Federalism Unification And European Integration

This is an assessment of how an established, federal constitutional framework can adapt to meet the challenge posed by the achievement of German unity and the deepening of european Unity.

Understanding Germany's federal structure is crucial to understanding contemporary Germany. The federal system shaped the way German unification was carried out, it shapes the way in which policies are made, and it plays a role in determining the way in which Germany presents its priorities in the EU. The first part of the book analyzes the nature of pre-unification West German federalism and the unique challenge posed for the federal system by unification. Part 2 takes stock of key issues in the operation of post-unification federalism, including the policy process, the role of parties in federalism, conflicts of interest over financial allocations, and the impact of deepening European integration. The final part offers a series of critical perspectives which address the long-term legacies of unification and increasing pressures for reform.

The hidden federal features of the European Union help explain the challenges of legitimacy, democracy and freedom that face an unfinished political community. Ideas about federalism and the reality of existing federal states cannot be sharply divided in an analysis of the EU’s multilevel political order, but so far, both scholars and major decision makers have shown interest only in the normal functioning of federal systems: ignoring the dilemma of the federation’s legitimate authority has resulted in an existential crisis for the EU which has become ever more manifest over recent years. This book employs a combination of political philosophy and political science, of federal philosophic ideas and their traces in real federal institutions, in order to achieve the task of understanding the federal features of the EU governance system. The first part of the work focuses on building an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the new meanings attached to familiar notions of democracy, legitimacy and citizenship in the context of a political community like the EU. In the second part the federal features of the EU’s political system are examined in comparison to other current and historical federal perspectives like the US, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Germany. Through an analysis of the hidden federal aspects of the EU and the links between hidden federalism and the EU’s legitimacy crisis, this book reveals the patterns that should be avoided and gives us guidelines that should be followed if the EU is to become democratic and politically united without jeopardising the state character of its members.

The book tackles a key issue for the European Union: Fiscal Federalism. It evaluates the applicability of this theoretical perspective for the EU. Conversely, it pinpoints ways in which the diversity of existing fiscal settings and organisations, both at national and European levels, can throw light on the theory. The study analyses two of the most important European policies: Cohesion Policy and the Stability and Growth Pact. It compares the episode of German Unification to the 2004 European Enlargement. It pioneers a cross-country analysis of the various national fiscal settings. Finally, it highlights the close links between the dynamics of decision-making related to the main budgetary choices and the integration process. The questions raised are crucial in the current context of economic and institutional uncertainty: How should we apprehend the Cohesion Policy, the main expression of European solidarity? How can the coordination of national fiscal policies be improved? How are European countries and their regions organised in fiscal and budgetary terms? What lessons can the EU draw from its own fiscal past and from that of its Member States? Over and above the originality of the answers provided by the authors, the book suggests that it would be difficult to take the integration process further without first clarifying what Europe can, should or wants to do.

This book explores the effects of Germany's unification in 1990 on its policies toward the European Union.

A revisionist interpretation of the post-war evolution of European integration and the European Union (EU), this book reappraises and reassesses conventional explanations of European integration. It adopts a federalist approach which supplements state-based arguments with federal political ideas, influences and strategies. By exploring the philosophical and historical origins of federal ideas and tracing their influence throughout the whole of the EU's evolution, the book makes a significant contribution to the scholarly debate about the nature and development of the EU. The book looks at federal ideas stretching back to the sixteenth century and demonstrates their fundamental continuity to contemporary European integration. It situates these ideas in the broad context of post-war western Europe and underlines their practical relevance in the activities of Jean Monnet and Altiero Spinelli. Post-war empirical developments are explored from a federalist perspective, revealing an enduring persistence of federal ideas which have been either ignored or overlooked in conventional interpretations. The book challenges traditional conceptions of the post-war and contemporary evolution of the EU, to reassert and reinstate federalism in theory and practice at the very core of European integration.

The constitutional and institutional development of the European Union, and federalism in particular, are widely and intensively debated. The issue of federalism has proved to be divisive and misunderstood. This book provides a critical reappraisal of the political, economic, and socio-cultural potential of current federal political-institutional arrangements. It includes both an analysis of their necessary preconditions as well as an evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages compared with other forms of state organization. The authors examine the issue at the level of the Union, the member states, and the states of Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting the increasing interdependence and interplay of these three levels: nation states in all parts of Europe influencing one another and the Union, and being influenced by it. The book concludes with an overall assessment of the federalizing processes at work in Europe, both at the Union and the nation state level, and points out the problems, paradoxes, and likely outcomes of these processes.

The European Union is facing today the greatest crisis since its creation. Brexit could mean not only the reversal of its steady enlargement—from 6 to 28 member states—but also the beginning of an inexorable decline leading to its disintegration. However, few today seem to recollect that it was precisely the British who were the first to promulgate the political culture which inspired the European Union’s construction—democracy and federalism—and the first who tried to realise, in June 1940, a European federation on the basis of an Anglo-French union. This volume traces the fundamental stages of the European unification process, placing it in relation to the wider process of world economic and political integration. In particular, it analyses the historical significance of the European Revolution, which is identified in the overcoming of the nation state—namely the modern political formula which institutionalised the political division of mankind—and the birth of the first truly international state. The universal historical significance of the European Revolution lies in its exportability—as for the other great European revolutions—and, therefore, its potential as progressively extensible to all the states of the planet. Europe was indeed the first region of the world where the barriers between national states fell, and a post-national political identity emerged, complementary to national political identities. It is, in fact, in the context of the European Union that democracy beyond the borders of the nation state has first been realized, constituting a guiding principle for global governance.