STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Summary/Abstract: Gradually accepting the need to limit the sovereign power of the integrated states (the delegation of sovereign powers, exercising jointly the duties which depend of state sovereignty, etc.), in the constitutions of many states integrated into the European Union, new rules have emerged, which, directly or indirectly, they regard exactly this matter. As a legal and political entity, the European Union is not what a state means, eventually a compound (complex) state in the classical sense of the term(federation or confederation), and is not an international (intergovernmental) organization, representing less than a state entity and more than an international organization; more precisely this involves elements from both the first and the second. Of all the patterns existing or known so far, the European Union can’t be put into any of these, being a sui generis institution, a new and atypical actor in contemporary international society. The European Union is not an international organization in the classical sense of the concept - an intergovernmental one, but a superstate, with substantial elements of super statality, of an unknown amplitude to the present and changing its essence of the association of states, despite the institutional framework in which has been transposed is the essence of an international organization. All that has been and is to be achieved in terms of European integration implies both the joint exercise of the attributes of state sovereignty, and as well the exercise of such attributes by the institutions of the European Union as a result of their delegation by the national states. So, we come to a conclusion: the integrated nations remain sovereign; they alone will decide whether they will advance on the integration path to federalization or whether they will move in another direction. "Sovereignty" is a natural right, an imprescriptible and inalienable right. This right may be "confiscated" for a certain period of time, but the owner may at any time claim it.

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