EU theme 3

• EU motto


  United in diversity
• The EU is the most integrated organisation in the world, but also a very contrasted one
• Why the EU can be considered the most integrated region in the world

  • Political integration
  • Economic integration
• Main steps of EU integration

  1. First an economic union (Treaty of Rome 1957)

  2. 1986: Single European Act, first step towards a single market

  3. 1992 Maastricht → European Union
• EU functions like a supranational state


  • Representatives, a budget, a currency (for some members), a nationality, increasingly standardised regulations
• There is a deep trend of political integration in the EU, even if it is criticised by some as a denial of sovereignty and democracy
• Economic integration of the EU


  • Critical mass through enlargements
  • Development of a strong single market: free circulation of capital, goods, people
  • Many European countries use the Euro, the second most-used currency in the global economy
  • The EU is the biggest regional organisation of HICs and has a lot of global economic influence
• EU economic partnerships


  • AELE members
  • Middle-Eastern, North-African countries
  • Asian and Pacific countries
  • CETA with Canada 2017, JEFTA with Japan 2019, Singapore 2019, Mercosur-EU 2019
• The EU is the first region in terms of FDI (inwards and outwards)
• The EU lacks a common foreign/military policy, no army, no diplomacy, no defence policy
• The EU wants to be a normative power


  A power that promotes good practice, supports developing countries, develops humanist values = more soft than hard power
• The EU is the 1st contributor to the budget of the UN and the 1st contributor to development aid
• The EU has had a spectacular enlargement (broader integration) and political union (deeper integration)
• Some consider the EU's integration is too deep
• The values of the EU are debated, with some members (Visegrad group) wanting only economic integration
• Reaching consensus is difficult in the large EU union
• The EU is under pressure from other powers trying to force their own values onto Europe
• The EU uses regional scale (NUTS) for statistical analysis and policies, which is seen by some as a sign of the weakening of the national scale
• Economic disparities in the EU

  • West-east contrast (former communist countries)
  • Richer regions in the centre of the EU, with peripheries
  • Funds from the ERDF show the latest EU members receive the most subsidies
  • Regional disparities have been decreasing when considering the EU as a whole, but increasing within some countries
• The transition of former communist countries to match the liberal standards of the EU was a long-term structural adjustment that required time and money
• Some very unequal countries in the EU are Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania
• Every EU state has "inner peripheries" like the rural Mezzogiorno in Italy, former East-Germany, East of Bulgaria or Romania
• Lagging regions


  Regions that suffer from low growth or low income, often post-industrial or rural areas with high unemployment, poor infrastructure, lack of skilled workforce and hampered accessibility
• There is a concentration of wealth in most capital city regions in the EU
• Some argue the disparities in the EU are what make it economically efficient, as the integration of poorer countries in the 2000s helped cope with Asian competition
• Core/periphery model


  The core and periphery regions in the EU depend on each other, it's not a strictly one-way relation
• Unequal integration in the EU

  • Some areas are cores (well integrated, dynamic, interconnected regions)
  • Other regions are remote and isolated, especially in the East of the continent
  • Some regions near the core are suffering from deindustrialisation and outsourcing
• The enlargement of the EU to Eastern Europe was seen by some as a way for TNCs to outsource without being dependent on Asia
• Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU, with low wages as its main competitive advantage, but also a strategic location and EU subsidies to support its integration
• Dahrendorf's quandary/Rodrik's trilemma


  It is impossible to combine economic competitiveness with social cohesion or political freedom
• The EU aims to combine competitiveness and cohesion, but is often seen as promoting neoliberal policies that betray this original promise
• The EU has a considerable capacity for collective engagement but projects are diffusely managed
• Dahrendorf's quandary


  Dilemma where it is impossible to combine economic competitiveness with social cohesion or political freedom
• Maintaining EU competitiveness in globalisation


  Requires implementing policies that are detrimental to cohesion
• The combination of cohesion and competitiveness is hard to achieve ("managed globalisation"), but the EU considers it as representative of its objectives
• Since the 2008 crisis especially, the EU is often seen as a promoter of neoliberal policies that betray the original promise of managed globalisation
• Europe has a considerable capacity for collective engagement but projects are diffusely managed (huge diversity of objectives, structures and management)
• No European country is powerful enough on its own to compete against giants such as China, India or the US
• Territorial cohesion


  The main objective today for making the EU more cohesive
• Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)


  • Example of a key competitiveness policy implemented by the EU