The Right to National Self-determination within the EU: A Legal Investigation

Article one of the Treaty on the European Union states that the aim of the EU is “creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen.” To that extent, it recognizes democratic rights to EU citizens, on the principle that every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union” (art. 10 § 3) and to that end specifies that “in all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens” (art. 10 § 1). Among EU citizen’s right, the right to be “represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.” (art. 10 § 2). This later right is however only recognized to Member States, depriving the citizens of European peoples, which are not fully recognized as European States, the right to fully benefit from their democratic rights as guaranteed by the Treaties. We thus argue that for Nations without a State in Europe (i.e. Catalans or Scots), the EU shall provide a proper way for these citizens constituted as European peoples (as recognized in art. 1 of the TEU), to fully participate to the EU project by becoming member States through an internal enlargement process. The paper makes suggestions on how such process should be implemented within the EU, based on precedent realizations of the right of self-determination within a polity.