An awful lot of international relations scholarship is devoted to the European Union, in part because it doesn't look like any other actor in world politics. Is it simply an international organization run by the powerful member states (Germany, France, the U.K.) or is it a genuinely supranational authority with preferences and resources of its own? The IR community remains split on this issue (click here for the "EU is only an international organization" thesis, and here for the "EU is a supranational authority" argument).

However, even die-hard realists had to acknowledge that, with the Euro and the establishment of the Maastricht criteria of fiscal and monetary constraints designed to keep Euro as a viable currency, something different was taking place in Europe. Parallels to antebellum America have been made repeatedly.

I raise all of this because 2004 could provide a crucial test of the EU's internal cohesion, according to the Financial Times:

The European Commission has warned Germany that it could face the imposition of radical restrictions on its domestic fiscal policymaking as early as the beginning of next year if it looks set to exceed the stability pact's deficit limit in 2004.

"If Germany breaches the stability pact's 3 per cent ceiling next year, we will present Ecofin with a new recommendation. It is our duty", said Pedro Solbes, the European Unions's monetary affairs commissioner in an interview with FT Deutschland....

Gerhard Schröder, German chancellor, hinted - in an interview with the FT last month - that a breach of the stability pact for a third year running in 2004 is not ruled out....

If Germany breaches the pact in 2004, EU rules demand that Brussels impose the stability pact's highest political sanction: Ecofin, the council of EU finance ministers, would have the right to impose fiscally binding sanctions against Germany.

Germany is not the only country to face this problem -- France also appears to be in violation of EU rules on this score.

If the European Commission and EcoFin can actually manage to force Germany and France into austerity programs with the threat of fiscal sanctions, then the supranational argument wins the day. If not -- my strong suspicion -- it doesn't completely vitiate the supranational argument, but it comes damn close.

Developing....