Continental Europe is home to four microstates with populations between 30,000 and 80,000: Andorraon the border between France and Spain; Liechtensteinnestled between Switzerland and Austria; Monacolocated on the French Riviera; and San Marinosurrounded by northern Italy.
These States have existed since medieval times and their small size has allowed them to develop and maintain unique constitutional provisions. All of them have developed original solutions to the problems of state architecture, many of which survive today.
The four microstates participate in the Council of Europe (the European human rights organization) and have therefore had to modernize to meet international governance standards.
This includes the independence of the judiciary. However, the four have carried out these reforms without altering their institutional identity. Its commitment to preserving its distinctive character from other countries prevents a broader reform of its institutions.
For them, The protection of national tradition and identity is a form of self-preservation rather than a mere expression of ideology.
The distinctive character of the four microstates lies in the survival of institutional arrangements that are no longer found practically anywhere else in the world.
In the principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco, for example, The monarchy continues to play a central role in the Constitution. Unlike most European states with a monarchy, in Liechtenstein and Monaco the royal head of state continues to exercise significant power.
Andorra and San MarinoFor their part, they operate with a double head of state. In fact, they have two monarchs.
The institutional arrangements of these principalities have been conditioned by their tiny size, both in terms of territory and population, and by their geographical location.
And these provisions have survived since the Middle Ages because they have become their identity. While In other nations, national tradition is an ideological debate; in these, preserving the past is a survival mechanism..
Liechtenstein and Monaco They are constitutional monarchies that offer substantial power to the royal family. Everything is organized around a prince, who exercises executive power.
Contemporary monarchies in the Western legal tradition typically have a ceremonial king or queen, but executive power is exercised by an elected government. Liechtenstein and Monaco They have maintained their historical organization of government, centered on a very powerful monarch.
Although his powers are not unlimited, in Monaco the prince is not even responsible to Parliament for the powers he holds. The prince of Liechtenstein enjoys even more powersincluding the right to appoint half of the members of the Constitutional Court.
However, the sovereign power of the Prince of Liechtenstein is exercised in partnership with the people of Liechtenstein. The institutional architecture is designed to allow a system of checks and balances between the prince and the people.
Since a 2003 constitutional amendment, for example, The people can present a motion of censure against the prince if more than 1,500 citizens agree to do sowhich triggers a referendum of confidence in him. The same number of citizens can present an initiative to completely abolish the monarchy, if they so choose.
The Principality of Andorra should rather be called a co-principalitydue to his regime of co-princes. One of the princes is the bishop of Urgell – of Catalonia – and the other is the president of the French Republic (and previously the king or emperor of France). Another Andorran peculiarity is that neither of the two princes has Andorran nationality.
After a 1993 reform that established a full-fledged constitution, neither of the two princes holds sovereign power. Its current constitutional role is almost exclusively ceremonial.
However, the fact that they are not nationals of the State and that the heads of State are not elected by the Andorran people or their representatives remains a concern.
The historical reason for a foreign head of state is the geographical location of Andorra, sandwiched between Catalonia and France. Allowing this double sovereignty was a guarantee of survival. San Marino also has a two-headed state, but both leaders, called Captains Regent, are nationals of Sammarina.
They are elected by the Great and General Council (the Sammarinese legislative body) and their distinctive feature is that they only serve a six-month mandate. The reason for such a short mandate is that San Marino has a population of just under 34,000. Everyone knows each other, which can be detrimental to the independence of elected officials.
The Captains Regent fail to shore up power enough in their brief mandate to be able to overthrow the republic. The Captains Regent were first established in 1243, shortly before several Italian republics were overthrown by wealthy families..
One of the reasons San Marino has been able to survive is having prevented one family from being more powerful than the others for centuries. Microstates are, therefore, not like normal-sized European states. They have distinctive institutional architectures, and often for understandable reasons..
Article originally published in The Conversation
