Dec 21, 2008

What is "national interest"?

Slovenian president Mr. Danilo Türk in an attempt to justify Slovenia in blocking accession negotiations with Croatia due to a territorial dispute recently said that the decision to block was necessary for protection of Slovenian national interest.

Let us read something about national interest:

Second, expression "national interest" is absent from EU legal vocabulary. Try to type expression "national interest" into EUR-LEX search engine.

Or, let us try with a softer definition of "national interest" - public policy. Well, the European Court of Justice, in its standing case law defines it in the following way:

"Reliance by a national authority on the concept of public policy presupposes, in any event, the existence, in addition to the perturbation of the social order which any infringement of the law involves, of a genuine and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society." (see e.g. Case C-50/06, European Court reports 2007 Page I-04383)

Or is it maybe that national interest of any European state, member or candidate, would be better served by setting aside territorial claims and keeping-up to the basic values of the European Union?

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