One Crisis, Two Paradigms and the Transformation of the European Union
Europe in Time of Crisis: A Perspective on the Future of the European Union, Gabriele De Angelis, ed., Peter Lang, 2014
21 Pages Posted: 6 Apr 2014
Date Written: April 5, 2014
Abstract
The Lisbon Treaty, although representing a step forward compared to the prior situation, has nevertheless proved to be insufficient for making the EU an actor with the tools and the will for facing its financial and economic challenges. The EU has had to rethink its own institutional system, introducing significant changes in the area dealing with economic governance that have deepened integration between member states adopting the euro. How should these institutional changes introduced in the economic governance framework be interpreted? The Chapter will proceed as follows. In the first paragraph, it will describe the effects of the crisis. In the second paragraph, it will introduce the two main paradigms (intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism) used for interpreting the EU and its transformation. In the third paragraph, it will critically discuss and compare those two paradigms. In the fourth paragraph, it will show that the institutional transformation of the EU fits neither of the two paradigms. Finally, in the conclusion, the Chapter will raise the need to elaborate a different paradigm for understanding what the EU has and might become.
Keywords: Euro crisis, intergovernmentalism, neo-functionalism, institutional transformation
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