Policy
14.09.2015

The European Union and National Referenda: Structural Incompatibility?

It is particularly important to explore and debate the seeming inconsistency between the outcome of the referendum which Athens held on 5 July and the content of the agreement thrashed on Greece so as to check whether it reveals a contradiction between the EU and the will of its peoples. This analysis by Nicole Koenig and Yves Bertoncini allows to underline that there is no inconsistency between national referenda and decisions made by the European authorities. It also leads to recall that several different national political wills have to coexist side by side in the Federation of Nation States that is the EU, and which no referendum will ever be able to change.

Yves Bertoncini is President of the European Movement France, he formally worked as director of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris.

Image: CC Jeff Djevdet, Source: Flickr