Talk:European Union/inclusion in lists of countries

message: Basic arguments for and against this include:
;Not a country
*Contra: It's simply not a country. It may be different from other international organisations (sui generis) but it has no legal personality, no other country recognises it as a country, it is not a UN member state, nor does not qualify as a state under the Montevideo criteria. It has all of the bells and whistles of country, including a flag and an anthem, because some people would like it to be or become a country: that does not make it so for the time being. Whether it has some of the outward attributes of a country or not, it remains that it is not a country. There can not be two countries covering the same territory. In the end, the EU is closer to other international organisations than to any actual country, therefore it remains that the EU is not a country and should not be included in these lists.
*Pro: The EU is a sui generis entity, which has many of the characteristics of a country: a common market, common legislation, many common policies, common institutions, bodies, agencies, common elections every 5 years to a common European Parliament, common EU courts of justice and auditors, a common currency (not used by all member states, but all except two are required to adopt it), a common Europe Day, a mostly common standard design of EU license plates, a common anthem, common EU citizenship, a single voice in the WTO, and so on and so forth; thus, the EU is as close to a country as any other international body currently is, therefore meritting its inclusion. No other organisation is even close to the amount of integration the EU has achieved, most notably the fact that it speaks with a single voice on many topics; therefore no others should be included, while the EU should. While the EU does not have a legal personality, the European Community (a part of the EU's organisation) does, and the Reform Treaty would (once ratified) transfer it from the EC to the EU.
:Furthermore, while the EU is not a country, many authors and analysts (most notably Leonard, McCormack, Reid, Rifkin, ...) state that the EU is, or is about to become, the world's second superpower next to the US -- and how can we not include what many analysts consider to be a superpower?
*Not a country, but a supranational entity: EU is not a country in the context of 19th century public international law, but it fulfills a lot of functions traditionally associated with countries. The EU is something new, acts like a country and should therefore be included, as it is a subject in public international law (International Court of Justice) as a country. Supranationality can be based upon the independence of the EC (e.g. independence - Art 7 TEC, majority decisions - Art 251 TEC) and the common binding legal framework (e.g. immediate validity - ECR 26/62 Van Gend & Loos, primacy of community law - ECR C-6/90 and C-9/90 Francovich).
*A de facto state: The EU is a de facto state. It may not be recognised as one, but you have a political entity which has been granted sovereign powers by its states to carry draft, amend, vote on, pass and enforce legislation. Limited areas, yes, and does not have the power to force more areas, but that is like in any federation. It isn't called a country simply for political reasons. You look at the draft constitution, the word federal was used to described the method currently used in the European Community pillar. The UK eliminated this word and replaced it with the old Community term – without changing anything else at the same time – so the UK would be able to ratify it. The level of integration is that of a loose federation, and getting closer. Whatever you call it, this is important, and nothing like any other supranational organisation. Hence, it ought to be listed, albeit not given a rank. - J Logan t: 17:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arguments

message: Please state your opinion on this case. Suggested stances would be:
* "include with exceptions" — generally include the EU in such lists and tables, but make a note outside of the table if it is controversial to include the EU (such as the list of countries itself, e.g.).
* "make notes or include" — generally make a note about the EU outside of the table, but include it in the list in special cases (e.g. in matters of economic or defence).
* "exclude with exceptions" — generally exclude the EU completely from such lists, but include it in special cases where excluding it would remove sensible information.
Of course, you're free to state other opinions, such as e.g. "always include, without exceptions", "never include, without exceptions", etc. pp. We'll gather opinions on this issue until 21 August, after which we'll try to find some kind of consensus on what to do. Thanks for participating!
===Include with exceptions, or similar===
*Include in general, but make exceptions if the usual editors of a list or table think that including it without a lengthy statement would be too confusing or misrepresentative. —Nightstallion 23:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Opinions

message: *Include in general, but make exceptions if the usual editors of a list or table think that including it without a lengthy statement would be too confusing or misrepresentative. —Nightstallion 23:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Include with exceptions, or similar

message: *The EU is not a country and is not considered a country by its institutions, the member states' governments and people's. So it should not be included. But at the same time it differs from other international organizations that the member states brought part of their sovereignty to the EU. Therefore (in Dutch) is is labelled as a supranational and not an international organizations. It can be useful to include the EU in lists to compare the combined results of this economic super power. Electionworld Talk? 10:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Make notes or include, or similar

message: *The only way to insure current and future consistency and integrity in the respective lists is to exclude the EU (or any other supranational organization).  However, it is more difficult to argue against the addition of the EU in economically oriented lists because its common currency in the vast majority of member states and its common market make it an immutable factor regardless of its country status. But, I do worry that it's inclusion in economic lists would be used as an argument by others for its inclusion in unrelated lists of countries. Malnova 23:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Exclude with exceptions, or similar

message: This system has been a bit of a debate killer, all everyone is doing is stating their opinion without any exchange of ideas. I'll just say that I am not going to argue that the EU is a soverign state as others are, however it does have the importance of one.
* The majority of laws in the EU come from the EU institutions.
* The single market and currency is central to the economies of its members. 
* Borders have opened up creating a single space for movement of goods and people - major infrastructure developments are often EU projects.
* Hence in this space moves a single workforce, with common rights, citizens, votes who are allowed to live, work and study across Europe with language the only major barrier, although English is defacto across the bloc and its institutions.
* Foreign policy already in action towards some such as Russia, the Balkans, developing world. Major player in aid and membership in a number of organisations - impact at UN inc. at the Security council where the EU often presents its joint foreign policy position. EU speaks as one at the WTO.
* A number of military forces, some standing and under control of the European Council, deployed around the world. Spending etc. is co-ordinated through the EDA and there have been common development projects such as the Eurofighter.
* Internal co-operation on police and justice - common arrest warrant, police office, fraud investigatory office, paramilitary police, border patrols and visa - with the common external frontier.
Whether this makes it a country or not is debatable, but it clearly has the importance of one. It takes on many state-like duties and simply cannot be confused with other organisations - nothing has come this far and nothing will for well over a decade at the most optimistic plans. Hence, it ought to be mentioned due to this importance. Reply? - J Logan t: 08:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not surprisingly, I agree. —Nightstallion 10:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This could motivate editors to include it in their country lists certainly but this sentiment should not be allowed to be used as some sort of policy consensus that editors must accept the unranked inclusion of the EU in all country list articles.Zebulin (talk) 01:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: From the discussion here so far I would guess that many editors have differing opinions about the manner in which the EU should appear in list articles depending on which particular article is being discussed.  Rather than attempt to hash out a one size fits all approach for all such articles with respect to the EU why not just simply continue to let it be worked out on the discussion page of each individual article case by case?  The arguments for inclusion of the EU appear to hinge most strongly on it's proposed sui generis status.  Since it's status is so unique wouldn't it be logical to assume that it's resemblance to a country will vary depending on what trait the countries are being compared on?  The very nature of a sui generis status would appear to argue against formulating a uniform approach to the EU as a country.  Furthermore, while it may seem convenient to decide once and for all how to treat the EU on this page but it's hardly fair to the editors interested in the various articles that will be effected by such a consensus to do so.  I propose that any further discussion of this issue continue separately in each related articles discussion page.Zebulin (talk) 12:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal 

message: Personally I am neither anti-EU nor pro-EU (at best I might describe myself as pro-peace and pro-regionalism). However, having looked on the debates, it seems that a lot of the arguments in favour of including the EU on lists of countries or for calling the EU a country at all, rest on the assumption that the EU’s characteristics are unique. This seems to be due to a lack of knowledge about other international institutions as well and the degree of integration that other regions of the world have undergone. Some of the characteristics cited are also irrelevant for defining a country (such as holding elections – that is only relevant for defining a democracy and even then China and Cuba hold elections. But not all countries hold elections and before the advent of representative or consultative government elections were found in only some places). Below I have listed all the characteristics put forward (that I have found in browsing this and some other pages) in support of adding the EU to various lists. I’ve also attempted to include examples of other regional or international organizations to which these characteristics apply:
**A common market – also found in the European Economic Area (which includes more countries than those just found in the EU), CARICOM Single Market and Economy (and by extension the members of the OECS), Gulf Cooperation Council and Mercosur. In addition a number of other organizations have a customs union – some people may argue that this is irrelevant since a customs union and a common market are two different things, but in fact a few countries don’t have a common customs across their entire territory but are still considered countries: Germany ( Büsingen am Hochrhein and Heligoland) and Italy (Campione d'Italia and Livigno).
**Common legislation – common legislation in and of itself isn’t anything particularly special. A number of countries (especially in the Commonwealth or those with other common heritages) have near identical constitutions which are the ultimate laws/legislation in the countries. In which case the OECS countries might well have even more common legislation than the EU. In the EU this common legislation is made by the EU institutions (but not by the European Parliament which does not have legislative intiative like even the inhabited dependencies with the least advanced form of self-government or even many local government areas) which leads to the other characteristic:
**A Common Parliament – There are also the Latin American Parliament, Andean Parliament, ECOWAS Parliament, the Central American Parliament (which according to its own website has the objective of uniting the Central American countries and can formulate motions, agreements and treaties that advance Central American integration and its deputies are also directly elected like the European Parliament) and the Pan-African Parliament (which is due to have legislative function in a year’s  time – which leads to the question of whether editors will then include the AU in various lists). There is also the East African Legislative Assembly. And as I outlined previously, the European Parliament (just like every other parliament for an international organization does not have legislative initiative and is unlikely to be given that power in the near- or medium-term).
**Common Institutions, Bodies, Agencies – All found in many other regional organizations including the AU, CARICOM, the EAC, OECS, ECOWAS
**Common elections – not every country has elections, for instance Myanmar. Saudi Arabia had no elections at all until 2005, but that did not mean that before 2005 it wasn’t a country. Even now the elections in Saudi Arabia are only for municipal elections and not for any national legislature.
**Common EU court of justice – there is also the East African Court of Justice, Caribbean Court of Justice, Central American Court of Justice, Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, Andean Court of Justice, ECOWAS’ Community Court of Justice and there are plans to establish the African Court of Justice. And of course there are the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
**Common EU court of auditors – which isn’t really a judicial court but an audit agency.
**Other common EU courts – there is a European Court of Human Rights, but there is also an Inter-American Court of Human Rights and an African Court on Human and People’s Rights.
**A common currency (not in use by all members of the EU) – there are also common currencies in the OECS (in use not only by all full members but also by one of the associate members), and in UEMOA and CEMAC (again used by all members of those two associations). In addition UEMOA is a currency union in ECOWAS, so in essence ECOWAS has a common currency used by some of its members and there are plans for a new currency zone and the unification of both common currrencies in ECOWAS.
**A common Europe Day – There is a CARICOM Day, an ECOWAS Day, an OECS Day and an EAC Day.
**A common EU standard licence/registration plate design – some countries don’t have a common licence/registration plate design. The most prominent examples are the United States and Canada.
**A common EU anthem – Comintern had an anthem and the UN and AU have unofficial anthems.
**A common EU citizenship – The Commonwealth had (and still has) common citizenship long before the EU did. And in the OECS and CARICOM this essentially functions as OECS and/or CARICOM citizenship (since most Commonwealth citizens have a lot of the same rights as local citizens in these states and now due to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, the citizens of these countries (only some for now) can move freely).
**A common passport – there are common passport formats for the Andean Community, EAC, CARICOM and for four countries in Central America.
**A common visa – There is also a common Central American visa and there was a common CARICOM visa (with plans to reinstitute it) and there are plans for a common EAC visa, a common SADC visa and a common SAARC visa (for the cricket world cup in 2011).
**A common flag – almost all international organizations have a flag. Some such as the EAC even have an specific emblem which functions rather like a coat of arms (something the EU doesn’t have).
**The European Community has a legal personality – likewise ECOWAS and CARICOM.
Many would get the idea that no other regional organization has achieved the same level of integration as the EU, however its not hard to see how that idea would come about since Wikipedia is woefully lacking in information on the other regional organizations which contributes to the continued lack of awareness/knowledge about these organizations and their achievements - for instance the EAC has plans for form a new country called the East African Federation between 2010 and 2013 (with 2020 as the outside maximum date for achieving this). The EU has done much, but it would be stretching it believe that the EU has plans to form a Federation of Europe by even 2020 (there are no such plans even today). Also can anybody provide a reference for the classification of the EU as sui generis? I’ve only seen this description on Wikipedia and its copycat sites. It also seems strange that something that is sui generis should be categorized at all (if the EU is unique enough in the world that it shouldn't be categorized with regional/international organizations how can it be considered and categorized as a country at the same time?).208.138.28.64 (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characteristics of the EU