Crises In European Integration

While the major trends in European integration have been well researched and constitute key elements of narratives about its value and purpose, the crises of integration and their effects have not yet attracted sufficient attention. This volume, with original contributions by leading German scholars, suggests that crises of integration should be seen as engines of progress throughout the history of European integration rather than as expressions of failure and regression, a widely held assumption. It therefore throws new light on the current crises in European integration and provides a fascinating panorama of how challenges and responses were guiding the process during its first five decades.

This new book provides a comprehensive analysis of Europe on the brink of political disintegration. Observers of the European Union (EU) could be forgiven for thinking that it is in a state of permanent crisis. The Union has been beset with high levels of Eurozone debt, Russian intervention and armed conflict in Ukraine, refugees fleeing conflict zones in North Africa and the Middle East, and the decision of Britain to leave the European Union. This text offers a concise and readable assessment of the dynamics, character and consequences of these four crises and the increasingly real possibility of European disintegration. High levels of socio-economic interdependence and institutionalization have failed to result in an ever closer union, and yet the proposed theories of disintegration also fall short. Webber instead shows that it is only by looking at the role of the EU's dominant member, Germany, in each crisis that the potential for an increasingly fragmented Europe becomes clear. Until now, Germany has been the EU's stabilizing force but this is no longer guaranteed. The fate of the integration process will depend on whether other, more inclusive forms of stabilizing leadership may emerge to fill the vacuum created by Berlin's incapacity. This text is the ideal companion for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of the European Union, as part of degrees in politics, international relations or European studies, or for anyone interested in the crises of the European Union.

The European Union (EU) is in crisis. The crisis extends beyond Brexit, the fluctuating fortunes of the eurozone and the challenge of mass migration. It cuts to the core of the EU itself. Trust is eroding; power is shifting; politics are toxic; disillusionment is widespread; and solidarity has frayed. In this major new text leading academics come together to unpack all dimensions of the EU in crisis, and to analyse its implications for the EU, its member states and the ongoing study of European integration.

This book gives a complex description and discussion of today’s populist attacks against the European Union (EU) following the financial crisis of 2008, which opened the floodgates of dissatisfaction, and the migration crisis which destabilized the traditional solidarity basis of the EU. The problem of Brexit is also explored. Each chapter presents one of the main elements of the crisis of the EU. These include West European populism, Central European right-wing populism in power, and the exploitation of the EU’s mistake during the migration crisis of the mid-2010s. These also include the discovery of Christian ideology against immigration and hidden anti-Semitic propaganda using a hysterical attack against the liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and Brexit. There is a detailed discussion of the failures of the EU to pacify the neighbourhood in the South and North, especially in Ukraine, and the rising hostile outside enemies of the EU, including Russia and Turkey, bad relationships with Trump’s America, the uncertainty of NATO, and the emergence of a new rival, China, that enters into the Central European edge of the EU. The author explores strategies for coping with, and emerging from, this existential crisis and ends with the alternative plans and possibilities for the future of the eurozone. This will be an invaluable resource for understanding the crisis of the EU, one of the central questions of contemporary international politics for undergraduate and graduate students, and readers interested in the discussion surrounding an endangered European integration and difficult world politics.

This new book provides a comprehensive analysis of Europe on the brink of political disintegration. Observers of the European Union (EU) could be forgiven for thinking that it is in a state of permanent crisis. The Union has been beset with high levels of Eurozone debt, Russian intervention and armed conflict in Ukraine, refugees fleeing conflict zones in North Africa and the Middle East, and the decision of Britain to leave the European Union. This text offers a concise and readable assessment of the dynamics, character and consequences of these four crises and the increasingly real possibility of European disintegration. High levels of socio-economic interdependence and institutionalization have failed to result in an ever closer union, and yet the proposed theories of disintegration also fall short. Webber instead shows that it is only by looking at the role of the EU's dominant member, Germany, in each crisis that the potential for an increasingly fragmented Europe becomes clear. Until now, Germany has been the EU's stabilizing force but this is no longer guaranteed. The fate of the integration process will depend on whether other, more inclusive forms of stabilizing leadership may emerge to fill the vacuum created by Berlin's incapacity. This text is the ideal companion for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of the European Union, as part of degrees in politics, international relations or European studies, or for anyone interested in the crises of the European Union.

European integration is not a priori positive or negative: it results from the interaction between various interests. During the past few years, however, it has been impossible to ignore increasingly strident claims that the European Union is in the midst of a crisis. According to this perspective, European institutions do not function well, democracy in the Union is flawed, eurozone problems have reached a critical point, and inward migration, which European institutions seem incapable of handling, is escalating. This book demonstrates that public choice theory can be a suitable analytical tool to examine the European integration process. It is based on the assumption that consumers, politicians and even nations are similarly concerned with their own interests (economic, political, and so on). Public choice theory enables us to ‘de-idealize’ the European integration process and see the interests of individual actors in the process more realistically. European integration does not occur because the actors are altruistic; rather, it comes about due to their rational pursuit of individual or group self-interests. European integration and other forms of globalization are not irreversible. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It remains a possibility that, after several decades of European integration, we are now entering an era of disintegration. This book will serve as a source of edification for academics, politicians, students, and experts, as well as the general public. It is designed to capture the interest of both graduate and postgraduate students of economics, political science and international relations.

An original new textbook providing an up-to-date, critical perspective of how the EU works, and what issues it faces, in the post-crisis era.

This book elucidates the link between the politics of a now seemingly permanent crisis in Europe and the politicisation of European integration. Looking at the epistemic dimension of crises, it suggests that the way in which a crisis is framed and contested determines its potential impact on the level of politicisation of European integration. Europe is more challenged and contested today than it has even been, facing crisis of an almost existential kind. Yet, political crises are manufactured and narrated, so Europe has the possibility to intervene and ‘bring about her recovery’, instead of letting these crises prove terminal. This book explores the political process in and through which certain events come to be framed as constitutive of a moment that requires a decisive intervention. It shows that crises require a double framing: a situation needs to be identified as one of crisis in the first place and, subsequently, the nature and character of the crisis need to be specified. By examining a wide range of policy areas, the book demonstrates that framing of crises, i.e., identifying one situation both as a crisis and a crisis of a particular kind, contributes to the politicisation (or depoliticisation) of the process of European integration. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issue of Journal of European Integration.