scholarly journals The European Union as mistake - realizations of European unity

conexus ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 196-211
Author(s):  
Malcolm MacLaren
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Iterative Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
European Unity ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is the latest in a long line of failed attempts at European unity. Motivated by adverse experience, its founders proscribed a political and legal form for ‘Europe’, and their followers have sought to impose order and to effect integration. As predictable as the attempt has been the failure (attested by the frequent, complex, unresolved crises). It is not merely that the circumstances, conditions, and concerns have markedly changed (and continue to change) over time; it is more that ‘Europe’ cannot be successfully subjected to such schemes. Considered constructively, the experience of the EU offers insights into the process of constituting a polity. The first and last is the insight that unification is an iterative process, not an outcome; an ‘ever closer union’ is not an end state (literally or figuratively). These lie partly in the inescapably contextual nature of attempts at unifying Europe, each attempt being contingent on the circumstances etc. prevailing. A common will to order and belief in societal malleability may be present at particular periods among particular European elites (be they driven by functionalism, megalomania, or otherwise). However, determinative is the reality that no such schemes are realizable. The political and legal forms that might be suitable to the challenge of constituting the polity exceed our cognitive grasp. ‘Europe’ is too untidy and too fissiparous to be ruled through deliberation. Invariably, the best-laid plans of European statesmen have gone, and will go, awry. In this essay, I consider the meaning of European unification, not so much according to the normative or empirical details of given attempts, as according to the epistemological magnitude of repeated failures. In the way of conclusion, I will pointedly not propose a way out of the contemporary crises etc. or an own project for European unity.

Subsidiarity as a Subject of Battle in European Union Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees van Kersbergen ◽  
Bertjan Verbeek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

Since the Maastricht Treaty (1993), subsidiarity has guided the political process surrounding the distribution of competences between administrative layers in the European Union (EU). The EU’s subsidiarity regime affects the politics and governance of the EU, because the notion of subsidiarity allows for continuous negotiation over its practical use. The constant battle over subsidiarity implies that the notion changes its meaning over time and alters the power relations between different actors within the EU. Since the Lisbon Treaty (2009), subsidiarity has mainly strengthened the position of member states at the expense of the Commission.

Las funciones del interregionalismo en la relación UE-CAN

Oikos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (29) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Olga María Cerqueira Torres
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Present Article ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Association Agreement ◽  
Political Rationality ◽  
Article Analysis ◽  
Andean Community ◽  
The Eu

RESUMENEn el presente artículo el análisis se ha centrado en determinar cuáles de las funciones del interregionalismo, sistematizadas en los trabajos de Jürgen Rüland, han sido desarrolladas en la relación Unión Europea-Comunidad Andina de Naciones, ya que ello ha permitido evidenciar si el estado del proceso de integración de la CAN ha condicionado la racionalidad política del comportamiento de la Unión Europea hacia la región andina (civil power o soft imperialism); esto posibilitará establecer la viabilidad de la firma del Acuerdo de Asociación Unión Europea-Comunidad Andina de Naciones.Palabras clave: Unión Europea, Comunidad Andina, interregionalismo, funciones, acuerdo de asociación. Interregionalism functions in the EU-ANDEAN community relationsABSTRACTIn the present article analysis has focused on which functions of interregionalism, systematized by Jürgen Rüland, have been developed in the European Union-Andean Community birregional relation, that allowed demonstrate if the state of the integration process in the Andean Community has conditioned the political rationality of the European Union towards the Andean region (civil power or soft imperialism); with all these elements will be possible to establish the viability of the Association Agreement signature between the European Union and the Andean Community.Keywords: European Union, Andean Community, interregionalism, functions, association agreement.

An Ever Further Apart Union? National and European Attachments in the European Union

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Raney
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Political Identification ◽  
The Eu

This paper is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the study traces the pattern of citizens’ political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications. The results of the paper show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The paper argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The paper makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of ‘civic’ identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching ‘civic’ identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe. The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens. These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in the paper is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.179

scholarly journals The EU after Brexit: Key Geopolitical and Geo-Economic Challenges

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr YAKOVLEV
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Commission ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
European Council ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Union History ◽  
The Eu

The decision on Britain’s secession from the European Union, taken by the British Parliament and agreed by London and Brussels, divided the Union history into “before” and “after”. Not only will the remaining member states have to “digest” the political, commercial, economic and mental consequences of parting with one of the largest partners. They will also have to create a substantially new algorithm for the functioning of United Europe. On this path, the EU is confronted with many geopolitical and geo-economic challenges, which should be answered by the new leaders of the European Commission, European Council, and European Parliament.

scholarly journals Electoral and Mechanical Causes of Divided Government in the European Union

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (10) ◽  
pp. 1349-1370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Manow ◽  
Holger Döring
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Mechanical Effect ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
European Elections ◽  
The Eu

Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament (EP) apparently use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party—political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the EU Council. This study shows that opposed majorities between council and parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of more extreme and EU-skeptic parties in the Council, whereas voters in EP elections vote more often for these parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament are therefore caused by two effects: a mechanical effect—relevant for the composition of the Council—when national votes are translated into office and an electoral effect in European elections. The article discusses the implications of this finding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy.

The EU’s Stealthy Hegemony and Ambiguous Neighbors

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (824) ◽  
pp. 112-117
Author(s):  
Alexander Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

European integration based on a supranational form of pooled sovereignty has taken on increasingly state-like qualities. With every move toward absorbing additional members, the European Union system has expanded its geographic reach. The state-like power of the EU is apparent in the impact its integration processes have had in societies just outside its borders. Its growing influence is most notable in misfit border territories, from Kaliningrad to Transnistria, and from Cyprus to Northern Ireland, that are tenuously under the political control of neighboring geopolitical powers.

Neoliberals against Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quinn Slobodian ◽  
Dieter Plehwe
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
European Debt Crisis ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

Since the advent of the European debt crisis in 2009, it has become common to hear descriptions of the European Union as a neoliberal machine hardwired to enforce austerity and to block projects of redistribution or solidarity. Yet by adopting an explanatory framework associating neoliberalism with supranational organizations like the EU, NAFTA, and the WTO against the so-called populism of its right-wing opponents, many observers have painted themselves into a corner. The problems with a straightforward compound of “neoliberal Europe” became starkly evident with the success of the “leave” vote in the Brexit referendum in 2016. If the EU was neoliberal, were those who called to abandon it the opponents of neoliberalism? If the EU is indeed the “neoliberalism express,” then to disembark was by definition a gesture of refusal against neoliberalism. To make sense of the resurgent phenomenon of the far right in European politics, then, our chapter tracks such continuities over time and avoids misleading dichotomies that pit neoliberal globalism—and neoliberal Europeanism—against an atavistic national populism. The closed-borders libertarianism of nationalist neoliberals like the German AfD is not a rejection of globalism but is a variety of it.

Part VI Global Approach of State Aid Law—WTO Law and EU Trade Defence Instruments, 2 Anti-subsidy Law and Practice of the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kreuschitz Viktor ◽  
Nehl Hanns Peter
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global Approach ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Past ◽  
Export Subsidies ◽  
Very High ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

This concluding chapter explores EU's anti-subsidy instruments, which are designed to address subsidization by other WTO members. After a hesitant start, the EU since 1995 has progressively used the AS instrument to act against subsidization by third-country governments. While initially focusing on relatively clear-cut export subsidies, over time the EU has more and more also countervailed domestic subsidy programmes. This is clearest in the AS cases initiated against China during the past five years, where the majority of the countervailed programmes have consisted of domestic subsidies. In this context, it is important to note that the findings of specificity reached by the EU in cases concerning China are largely based on the use of facts available, resulting from the imposition of very high burdens of proof on the Chinese government that domestic subsidies in fact are not specific.

scholarly journals Crisis?: What (Type) of Crisis? The overlapping problems of the European Union

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (50) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Political Process ◽  
European Population ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Eu

It is common today, even in the European media, to treat the current crisis of the European Union almost exclusively as an economic crisis. The present article pretends to show that such a focus is not only wrong but is indeed dangerous for the future development of the European Union as a whole. The article will argue that the present economic crisis simply aggravated – and a lot – a crisis of legitimacy through which the European Union has been passing for some time. Showing that the anti-European tendencies which are spreading throughout the countries of the continent threaten the very future of the European project, the article will make suggestion on reforms for the future development of the EU, alerting to the necessity to finally elaborate once again a coherent argument for the continuation of the European integration process which puts the European population at the heart of the political process instead of just austerity.

Querying Cosmopolis at the Borders of Europe

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 1582-1600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Thomas Kramsch
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
Conceptual Frame ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
Boundary Disputes ◽  
The Eu

Notions of immanence provide the implicit theoretical grammar for much work exploring the political terrain of an active transnational or radically cosmopolitan society in our day. In this paper I attempt to problematize such a gesture in the recent ‘turn to cosmopolis’, arguing that its conceptual frame fails to specify adequately the geohistorical preconditions for a politics capable of mediating between nationalizing and cosmopolitanizing tendencies at work in a globalizing world. For the case of Europe, I argue such a legacy may be more productively located in the ‘border work’ of mid-20th-century anti-imperialism and decolonization, whose struggles to redefine the postcolonial couplet of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ haunt current attempts by the European Union to craft a more inclusive and cosmopolitan transboundary future. I explore how such governmentalizing phantasms specifically inform attempts to create viable cross-border regions ( euregios) within the EU, and continue to gnaw at attempts to negotiate boundary disputes at the outer limits of the continent. In conclusion, a cautious rite of exorcism is ventured by engaging with the elusive anti-imperial cosmopolitanism of Frantz Fanon.

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