European Union, Sovereigntism, and European Sovereignty. Anacharsis Cloots, an Untimely Thinker of European Integration?

1789 French revolutionaries confronted a political problem whose parameters are reminiscent of the question raised by the European integration process: if a democratic regime undergoes a leap in scale, does this leave its fundamental principles untouched? According to Anacharsis Cloots, a Jacobin of Prussian origin, republicanism is indistinguishable from the absolute sovereignty of the people. And since a people cannot be genuinely sovereign as long as it is divided into multiple political bodies, popular sovereignty must logically be cosmopolitan. Applying Cloots’ lens to the European integration process allows us to highlight, in spite of and thanks to its anachronism, its ambivalent relation to popular sovereignty. It casts a critical glance on two of EU’s most important developments: the sovereigntist condemnation of its supranational political integration and the calls to turn to a “European sovereignty” to cement its achievements.