The limits of European Integration
European Integration:
Where are the limits of European integration? Why?
Unifying Europe has long been a dream of many political thinkers and leaders, even non-European ones, such as Winston Churchill (1946) who dreamed of the establishment of “United States of Europe” in order to avoid wars driven by nationalist ambitions. However, promising Europeans with happiness and economic prosperity for everyone would not be sufficient to trigger political cooperation and goodwill of the European countries in the name of the common good. Jean Monnet and Spinelli had to raise the idea of economic cooperation to make any form of integration possible, as a political pooling of powers seemed hard to envision in the era’s mentality. After this goal was completed by the single market in Maastricht in 1992, European reforms became more focused on the political and institutional aspects of Europe, which demonstrates a shift in the boundaries of European integration.
This raises questions about the flexibility of the European integration process. Under which conditions can member states agree on more delegation of sovereignty to Europe and in what areas are they more likely to put the brakes on this centralized authority?
This paper discusses the effect on functionalist theory on integration and the relationship between economic and political integration to understand how the “deepening” process ensues. Then, we are going to separately identify the limits of political and economical integration to understand the constraints faced by Europe as a union. Finally, in order to explain the impact that those obstacles had on the integration process, we are going to analyze the homogeneity (or heterogeneity) of integration among different member states within the community.
Functionalism as a solution to stretch out cooperation limits
According to Rosamond (2000), Richard von Coudenhove Kalengi exhibited the first integration effort in Europe by writing the manifesto of
Where are the limits of European integration? Why?
Unifying Europe has long been a dream of many political thinkers and leaders, even non-European ones, such as Winston Churchill (1946) who dreamed of the establishment of “United States of Europe” in order to avoid wars driven by nationalist ambitions. However, promising Europeans with happiness and economic prosperity for everyone would not be sufficient to trigger political cooperation and goodwill of the European countries in the name of the common good. Jean Monnet and Spinelli had to raise the idea of economic cooperation to make any form of integration possible, as a political pooling of powers seemed hard to envision in the era’s mentality. After this goal was completed by the single market in Maastricht in 1992, European reforms became more focused on the political and institutional aspects of Europe, which demonstrates a shift in the boundaries of European integration.
This raises questions about the flexibility of the European integration process. Under which conditions can member states agree on more delegation of sovereignty to Europe and in what areas are they more likely to put the brakes on this centralized authority?
This paper discusses the effect on functionalist theory on integration and the relationship between economic and political integration to understand how the “deepening” process ensues. Then, we are going to separately identify the limits of political and economical integration to understand the constraints faced by Europe as a union. Finally, in order to explain the impact that those obstacles had on the integration process, we are going to analyze the homogeneity (or heterogeneity) of integration among different member states within the community.
Functionalism as a solution to stretch out cooperation limits
According to Rosamond (2000), Richard von Coudenhove Kalengi exhibited the first integration effort in Europe by writing the manifesto of
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