period of Qaddafi’s corrupt government. So where is the stream of revolution going to stop? The Libyan federal state was initiated in 1951 under the supervision of the UN. It was based on the union of three independent regional states, each with its own constitution, parliament, and electoral legislation. Cyrenaica (the cradle of the most recent revolution) had strongly resisted both Ottoman and later Italian colonialism. It became totally liberated in 1948, was declared an emirate and as such was then recorded as the eighth Arab state.   Tripolitania on the other hand had been subjected both to Ottoman and then to Italian colonialism. In 1918 it had been declared a state under the tutelage of the Italian government. History has recorded that on many occasions and over many decades the people of Tripolitania supported the colonial forces in their efforts to suppress the numerous resistance movements in Cyrenaica. But the new federation of 1951 began merging the regions together. Many of the younger generation aimed to overcome all the past inter-regional conflicts. In addition, many people from Tripolitania migrated towards Cyrenaica as it was then the most stable region in the country and the only one that believed in co-existence. Then in 1963, after eighteen years of stable though dictatorial rule under royal monarchy, the Libyan federal structure was illegally scrapped without the issue even being put to a public referendum. The governors of the states of Fezzan and Cyrenaica were strongly opposed to this move and resigned immediately. From that moment the country became the victim of various managerial conflicts. At that time, the entire Arab region was experiencing a period of transition. Most of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa were gaining their independence; and that was also the moment when the Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser began promoting his ideas on Arab Unity, which have influenced the region and eventually led to today’s new changes in “The Arab Spring”.   The sovereign rights of Cyrenaica and Fezzan were 'looted' in the name of national unity. In reality this was a conspiracy fabricated by influential families who sought to control the country's wealth and power. After a few years spent reducing the various constituent identities of the country into one national identity, a military coup was mounted against the monarchy. The then King had been the ruler of Cyrenaica when it was an independent state – that is, before the federation was founded in 1948 – and the rebels believed he would certainly oppose centralising Libyan government in Tripolitania. He was misled into deciding to unify the country in the name of Arab Unity, though the lobby promoting this idea was in fact aiming at what lay beyond that goal. Within three years the Tripolitanian green flag was displayed throughout Libya, thereby excluding the two other symbols present in the 1951 independence flag: namely, the middle black stripe with a crescent and a star representing Cyrenaica, and the red stripe representing Fezzan.   The Tripolitanian lobby had strengthened the Qaddafi coup. Under him all the strategic government institutions were forcibly transferred from Cyrenaica and Fezzan to Tripolitania, which also received the highest governmental expenditure on infrastructure and educational scholarships. The result was that Tripolitania now had total domination over the country’s wealth. Talented, well educated people went to work there. Policy making was now centred there. For forty years the military rulers controlled the country from a centralized capital within the region of Tripolitania and fiercely resisted any call for the constituent regions of the Libyan entity to be respected.   After decades of neglect, a revolution was triggered exclusively in the cities of Cyrenaica on the 15th of February 2011. In only four days they were liberated and no longer controlled by Qaddafi’s forces. The uprising then began to spread to the other regions of the country. In April 2011 the revolution gave birth to a new call for a federation. This was officially agreed at a conference in the city of Benghazi on the 20th of July of the same year. But the performance of the interim authorities was very disappointing. It was riddled with financial corruption, and in short it did not match the aspirations of the Cyrenaican people. It did not achieve the aims of the revolution, which were to end all the practices related to regional neglect and tyranny. The transitional authorities were in fact wasting the region’s wealth. As regards matters of sovereignty in respect of decision- and policy-making, they were biased in favour of maintaining the same old centralized practices. They also insisted on moving their headquarters to Tripoli immediately after its liberation in August 2011.   Through media outlets and public campaigns a smear campaign was launched aimed at suppressing the call for federation. This was led by the head of the National Transitional Council himself, supported by a number of politicians, media outlets, and religious extremists who spread rumours among the general public that the federalists were in fact separatists working against the national interests, and that they were religiously outlawed. Nevertheless the federalists increased in numbers, especially in Cyrenaica, though they are not represented in the newly elected interim authority – the General National Congress – because they called on people to boycott the elections due to the unequal distribution of seats between the three constituent regions. For this reason over 1.3 million people did not participate in the electoral process in Cyrenaica. In order to defend their constitutional rights, this segment of the electorate is now becoming active in a number of civil institutions and political parties such as the National Union Party, the Forum of Cyrenaican Culture, and the Movement of Federal Libya.   There are expectations that a new revolution in Cyrenaica is likely to take place in the very near future. Its timing depends on the level of public awareness of the regional rights that the 17th of February Revolution did not yet achieve, but this time the movement might make higher demands than are feasible within a federal system. Cyrenaica, as the richest region among the three, holds almost 80% of the country’s oil, gas, and subterranean water reserves. It also has a huge potential for tourism, agriculture, and natural minerals. The public mood in Cyrenaica is looking towards achieving a smooth transition from being part of a unitary state to becoming a federation based on the rule of law and equal distribution of wealth and power. They appeal to all international and friendly advocacy groups, human rights organizations, and policy makers to support their movement to achieve peaceful transition and stability.

All we have learned of psychotherapy suggests that it is at the precise time when the individual feels as if his whole life is crashing down around him that he is most likely to achieve an inner reorganization constituting a quantum leap in his growth towards maturity. Our belief is that it is precisely when society’s future seems so beleaguered – when its problems seem almost staggering in complexity, when so many individuals seem alienated, and so many values seem to have deteriorated – that is most likely to achieve a metamorphosis in society’s growth toward maturity, toward more truly enhancing and fulfilling the human spirit than ever before.   Willis Harman   The current conflicts in Syria and their impact on neighbouring States have again drawn world attention to the dangerous situation in the wider Middle East and the possible role of nuclear and chemical weapons. There has been a yearly resolution in the United Nations General Assembly, a resolution first proposed by Egypt and Iran in 1994, concerning the creation of a nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East. The issue has also been raised in each review conference of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. To date, there has been no visible progress on the issue, but concern over the nuclear-weapon capacity of the Islamic Republic of Iran has made a nuclear-weapon free zone (or a broader Weapons of Mass Destruction-free zone) an important policy issue.   Currently, nuclear weapons are held by the four Great Powers: the USA, Russia, China and India and by two units of an emerging Great Power, the European Union, in which two of its 27 members, France and the United Kingdom, have nuclear weapons. The Great Powers, by their land mass, large population, and a certain socio-economic dynamism, would be Great Powers with or without nuclear weapons. In addition to the Great Powers, there are three States which I call the Existential Nuclear Powers. These States’ existence is relatively recent, the result of the Second World War, the end of European colonialism, and the end of the League of Nations Mandate system: North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel.   Pakistan and to a larger extent Israel are directly concerned by a Nuclear-weapon Free Zone in the Middle East. Tensions between Israel and Iran, into which the United States has also been drawn, make concerted efforts to establish good faith negotiations an important policy issue. Non-governmental organizations have an important role to play to help create the atmosphere in which such negotiations can be carried out. The situation of Israel among the three Existential Nuclear-weapon States – Israel, North Korea and Pakistan – may be considered exceptional because the very existence of the State has been under constant threat since its foundation. Its small land mass, and relatively small population, but with a high density, make nuclear-weapon deterrence a key element of Israeli military policy. However, the Middle East as an area is one prone to blundering into disaster, often helped by States outside the Middle East.   The hazard of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East has existed since Israel developed its ‘bomb in the basement’ and was widely discussed in the early 1980s after the Israeli forces destroyed the French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad in June 19811. Nevertheless, during the 62 years since the creation of the State of Israel, there have been proposals for “common security” in the Middle East which would require real steps toward nuclear and conventional disarmament, economic and social development, and active conflict resolution, especially the future of the Palestinians. True security requires economic prosperity and justice, a vibrant social and cultural life, the affirmation of human rights and ecological integrity.   The Middle East is far from these conditions, and negotiations even on small improvements seem unlikely. As Jeffrey Helsing points out, “Even with the end of the Cold War, many of the same problems have continued in the region or have actually gotten worse.  Despite the turnover of a few leaders, little change has occurred politically within most Arab societies and their governmental systems. Religious fundamentalism remains strong within the region, often continuing its broad-based appeal to many disenfranchised or disaffected sectors of society. This reflects a growing divide between the haves and have-nots in society. In addition, the scarcity of natural resources such as water, arable land, and the pressures of high population growth increase the risks of conflict, both within countries and between them. Finally, on top of each of these issues, one must impose the fundamental conflict that still exists between Arab nationalism and Zionism, as well as the competing claims for the same land among Palestinians and Israelis”.   One possibility in developing “common security” in the Middle East would be the creation of a Middle East Nuclear-weapon Free Zone. Mohamed El Baradei, former Director of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called on Iran and Israel to enter into serious negotiations to create a nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East, saying: “This is the last chance to build security in the Middle East based on trust and cooperation and not on the possession of nuclear weapons. A peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbours must be reached in parallel with a security agreement in the region based on ridding the area of all weapons of mass destruction”.   The idea of nuclear-weapon free zones has been an important concept in disarmament and regional conflict reduction efforts. A nuclear-weapon free zone was first suggested by the Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki at the United Nations General Assembly in October 1957 – just a year after the crushing of the uprising in Hungary. The crushing of the Hungarian revolt by Soviet troops and the unrest among Polish workers at the same time showed that the East-West equilibrium in Central Europe was unstable with both the Soviet Union and the USA in possession of nuclear weapons, triggering perhaps a willingness to use them if the political situation became radically unstable. The Rapacki Plan, as it became known, called for the denuclearization of East and West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland.   The Plan went through several variants which included its extension to cover the reduction of armed forces and armaments, and, as a preliminary step, a freeze on nuclear weapons in the area. The Rapacki Plan was opposed by the NATO powers, in part because it recognized the legitimacy of the East German State. It was not until 1970 and the start of what became the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe that serious negotiations on troop levels and weapons in Europe began. While the Rapacki Plan never led to negotiations on nuclear-weapon policies in Europe, it had the merit of re-starting East-West discussions, which were then at a dead point after the Hungarian uprising. The first nuclear-weapon free zone to be negotiated – the Treaty of Tlatelolco – was a direct aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. It is hard to know how close to a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR was the Cuban missile crisis. It was close enough so that Latin American leaders were moved to action. While Latin America was not an area in which military confrontation was as stark as in Europe, the Cuban missile crisis was a warning that you did not need to have standing armies facing each other for there to be danger.   Mexico, under the leadership of Ambassador Alfonso Garcia-Robles at the UN, began immediately to call for a denuclearization of Latin America. There were a series of conferences, and in February 1967 the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America was signed at Tlatelolco, Mexico. For a major arms control treaty, the Tlatelolco was negotiated in a short time, due partly to the fear inspired by the Cuban missile crisis but especially to the energy and persistence of Garcia-Robles and the expert advice of William Epstein, then the U.N.’s Director of Disarmament Affairs. The Treaty established a permanent and effective system of control which contains a number of novel and pioneering elements as well as a body to supervise the Treaty.   On 8 September 2006, the five States of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan – signed a treaty, the Treaty of Semipalatinsk, establishing a nuclear-weapon free zone. The treaty aims at reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation and nuclear-armed terrorism. The treaty bans the production, acquisition, deployment of nuclear weapons and their components as well as nuclear explosives. Importantly, the treaty bans the housing or transport of nuclear weapons, as both Russia and the USA have established military airbases in Central Asia where nuclear weapons could have been placed in times of crisis in Asia. It is an unfortunate aspect of world politics that constructive, institution-building action is usually undertaken only because of a crisis. The growing pressure building in the Middle East could lead to concerted leadership for a Middle East nuclear-weapon free zone. The IAEA has the technical knowledge for putting such a zone in place2. Now there needs to be leadership from within the Middle East States, as well as broader international encouragement.   1 See Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s, New York, Columbia University Press, 1982; Louis Rene Beres (Ed), Security or Armageddon, Lexington, MA, Lexington Books, 1985; Roger Pajak, Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East, Washington, DC, The National Defense University, 1982 2 See Michael Hamel-Green, Regional Initiatives on Nuclear-and WMD-Free Zones, Geneva, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2005. For a recent analysis see Gawdat Bahgat, Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, Gainesville, FL, University Press of Florida, 2008, p. 212

Introduction President Barroso’s «State of the Union» speech of September 12, 2012 highlights the fact that the Eurozone may apply the Union’s decision-making processes by making use of the institutional structures provided for by the Lisbon Treaty. For this purpose, they would need to be adapted to the Eurozone in accordance with the following guidelines: a) The 17 Member States which currently form the Eurozone function through exercising an enhanced cooperation; b) The Eurozone practises decision-making processes no less advanced than those of the European Union and uses processes which correspond to its role as a pioneer group; c) It implements both qualified majorities applied by the Council, and, if possible, the qualified majority as laid down in the future by the Lisbon Treaty; d) The development of the Eurozone is in keeping with the institutional framework of the Lisbon Treaty; e) The 17 members of the Eurogroup, which may be joined by other Member States, are committed to pave the way towards the Federation of European States, as proposed by President Jose Manuel Barroso; f) Transparency is essential, especially regarding the appointment of the Eurogroup President and the decision-making processes of the 17 members; g) Participation by the European Parliament must be ensured (e.g in its approval of the Eurogroup President and the use of co-decision); h) The Eurozone must in future benefit from democratic legitimacy and seek to avoid the current discrepancy between its rules of functioning and the decision-making processes of the Union; i) Contrary to the proposal put forward by President Giscard d’Estaing, one can conclude that it is not necessary to create a new organisation to ensure the smooth functioning of the 17-member Eurozone within the framework of the Union.   I. Appointment of the Eurogroup President Proposal It is important for this appointment to be handled with transparency and, moreover, that it includes the requirement of approval by the European Parliament. A procedure one might suggest along these lines would be for the first choice to be made by the European Council acting on a joint proposal by the Commission and the ECB.   Nomination of the President This nomination should preferably result from consensus at European Council level, with only the Heads of State or Government of the euro area voting in this procedure. However, following the example of the procedure used to appoint the President of the Commission, the choice could be made by qualified majority.   Approval by MEPs from the euro area Once this first step has been taken, the future President of the Eurogroup has to be «invested» through the approval of the European Parliament. Regarding the procedure of approval by the European Parliament, it would be logical to only allow voting by Members of the European Parliament representing the Member States of the Eurozone.   Enhanced cooperation In this way, the final appointment of the Eurogroup President will follow a procedure in keeping with the Lisbon Treaty, thus ensuring a greater democratic legitimacy. Obviously, this nomination procedure, which is based on transparency and the guarantee of legitimacy, does not require a new Treaty, but can be implemented by using enhanced cooperation. Consequently, the Eurogroup President will ultimately enjoy both democratic legitimacy and greater authority.   II. Decision-making processes within the Eurozone Initiatives and formal proposals First of all, it is important to know who will have the right of initiative. In fact, it is the Member States of the Eurogroup, but also economists and various associations that propose ideas and initiatives, alongside the Commission and the ECB; whereas formal proposals belong to the Commission and the ECB by right. In this way, the ideas proposed, which are often very diverse, will be channelled in accordance with the decision-making procedure laid down by the Lisbon Treaty, which resorts more and more frequently to co-decision with the European Parliament. Decisions taken by the Eurogroup based on these proposals are within the scope of the guidelines defined by the European Council, within which the decisive vote is that of the 17 Member States.   Meetings and resolutions of the Heads of State or Government of the euro area The Heads of State or Government of the 17 Member States may hold more frequent meetings in which the other EU Member States can participate without having the right to vote1. In order to increase efficiency, these framework guidelines should preferably be adopted by qualified, and, if necessary, reinforced majority2, in order to avoid vetoes and protracted wrangling and to generally speed up the decision-making process. This procedure is better adapted to the needs of the Eurozone and to its leading role.   Decision-making process at the Council of Ministers level As regards decisions to be made by the Council, they would be adopted by qualified majority. And if possible, as laid down by the Lisbon Treaty as of 2014, by double majority defined as at least 55% of the Member States of the Eurogroup, comprising at least 65% of the population of these States3.   Co-decision by the Council and the «EP commission for the Eurozone» Following the example of the legislative co-decision procedure, the European Parliament would adopt decisions more and more frequently in coordination with the majority of its Members from the Eurozone. As in the case of the Council, all members could participate in the debate, which would be weighted in favour of the Eurogroup, but the final vote by the MPs would be exclusively reserved for those representing the Member States of the Eurogroup. The same principle could be applied to the functioning of the consultative committees, which could form sub-committees composed of 17 members.   Role of the Commission and the European Central Bank This extended practice of the procedures laid down by the Lisbon Treaty aims to safeguard cohesion within the Union, while at the same time allowing Eurogroup members to progress more rapidly. Decision-making and the implementation of adopted measures as well as the monitoring of how the measures are applied at every level would primarily fall within the competence of the Commission and the ECB, as well as of the Council acting on their proposal in accordance with the broad guidelines of the European Council.   Appeal to the Court of Justice In case of dispute, the Court of Justice would be empowered to rule in the first instance, through chambers which could be made up for the most part of judges from the Eurogroup. Final decrees could also be adjusted in the same way on an ad hoc basis. However, these adjustments do not seem to be indispensable, since the Court essentially adopts a community view. This is also true of the Commission which has acted according to its community view, adapted to the Eurozone, since the very beginning of the crisis.   Urgent decisions The crisis has brought to light the large discrepancy between the speed with which investors make decisions and markets react, and the slowness of the European institutions to act. Therefore, it would be advisable to reflect upon the manner in which a certain number of decisions could be taken urgently by the Commission or the ECB, or rather, jointly by both institutions. Instead of going through a long procedure, these decisions would subsequently be approved by the Eurogroup members within the Council and the Parliament.   Implementation of the community method in the Eurozone In conclusion, the Eurozone would henceforth apply the community method in numerous cases while attempting to bring it into general use. As a result, its procedures would ensure greater transparency by using decision-making processes laid down by the Lisbon Treaty, or indeed other more efficient procedures. In accordance with the principles of enhanced cooperation, the Eurozone could extend the use of the community method, in order to ensure greater efficiency and increased democratic legitimacy.Parliament.       1 Title IV, Art. 20, para.3 2 Art. 333 3 Art. 238, para.3a