11. Conclusion

The EU is extraordinary, complex and—in important respects—unique. This concluding chapter revisits three key themes that guide understanding of the EU: experimentation and change; power sharing and consensus; and scope and capacity. It also returns to the question: how can we best explain the EU and how it works? The chapter reviews leading theoretical approaches and identifies what each approach claims is most important to explain about the EU, and why. Finally, the chapter confronts the question: ‘Where do we go from here’? Does knowing how the EU works give us clues about how it might work in the future?

8. EU Enlargement and Wider Europe

The EU has expanded many times and many countries still aspire to join. It has extended the prospect of membership to countries in the Balkans and Turkey and has developed a ‘neighbourhood’ policy towards other countries, some of which may want to join in the future. Enlargement illustrates the success of the European model of integration. It has also provided the EU with a powerful tool to influence domestic politics in would-be members. But enlargement also poses fundamental challenges. It has implications both for how the EU works (its structure and institutions) and for what it does (its policies). The chapter first compares ‘widening’ and ‘deepening’ before discussing enlargement as soft power. It then explains how the EU has expanded and why countries want to join. It also looks at prospective member states: the Balkan countries, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland. Finally, it examines the European Neighbourhood Policy.

5. Key Policies

This chapter examines some of the most important areas of policy-making in the European Union. It first explains how EU policy-making differs from national policy-making before discussing the most important policies aimed at building the internal market and limiting its potentially negative impact on individuals, society, and the environment. The EU’s ‘market-building’ policies include competition policy, trade policy, and the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), while ‘market-correcting’ and ‘cushioning’ policies include the common agricultural policy, the cohesion policy, and environmental and social regulation. The chapter shows how these policies are made and also why and how they matter. It also compares policy types in the EU.

10. Brexit and the Future of Two Unions

This chapter considers the impact of the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) decision to leave the EU. In June 2016, the UK held a referendum on continuing its EU membership. The UK voted to leave the EU by a narrow margin, but one large enough for its new Prime Minister (after David Cameron, who called the referendum, resigned), Theresa May, to call ‘Brexit’ (the process of Britain exiting the EU) ‘the settled will of the British people’. The result sent shock waves across Europe. This chapter seeks to explain how and why the Brexit vote occurred and what might happen—both to the UK and to the EU—as a result. Possible outcomes of the negotiations on Brexit are considered with a view to assessing their impact on the UK, the EU, and the future of European integration.

7. Democracy in the European Union

This chapter examines the democratic credentials of the European Union by asking whether it matches some key features common to many modern democratic systems: representation (whether legislation is adopted by representative assemblies); separation of powers; the executive’s democratic accountability; respect for fundamental rights; and whether competing political parties offer voters genuine choice. The chapter also clarifies some key concepts and terms such as bicameralism, democratic deficit, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Furthermore, it considers an alternative to representative democracy: the organizing of referenda to settle issues. Finally, it discusses the EU’s provisions for helping national parliaments scrutinize the participation of their government in EU institutions.

6. How Policies Are Made

This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient, before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.

4. Member States

This chapter focuses on the member states of the European Union. It first considers six factors that determine how a state engages with the EU: the date of entry, size, wealth, state structure, economic ideology, and integration preference. It then examines how member states behave in the EU’s institutions and seek to influence the outcome of negotiations in Brussels. It also discusses the informal and formal activities of the member states before concluding with an overview of the insights offered by theory in analysing the relationship between the EU and its member states. The chapter clarifies some key concepts and terms such as Europeanization, acquis communautaire, and flexible integration, and explains how the EU’s intergovernmental conferences work.

1. Introduction

This introductory chapter discusses the practical and analytical reasons for studying the European Union. It also considers some of the main conceptual approaches to understanding the EU: international relations approaches; the comparative politics approach; the sociological/cultural approach; and the public policy approach. Furthermore, it outlines three broad themes that help the reader make sense of the EU: experimentation and change; power sharing and consensus; and scope and capacity. Finally, it provides an overview of the chapters that follow, which cover topics ranging from an historical overview of the EU’s development to the EU’s relations with the wider world, EU enlargement, the EU’s foray into security policy, and the EU’s growing role as a global actor.

9. The EU as a Global Actor

The European Union’s ambitions to be a global power are a surprising by-product of European integration. Students of European foreign policy mostly focus on EU trade, aid, and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). But the national foreign policy activities of its member states cannot be neglected. On most economic issues, the EU is able to speak with a genuinely single voice. It has more difficulty showing solidarity on aid policy but is powerful when it does. The Union’s external policy aspirations now extend to traditional foreign and security policy. But distinct national policies persist, and the EU suffers from fragmented leadership. The chapter begins by considering the development of EU foreign policy and then considers how a national system of foreign policies exists alongside EU policies in the area of trade and international development. It then examines the EU’s CFSP and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

2. How Did We Get Here?

This chapter focuses on the historical development of the European Union. The history of the EU began when European governments responded to a series of domestic, regional, and global challenges after the Second World War by establishing new transnational institutions in order to accelerate political and economic integration. These challenges ranged from post-war reconstruction to the Cold War, and then to globalization. Driven largely by mutually compatible national interests, Franco-German bargains, and American influence, politicians responded by establishing the European Communities in the 1950s and the EU in the 1990s. The chapter examines the Schuman Plan, the European Defence Community, the European Community, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), enlargement, constitution building, and the Eurozone crisis.