The main purpose of the article is to examine why there is no paradox between the development of multilevel governance structures in the context of European integration and the maintenance of the sovereign state as the source of representation and loyalty. Accepting that the cession of constitutional independence, the changing of sovereign equality and the challenge to economic autonomy have not occurred in an homogeneous way, I intend to explain the differences among those processes of sharing of EU members' sovereignty.
Sovereignty; European Union; identity