Subsidiarity as an Archetype of the European Community

Abstract

The principle of subsidiarity is considered not only as an institutional or legal norm that has become widespread within the EU, but also as a certain archetype, the origins of which come from the Catholic social doctrine and extend to modern ethics and philosophy of government. It is emphasized that today we can observe some substitution of the content of this principle, a one-sided consideration of the nature of its impact on public life of the European Community, while ignoring a number of fundamental issues concerning the transfer of power, not just the form of its implementation within the Maastricht Treaties. Social contradictions that arise when trying to apply this principle in practice to less economically developed EU member states are also left out. It is proved that the issue of decentralization of public power in Ukraine is, first of all, a problem of rational distribution of functions and powers, building an effective management model which takes into account historical, economic, political, demographic, social and other aspects of Ukrainian society. We must first carefully analyze which powers the state should retain, which powers can be given to territorial communities, and which powers should be kept at the level of the principle of subsidiarity. And only later, the created model of management may be shared with experts in the field of law for having it legally fixed. There are seven main ethical aspects of this principle: the establishment of social boundaries; combination of centralization and decentralization; anthropological position of the man; deontic modes; orientation of social assistance; priority rules; moral and legal context.