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5 Macquarie J. Int'l & Comp. Envtl. L. 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/macqjice5 and id is 1 raw text is: IV'qJJCEL (2008) Vol 5 REGULATING THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE GENERAL LAW OF EUROPEAN UNION EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS ROSE MWEBAZA ABOUT THE EUROPEAN UNION The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community with supranational1 and intergovernmental2 features. It is comprised of 27 member sates primarily located in Europe.3 It was founded in 1957 as the European Economic PhD Macquarie University, Sydney Australia- LLM (with Cert of Academic Excellence) University of Florida, USA; LL.B (Honours) Makerere University, Uganda. Senior Legal Advisor, Environment Programme, Institute for Security Studies. Email: rmwebaza issafrica.org Supranationalism is a method of decision-making in political communities, wherein power is held by independent appointed officials or by representatives elected by the legislatures or people of the member states. Member-state governments still have power, but they must share this power with others. Because decisions are taken by majority votes, it is possible for a member-state to be forced by the other member-states to implement a decision. Unlike a federal state, member states fully retain their sovereignty and participate voluntarily, being subject to the supranational government only while remaining members. 2 Intergovernmentalism is a theory of decision-making in international organizations, where power is possessed by the member States and decisions are made by unanimity. Independent appointees of the governments or elected representatives have solely advisory or implementational functions. Intergovernmentalism is used by most international organizations today. Intergovernmentalism is also a theory on European integration which rejects the idea of neofunctionalism. The theory, initially proposed by Stanley Hoffmann suggests that national governments control the level and speed of European integration. Any increase in power at supranational level, he argues, results from a direct decision by governments. He believed that integration, driven by national governments, was often based on the domestic political and economic issues of the day. The theory rejects the concept of the spill-over effect that neofunctionalism proposes. He also rejects the idea that supranational organisations are on an equal level (in terms of political influence) as national governments. In the Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49), it is stated that any European country (as defined by the EUpolitical assessment) that respects the principles of the European Union may apply to join. No mention is made of enlarging the EU to include non-European countries, but the precedents of turning down Morocco's application and speaking about Israel's closest integration, just short of full membership suggests that currently it is impossible for non- European states to get full EU membership.

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