Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to think of Europe and its images through a phenomenon that is, in some way, unexpected and eccentric: the national self-determination of so-called stateless nations. Having had a strong resurgence in a European context through the independence referendums of Scotland and Catalonia, but also called into question by the referendums of Great Britain and New Caledonia, the theme of self-determination allows us to grasp some of the geographical, strategic and political limits of the European construction, as well as offering a redefinition of its key actors and values. The chapter also develops a model for understanding the relationships and meanings between the different forms of Europe at stake in today’s political discourses and practices. It finally shows how the cases of independentism analysed are positioned within this context and how they contribute to its complex dynamism.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
For a historical-cultural introduction to New Caledonia and its emancipation process, see Bensa (1998) and Bensa and Wittersheim (1998). For an updated perspective, see Leblic and Cugola (2018). For an analysis of the referendum vote, Leblic (2018). For continuously updated reports, see https://www.lepoint.fr/dossiers/societe/referendum-nouvelle-caledonie/.
- 5.
See the chapter “Islands of Europe” in Favole (2015). A whole line of reasoning could be developed on Europe and its islands, on Europe as a continental dimension which must take into account a multiplicity of islands with differentiated status. See, for example, the distinction between Overseas Countries and Territories and Outermost Regions, in Favole (2015).
- 6.
Of course, not all of these islands are currently pursuing independence or breaking their European interdependencies. Many of them aim to renegotiate their spaces of sovereignty. See Baldacchino and Milne (2009).
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The latter position is supported by Ichijo (2004).
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This path, which particularly concerns Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, has also taken the name of non-nationalist independentism, a concept that emerged between 2005 and 2008 which still arouses tensions and debates within the varied Catalan pro-independence world. As Muñoz wrote, summing up ERC’s political-conceptual transformations, this is a discourse that, by reducing the essentialist and ethno-national charge and increasing the voluntary and civic one, pursues “the fundamental objective of favouring the incorporation into the Catalan national project of new sectors that have traditionally been excluded from it”, that is the “new Catalans”: the Catalans of Spanish origin who arrived between the 1950s and 1970s as well as the migratory wave from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, which profoundly changed the social framework of Catalonia at the beginning of the new millennium (2010, p. 120).
- 11.
It should be noted that these attacks, precisely because of their form, often tend to treat Europe as an IT, thought of both as a sort of unitary and defined power (a sort of super-state, represented for example by the European Central Bank) or as a unitary power precisely because it is vague (the power of technocrats, bureaucrats etc.). In other cases, behind the reference to Europe there is instead the conflict with other states. Here the idea is that Europe is nothing more than a fictional PT operated by another IU: a classic case is that of the European Union as an instrument of Germany’s interests, for example. On the relationship between IT and IU, see the individuation process below.
- 12.
Few seem to support a position of Europe as a pure IT. With regard to the question of a European constitution, one cannot fail to refer to Habermas (1996) (chap. 6).
- 13.
For a clear distinction between the idea of Europe as a state and as a supranational space, see for example the proposal by Weiler (2000).
- 14.
On the possibility for Kanaky (the future independent New Caledonia) to access the statute of “independent state associated with France”, a hypothesis maintained by part but not all the pro-independence movement, see Leblic and Cugola (2018), pp. 295–297.
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Sedda, F. (2021). National Self-Determination and the Limits of Europe. In: Mangiapane, F., Migliore, T. (eds) Images of Europe. Law and Visual Jurisprudence, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69240-7_9
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