The Ascent of Autonomous Nations

The Ascent of Autonomous Nations is a joint effort by Centre Maurits Coppieters and the Welsh Nationalism Foundation to analyse Consociationalism and power-share at a European level.

The study is conducted by Matthew Dumford – researcher of Plaid Cymru – who aims to explore the current state of European democracy in relation to the on-going demands for independence from several sub-state governments within the EU. The research focuses on the three principal law making institutions of the EU, namely the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of the EU, and explores whether the current constitutional arrangements of these institutions incentivises independence for non-full members of the EU.

The report tries to resolve whether sub-state governments representing historic nations, such as Scotland and the Basque Country, suffer from a poor level of representation in the EU compared to comparable full members and ask whether their populations would be better democratically represented with full membership of the EU.

There are two alternative versions available in Galician, translated by our partners Fundación Galicia Sempre and in Welsh.

First release 20/07/2012