European Integration
Powerpoint Session 1: 08/02
The 3 worlds of European Integration:
Integration of states: Why do states integrate?
o International relations
o Bottom up
Functioning of the EU/ EU Governance
o Comparative politics
o How does it work?
o Within
Impact of the EU on member states
o Comparative politics
o Top down
3 generations of EU studies:
Bottom up
o Theories from IR try to explain why sovereign states integrate
o (Neo-)functionalism, intergovernmentalism, …
Within:
o Theories from CP try to understand the functioning and the output (governance)
of the EU as a political system
o Policy analysis, institutionalism
Top down:
o Europeanization tries to explain how and to what extent the EU integration
process has got impact on the member states
Integration vs functioning of the EU:
History of the European Integration:
o What is the degree of integration?
o Why do sovereign states integrate?
o Theories from IR/EI
Functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism
Functioning of the EU/ EU as a political system/ EU governance
o How does EU decision-making work?
o Who determines policy contents?
o Theories from CP
Institutionalism, policy networks, multi-level governance, …
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,Major achievements of the EU:
Supranational cooperation
Trade
Courts
Democracy
Intergovernmentalism
Peace and security
o Major achievement
Freedom
o Liberal democracy
o The EU pretends to be a democracy
o Rule of Law
o Freedom of speech, …
o Promotion of Human Right
o Schengen Area
Small village in Luxemburg
Symbolizes the free movement
The open borders with the EU
Economy, trade, the single market
o Open borders within travel but also within trade (goods, capital, services, …)
o Free trade within the EU, the single market, all the spin off policies that started
from this core idea ‘the single market’
Policy outputs
o Erasmus
Common market
o The Euro
Most pressing challenges for the EU:
China
Migration policies
Brexit
Inequality
US
Trade
o Related with China an the US
Economic issues
o The financial crisis still has a lot of repercussions today
Climate issues
Health policies
European (Dis)Integration?
Some leaders are criticizing the EU
o Related to migration and other aspects
Some say that Europe is being abducted by nationalist and populist groups
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,Powerpoint: Session 2: 15/02
Theories of European Integration
David Mitrany: A working Peace System (1943):
Legacy of the failed LON: nationalism as the cause of war
Eliminate nationalism by making states work together
Establishment of a series of international functional (sectoral) agencies
Expectation that states will discover the benefits of cooperation and that inceasing
cooperation will refrain states from acting independently
Political elites and eventually citizens will be socialized in an international environment
Depoliticization of the power transfer, bureaucratic process
No aim to build regional or worldwide federations
Depoliticized way
We need to start to cooperate in a number of agencies and these will make clear to the
states that cooperation delivers a positive effect and that it is beneficial to cooperate
We don’t need a political ground of manifestation, that won’t work
o We need a behind the scenes bureaucratic processes that will organize
international cooperation
o If this works the states will see that it is the better way than conflicts or war
Altiero Spinelli and the European Union of Federalists:
Legacy of the Resistance Movements of WWII
Ventotetene Manifesto (1941): call for a European Federation
Explicit aim of a transfer of political authority: abolishment of the sovereign nation-
states & creating of a European federation, political project
European Congress (The Hague 1948) failed to establish the expected federation
Resistance movement of WW2
Ventotene Manifesto
Politician
We need politicians to step up, to show leadership en to show the way
o Differs from Mitrany, Mitrany said no political ground
Ultimate aim: united federation
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, Jean Monnet: Functional Federalism
Technocrat & planner
Context
o Economic reconstruction of France
o The need to control German economic reconstruction
Establishment of supranational institutions to make states mutually dependent
Start with strategic sectors & add other sectors later:
o Spill over
Ultimate aim is a political union by starting with economic integration
One of the founding fathers of European integration
Civil servant
Worked behind the scenes for many governments before the second WW and during
the war he started working for the government again when the war was over
Common institutions were important
For western Europe to be rebuild, to be economically reconstructed, it needs to be
done in all the countries
o To overcome the distrussed that Germany would do it all by itself there need
to be common institutions so that they would become mutually depend to
each other
o So that there can’t be war anymore but cooperation
o To have economic cooperation that would entangle and make member states
of this supranation institutions so much entangled with each other so that it’s
really hard to fight differences out by military means
Needs to be done very gradually
o It will take many years
o The aim is to have a political union
But this needs to grow
It needs to start small, with a couple of strategic economic sectors,
make clear that this works and when these first sectors show that
they’re beneficial than the members of this supranation institution will
add more sectors until it becomes clear that there needs to be
economical integration but also political integration
He was a thinker so he couldn’t implement this
o He didn’t take any decisions
o He didn’t have the legitimacy to take decisions, but he was extremely
legitimate
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