"Linkages Between the Concepts of 'Subsidiarity' and Sovereignty: The New Debate Over Allocation of Authority in the European Union"

It is our thesis that there is an important linkage between the concepts of sovereignty and subsidiarity. The democratization of the concept of sovereignty, introducing the idea of popular sovereignty, makes it closely linked to the concept of subsidiarity which has been given great notoriety in the current debate about future authority relations within the European Union. It is our general contention that the issues addressed in the current subsidiarity debate can be reconstructed and reinterpreted as a euphemism for the sovereignty debate which has been ongoing since the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the early 1950's. The subject will be introduced by a comparative review of the connotations of sovereignty and subsidiarity at various periods since the formation of the modern states-system. The core of the study is an examination of linkages between contemporary connotations of sovereignty and the current discourse about the subsidiarity principle. The official British public debates over sovereignty in connection with 1) its first application for membership in the early 1960's, 2) the membership ratification debate in 1972, 3) the referendum on continued membership in 1975, and 4) the ratification of Maastricht in 1992-1993 are used as a case study to demonstrate linkages between sovereignty and subsidiarity