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European Union and Republicanism In this paper, I am going to look at the possible organization of the European Union through the prism of republicanism. Continuing the idea of my previous writing, I would like to make the public goods be the object of the present paper. However, the reason to place public goods in the center of this discussion seems obscure for me. Possibly, my perception is stipulates by the concept of the republic, especially what is main within this concept, that is namely democracy.
Nevertheless, if the most critique question of the seminar is to reflect on the lack of democracy in the European Union and suggest the possible solutions of the problem, then the republican perception of democracy must take place in this discussion. First of all, I cannot omit my disappointment about the republican way of understanding democracy. Undoubtedly, that for the biggest part of the population Republic means nowadays nothing but freedom and equality of all citizens. Of cause the core understanding of Republic has not changed since the Roman time.
However, he understanding of freedom and equality of the past differentiates from the modern past. For example, in the Rome time citizens were giver a status of free people, though without right to vote. In the modern society, the right to participate in voting is one of the main characteristics of freedom. At least because of these changes it would be wrong to speak about modern society looking at in a book with the obsolete description of Republic. The Republic of the past times is not the same as the Republic of the present. The first one cannot be the synonym of democracy, though the latter one can.
In her article “Competing for Liberty: The Republican Critique of Democracy’ Nadia Urbanity points out the weak points of democracy, among them, one draws my attention the most: “Democracy is unable to achieve good and competent decisions because it gives preference to numbers and quantities rather than competence and quality’. Firstly, assuming that in a society called democratic, there is a self-government by the citizens, it is important that this society is healthy, educated, with an access to information and with no poverty.
Otherwise, citizens are not able to “achieve good ND competence decisions” and, according to Petit, government might be able to “permit the state to coerce or manipulate or force people in this or that manner”. Maintenance of competence society is the important condition of democracy in the society. In this regard, I would like to illustrate how the lack of education and information of the society has caused the dying-out of already weak democracy.
Although ever presence of democracy in Russia can be argued at all, I believe that the factors (apart from the other) which constrain Russian society from democracy re the social reforms, especially in educational system, and imposing on people the will of the ruling government by means of media. Secondly, the critique of democracy opens up the debate of what is equality in the modern society. When the same honor is given to everyone disregarding the quality of quantity of their work – can this equality be called equity?
In my opinion, equality opinion, appearance etc. Is able to get the same honor. It implies that whatever you do, if you do it best, you get the best price. Therefore, it should not depend on social or physical state off person. As we can see, the concepts of freedom and democracy differentiate with regard to time and school. This means that if we would like to apply Republican features to the European Union in the best way, we must be accurate to formulate Republic in a proper way in order to have this definition and the ideas of Republic be appropriate.
I hope to be right saying that the presence of public goods in a society and the attitude to public goods (right to own, allocate and use them) defines Republic. Before the creation of Euro area, one of the characteristics of the European Union ad been the existence of inclusive club goods; since the creation of the common currency, the EX. has the Rezone and Euro there as a common resource good. Coming to a conclusion, that Republic is the only right way to govern the area of common resource good like common currency, only the Rezone must be organized as a Republic then.
At the moment, I find it difficult to have Republic only for the Rezone and something else for the rest of the Union. This automatically leads to the question of implementation of a new institution or reconstruction of the old one, he Commission or Council. What I find significant is not only to have the idea of make the EX. more democratic (in this case the European Republic might be an alternative to what Europeans have now), but also to thing about how the European Union may be organized in order to be a Republic.
In my opinion, the idea of the European Republic sounds more democratic as the idea of the European Federation. In view of the fact that the present way of governing the EX. gives little power to the citizen of the EX. by means of having national overnight and interest prior to the European sovereignty and interest, the present governing lacks democracy and must be restructured.
Unfortunately, the way of thinking among the authorities got stuck in the direction of national identity and the interest of the states. Among the other variants of reconstruction of the European Union, the idea of the European Republic can give the better future for the Europeans and bring the Union to the new level in contract to European Federation, where the importance of the national states remains and egoistic values prevail.