Introduction

The previous chapter provided some of the groundwork for constructing a plausible account of justice for the EU. Parameters were set so as to think more carefully about the way in which values, law, and justice might coalesce in the institution of the Union.

But there is one more assumption that I should introduce. In truth, it has been largely present, albeit unspoken, throughout this book. It is that the EU will not become a state in the foreseeable future. Politically, such a transformation has too many opponents and too few powerful advocates to be considered feasible. And culturally, there is insufficient cause to believe that the peoples of Europe are forming significant ties that would lead to acceptance of the ‘monopoly of violence’ becoming concentrated in some European state. Despite some sociological work claiming a ‘European society’ is emerging, at present the forces against any form of federation being constructed are far too strong. There is little point, therefore, in looking to such a transformation to provide the impetus for redesigning the EU as a more just institution.

Given this, and my other nine assumptions, what reasonable ambitions can be entertained for an account of justice to take hold within the EU's institutional ethos? If the issue were forced, I suppose at the very least, consensus might be achieved around the proposition that the institutions of the EU, whether acting autonomously or by the manipulation of states (or indeed any other entity), should do no ‘harm’.