ABSTRACT
The debate on the institutional nature and functional logic of the European Union (EU) is a growth industry. While there may be a consensus in defining the EU as a supranational polity pursuing a project of post-national democracy, there are still differences of opinion on how to interpret the latter. For historical reasons (the two world wars fought on the continent) and for contemporary structural reasons (the process of globalization), Europe has moved away from the nation-state and in the direction of a larger supranational organization. In the supranational EU, ‘the collectivity of members as a singularity, in addition to the central institutional apparatus of the EU, has become party to the interstate strategic interaction’ (Ruggie 1998: 195). National and community institutions combine rather than exclude. But the understanding of how they combine is still debatable. The EU has the features of a multi-level system of governance – that is, a system territorially organized around a plurality of centres of authority. Although the distribution of resources and powers among them continues to be uncertain, each can mobilize veto positions in order to preserve or to promote their own interests and views. However, the progress towards supranational or vertical federalization of the EU does not capture entirely the structure and the logic which took shape within the EU. In fact, vertical federalization has intermingled with a horizontal separation of powers between the Community institutions which has made the organization of the EU analytically distinctive from that of a pure federal system.
