Pooled Sovereignty

Pooled sovereignty means the strengthening of a country's resources by combining them with those of partner countries. Pooling sovereignty is the conceptual answer to a realization of weakened and permeated sovereignty. The classical concept of state sovereignty assumed the autonomous ability of decision making as the ultimate expression of a country's independence. In light of the European experience with nationalism (conflict and self-destruction), as well as in light of the changed character of contemporary challenges to society and statehood, European countries have begun to pool their individual sovereignty by transferring autonomous state rights to the level of the European Union (EU).

After five decades of European integration, this transfer of sovereignty has affected all three central areas of modern state sovereignty: monetary sovereignty, internal security, external defense. Pooled sovereignty does not mean that member countries of the EU revoke their statehood and its sovereignty. Pooled sovereignty means the development of a multilayered system of governance by which the national and the European level—in federal systems also the regional level within a member state of the EU—are jointly involved in political decision making.

The limits of autonomous national decisionmaking powers (inherent in the character of most contemporary political challenges) are dealt with by the ambition of political actors involved in the process of European integration to strengthen their joint performance under the umbrella of the EU. This logic applies to the creation of a single European market with monetary and currency union, including a common currency, the EURO; it also applies to efforts in pooling resources, for instance, in order to establish European police coordination (EUROPOL), a common migration policy, and a European Border Force; it finally includes the sphere of foreign and security policy based on a common security strategy of the EU, with a joint response to the threat of terrorism and with joint military operations in peace keeping by the EU (such as in Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and joint postconflict operations (such as in Aceh, Indonesia and, most spectacularly, in supervising the border opening between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in late 2005).

In the meantime, the European integration experience has also been studied by other regional integration schemes worldwide in order to emulate some of the fundamental European insights in the context of other regional circumstances with their specific conditions and potentials (i.e., MERCOSUR, Andean Community, Central American Integration System, ASEAN, Gulf Cooperation Council, African Union).