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Document Details : Title: Ten Normative Theses on the European Union Author(s): FERRY, Jean-Marc Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Date: December 2008 Pages: 527-544 DOI: 10.2143/EP.15.4.2034395 Abstract : The propositions that I wish to develop here are, in essence, that the legal community realized in the European Union must overlap with a moral community in order for a real political community to emerge; that this postnational moral community should be given substance by a shared political culture and a common historical memory; that the integration of the Union’s member states should be realized along a horizontal plane of concertation and cooperation, rather than a vertical plane of subordination to a supranational federal state; that the originality of this underlying framework consists in transposing to the level of the rights of peoples those values traditionally attached to the rights of individuals, while combining the three levels of legal relations – internal, international and transnational, characteristic of a cosmopolitical union; that to ensure the democratic irrigation of the European space, it is preferable to create links between the different levels of parliament, both horizontally and vertically, in a system of European parliaments, rather than simply strengthening the European parliament; that, alongside political representation, a parliamentary representation of cultural and socio-economic interests be put in place, in order to ensure the public nature of the deliberations through which norms are developed; that, concurrently with the democratic space, the space of the media be structured on the basis of a European audiovisual charter setting out the civic and cultural responsibilities of the media; lastly, that a European solidarity system be anchored in the principle that every adult citizen of the Union has an unconditional right to a basic income. |
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