SupranationalThe European Union of today has been described as an intergovernmental organization by some scholars and a supranational organization by others. But which one is it in reality? The answer to this question is very trivial. There are many different aspects of the EU in which we first must look at. The different branches of the European Union contain these aspects. These branches include the Commission, the Parliament, the Councils and the European Court of Justice. An Intergovernmental organization is one where the member states cooperate without giving up the ultimate right to make their own decisions. A Supra-national organization is one where the ultimate right to make decisions lie with the common institutions and national governments only have the right to maneuver within the framework of policy decided at the collective level (Gallagher 125).The enforcement of European Union decisions in each member state reflects the status of the polity of the EU. At the moment none of the member states of the EU enforce all of the decisions made by EU legislation. If the member state does decide to implement the decisions they may sometimes do it in a timely manner. This scenario implies that the European Union is somewhat of an Intergovernmental organization. The European Union can only fully become a supra-national organization if all of the member states let their guard down and agree to comply with all decisions and policies of the European Union. Martin Shapiro wrote, “Implementation, as we all know, is in the hands of the administrations of Member States… Everyone knows it would be a miracle if all Member State administrations were implementing most EU regulations, let alone directives in the same way” (125). “No member nation has shown any inclination in specific terms to abandon its sovereignty ”. The ultimate concern of the Member States, in regard to becoming a total supra-national body, is t...
