One heavily-debated issue is whether the EU can be described as a country or not. This is already apparent from ‘country’ collocating with ‘eu’ at a t-score of 7.6 (rank 29 in the collocation list of ‘eu’).27 Exploring the concordance lines of ‘country’ and ‘eu’ more
closely shows that 53 of 61 lines actually refer to the debate whether the EU is a country or not (see Table 6).
In this context it is also important to point out that merely citing the number of concordance lines distorts the picture of prominence of occurrence to a degree. This is because two or more lines can be part of one single posting, e.g. lines 56 and 37 in Table 6: “If it were a country the EU would come first in GDP. It is true that The EU is not a country” [italics added]. Thus, it is worth noting that the given 53 lines are actually part of 42 postings.
Table 6 Concordance lines of ‘eu’ and ‘country’
1 e in a number of ways doesn’t make the EU a country. As you rightly observe elsewhe 2 ” This is NOT a relaunch of the “is the EU a country or an organisation?” debate. I’m 3 ntioned anyway. Anyhow, I believe the EU (a semi-country. Not a standard ‘organisa 4 o understand the difference between the EU and a sovereign country. The European U 5 er do not associate themselves with the country and nation of the EU anywhere near as 6 pts to treat it as if this were a standard country article. The EU doesn’t have a culture 7 end article II A BBC poll including the EU as a ‘country’ entity among others. Note th 8 It also says they have a page about the EU because it is country like in some respects. 9 etimes coherent ravings concerning the EU being a country (and the bestest one evar!).
27 The plural ‘countries’ takes rank 47 in the collocation list – the co-occurrences of ‘eu’ and ‘countries’
show that such uses refer to specific (non-)member countries, e.g. “Twenty-one EU countries are members […]”.
10 ystem which has the same effect. In the EU case, if a country really doesn’t like the ru 11 ost editors for this article are from an EU country, and so have been exposed to the t 12 ountries and several institutions. If one EU country held control of it, then it would be 13 2008 (UTC) So how can you define a country?EU if you look at all things is a CO 14 ion blows up the infobox unnecessarily. EU has country like characteristics; read the ar 15 the argument about the inclusion of the EU in some country lists, please just say so. [a 16 our attention Once again the argument EU is not a country is used to make a case aga 17 nt central government. The idea that the EU is a ‘country’ would horrify most Europea 18 ies. Finally, no-one is implying that the EU is a “country”. By ranking the EU as an a 19 ulation? All of this acting as though the EU is a country is very debatable. What counts 20 hat discussion does it conclude that the EU is a country. If you’re trying to reopen the 21 the article regarding whether or not the EU is a country or not. [anonymised] (talk) 22 ny semi-intelligent person can claim the EU is a country. But it clearly isn’t, perhaps w 23 to do with the question of whether the EU is a country or not. I made reference to the 24 this is not the same as declaring the EU is a country or nation-state. But again, my 25 nuinely not bothered if people think the EU is a country, nation or neither and I’m not t 26 07 (UTC) Sorry [anonymised] but the EU is not a country so it does not and should n 27 s would help reinforce the point that the EU is not (yet) a country in it’s own right. G 28 king. Perhaps we need to stress that the EU is not a country, does not have its own ec 29 rs are ok, but ranking is nonsense as the EU is not a country and this would introduce a 30 ) 20:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC) The EU is not a country, nor does it have a unified 31 l leave you with a final message. THE EU IS NOT A COUNTRY, IT IS AN ORG 32 e same. Military is a national thing, the EU is not a country, hence we can, and should, 33 ) 22:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC) The EU is not a country. Full stop. [anonymised] (t 34 talk) 00:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC) The EU is not a country and this article should def 35 much detail for the lede. Also since the EU is not a country the history really does not 36 versies concern of many countries” The EU is NOT a country. So it would need additi 37 come first in GDP. It is true that The EU is not a country and therefore a “sui gener 38 Surprisingly, that may be because the EU *is* “somehow almost” a country, but I ca 39 talk (en-2) 11:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC) EU is not a country: True it is not described as 40 nymised] 14:49, 26 April 2014 (UTC) EU is not country but it does not matter. Abso 41 tional government, but as things are the EU isn’t a country in the sense that its member 42 ting case by over-statement. While the EU isn’t a country, it does have a tendency to 43 ial about stating the simple fact that the EU isn’t a country. As for “recognised”, that w 44 discussed before. GDP is determined at country level. The EU is not a country, hence i 45 hengen area is a good idea, as these are country-like elements of the EU, which clarifi 46 to do the EUs job for it by making the EU look like a country. Instead concentrate on 47 tative. The only ones who are “forcing” EU membership are the country’s own politic 48 lk) 21:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC) I see the EU more like a country. It’s definitely not an 49 nd edit of yours: correct / support! The EU must use some country like formats to iden 50 d larger. However, in the world the only EU operate almost as a country – despite the fa
51 reign”, confederation is not synonym of country or sovereignty. Second: “ALL EU me 52 Russia, Brazil, Japan or any other major country outside the EU have its supreme court 53 erning bodies do not qualify as that of a country. So no, the EU lacks democratically ch 54 e level of a country (not even a federal country), so no the EU does not have these ins 55 e EU is not anything like a nation or a country. Stop pretending the EU is something i 56 o change or delete this part: If it were a country the EU would come first in GDP. It is 57 re vast areas or countries ruled by one country. The EU is a vast area run by 27 count 58 nonymised] 22:05, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC) Country? The EU is not a country in that sove 59 e common currency and open borders. EU this is not country, but this is (sure) confe 60 ould seem more appropriate to say the EU was a country, rather than an economic a 61 and specifically because they think the EU will become a country. We do not crystal b
The Wikipedia community is aware that the question ‘EU – country or not?’ has been a contentious aspect throughout the article’s development – of the 42 individual postings that deal with country/not, there are several references to it merely as a topic of discussion, i.e. as metadiscursive comment: e.g. concordance line two: “[t]his is NOT a relaunch of the ‘is the EU a country or an organisation?’ debate” and concordance line 16 “[o]nce again the argument EU is not a country is used”. In the former example, the contributor mentions ‘relaunch’, which indicates that the issue had been discussed before – a discussion this Wikipedian apparently does not wish to revisit. Line 16 is a one-turn thread where a Wikipedian gives a hyperlink to a similar discussion that took place on another Wikipedia site. On the whole, there are 37 individual postings to 44 lines that either support or reject the conception of the EU as country.28
Table 7 Supporting/rejecting ‘EU as country’
28 There might be more postings doing so, however, these 37 each contain co-occurrences of ‘eu’ and
‘country’, i.e. were found in the course of my corpus-assisted investigation.
29 cl = concordance line(s)
30 Posters sometimes draw on different strategies simultaneously, i.e. there are two postings referring to
sovereignty that also speculate about the future.
28 rejection postings/35cl - unsupported rejections 14 postings/15cl29 - based on sovereignty 7 postings/10cl - based on lack of unity 3 postings/3cl - not country, but: Wikipedia
country formatting might work - future speculation
2 postings/2cl
2 (+2 postings)/5cl30 9 support postings/9cl - strong support 1 posting/cl
The EU is not a country
Evidence suggests that the counter-country view is the dominant conception of the EU in this data set. One piece of evidence that supports this is the sheer number of statements to that effect. Altogether, 28 of 37 individual postings reject ‘eu as country’. This constitutes a 75 per cent rejection rate.
The examination of the data via argumentation analysis supports this finding – Wikipedians do not support their view in 14 of the counter-country postings, which might indicate that they do not see the need to defend this view or make a convincing case for it. In the context of these unsupported counter-country statements, Wikipedians pursue two strategies. On the one hand, they present ‘EU is not a country’ as a claim without any supporting data. That is, the editors do not give information that aims to convince interlocutors, e.g. “The EU is not a country. Full stop”. This example is particularly illustrative since the poster even emphasises that they do not support to their claim by adding a spelled out version of sentence final punctuation ‘full stop’. Alternatively, Wikipedians do not present their view as the claim of an argument but use the idea ‘EU = not country’ as ground/data to support other claims. To give an example: “the EU is not a country so it does not and should not follow the normal country style guide”31 – the claim
is: ‘article should not follow country style article’ the unstated warrant: ‘following this style guide (wrongfully) implies the EU is a country’ and the ground/data: ‘the EU is not a country’. Drawing on ‘EU = not country’ as the data of an argument evokes the impression that the case for ‘EU = not country’ does not need to be made anymore. Rather, the Wikipedians’ behaviour presumes that this view ought to be understood as a given and can already serve as the basis to argue for connected issues.
The remaining counter-country statements (see Table 7) provide an understanding of why ‘EU as country’ is rejected, that is, Wikipedians give reasons for their rejections. In this context, seven postings cite sovereignty of the EU versus the sovereignty of the member states. An example to illustrate this point is the posting containing concordance line four: “[anonymised] doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the EU and a sovereign country. The European UNION is a collection of separate, sovereign nations”. Here the editor highlights the “difference between” EU and a country by use of “sovereign” – according to this editor the difference between country and EU is that the former concept
describes a sovereign entity.32 This posting also incorporates line 31: “note the words
independent, sovereign countries. Im not sure how to explain it any simpler than that. But i will leave you with a final message. THE EU IS NOT A COUNTRY”. Here, the Wikipedian again highlights “independent, sovereign” country and then proceeds to negate ‘EU as country’ in capitals letters, i.e. rather forcefully.
Argumentation analysis also allows a more detailed understanding of how sovereignty is used in the following 2004 posting (a posting that incorporates lines 17 and 58):
The EU is not a country in that sovereignty ultimatly lies with the member states, who can leave the union at any time. […] The idea that the EU is a ‘country’ would horrify most Europeans!
The structure of the argument is: data: member countries can leave and sovereignty “lies with” them warrant: since sovereignty (and the ability to “leave”) are defining characteristics of a country claim: EU is not a country i.e. not a sovereign. Thus, apart from representing the EU as a non-sovereign entity, this posting sheds light on how EU members are envisioned in relation to the EU: the members’ retention of sovereignty eliminates all possibility that the EU is a sovereign entity, i.e. a country. That is, an either/or situation is constructed where ‘members = sovereign’ means ‘EU = not country’. The inversion of this argument is also thinkable ‘EU = country’ would mean that ‘members = not sovereign’. Another interesting point is that the data of the argument are at least partially incorrect – at the time of posting there was no formalised way for an EU member to leave the EU since the Lisbon Treaty, which stipulates exit procedures, came into force only in 2009 (see 1.2).
Connected to this, the posting also exemplifies that the Wikipedia community does not wish the EU to attain a status of sovereignty – the editor states that the notion that the EU was a country would horrify ‘Europeans’ and emphasises this by use of an exclamation mark. Social actor representation is also notable here. First, the reference to ‘Europeans’ serves to hide that it might be the poster’s emotional reaction that is mentioned here since the poster definitely cannot speak for “most Europeans”. Reference to Europeans also serves to strengthen the argument against not defining the EU as country since allegedly even a part of the EU in-group – Europeans – does not appreciate the idea. Moreover, the
32 Wikipedians understand ‘country’ as synonymous with ‘sovereign entity’ – this is supported by
numerous attempts to define ‘country’ throughout the TP discussion: “usually defined by sovereignty”, “Countries are defined by a set of powers”, etc.
vagueness of the passivated genericised ‘most Europeans’ makes the claim of this group having such an emotional reaction almost impossible to contest since the group cannot be clearly defined and then questioned for opinions. It is also noteworthy that the alleged negative response of ‘most Europeans’ to the idea of EU as country follows the claim ‘EU = not country’ based on the idea ‘EU members are sovereign (and not the EU)’ with the implied reversal of the argument: ‘the EU as country would mean loss of members’ sovereignty’. Thus, the poster implies that a loss of sovereignty on the level of the EU members would “horrify most Europeans”.
Argumentation analysis also aids in making sense of threepostings containing three lines that reject ‘EU as country’ on the basis of the degree of unification and integration in the European Union (see Table 7). To give an example:
The US is an ethnically and culturally diverse place, but it undoubtedly has a common legal and political culture, which wouldn’t be possible without a cohesive wider culture. We can’t say that of the EU […] as things are the EU isn’t a country in the sense that its members and the US are. […] The EU doesn’t have a culture in the sense that a country has.
The given passage presents a comparison argumentation (Garssen, 2001, p. 92) – the poster presents their view of the US as factual and then proceeds to negate a similar state of being for the EU. They argue that the EU is not a country based on the diversity of cultures/lack of united culture within the Union. A similar negated comparison is used in: European citizens “do not associate themselves with the country and nation of the EU anywhere near as strongly as your Chinese American would to the US”. This indicates that Wikipedians view the EU as a diverse entity without cohesion in the sense of one overarching “culture”, in particular concerning legal and political frameworks – it is considered more diverse than the US and too diverse to be a country.
Two of the 28 statements that reject ‘EU as country’ contain speculations about the EU’s future and/or about the EU’s motivations and another two postings that reject ‘EU as country’ on the basis of sovereignty also speculate about the EU’s future. Drawing on aspects of argumentation analysis and social actor representation aids in unpacking these occurrences. For instance, “the CIA […] think the EU will become a country. We do not crystal ball gaze in this way”. This editor ascribes the belief that the EU is moving towards becoming a country to a respected outside agency and, thereby makes this view more credible (argumentum ad verecundiam) but then also separates the Wikipedia community from this source by using ‘we’ as in-group marker in reference to Wikipedians – the poster
posits that ‘we’ do not engage in such speculation by drawing on the metaphor of a fortune teller’s crystal ball.
Lines one and 42 are part of a posting that touches upon aspects of sovereignty as well as containing speculation about the future. These lines even go beyond future speculation but ascribe a particular teleology – a goal-orientation – to the European Union. The poster rejects ‘EU as country’ as follows:
decision by some or all member states to cooperate in a number of ways doesn’t make the EU a country […] the member states are the ‘masters of the treaty’. […] while theEU isn’t a country, it does have a tendency to attempt to acquire more country-like attributes, and that might or might not eventually lead to its transformation into a country [comm.: ‘treaty’ is a reference to the treaties that formed the EU]
In terms of social actor representation, the poster already emphasises member states’ position of power/authority by activating them as decision-makers in terms of increasing cooperation. The subsequent use of ‘masters’ further evokes the idea of the EU member states as having dominance, power and authority over the treaty(ies) that form the EU and, by proxy, the EU itself. This is followed by the EU as actor who ‘attempts to acquire X’ – the use of the verb ‘attempt’ ascribes the EU with goal-orientation and the goal is the