Introduction: Integration Through Crises

The introductory paper to this Special Issue discusses the idea of crisis in relation to European integration from a historical perspective in order to contextualize four different current events in the European Union (EU) in turn – euro area crisis, migration crisis, Brexit, and the rise of populist responses to EU governance. We turn to the wider scholarly concept of ‘crisis’ and apply it to large-scale events affecting the EU, in order to relate events to broader theoretical discussions about the progression of the EU. Existing literature on the topic highlights different varieties of crisis scenarios: those that undermine the basic integrity of the undertaking; those that threaten certain domains or the activities of certain groups; and those that reflect short-term, but acute dangers that may be overcome without structural damage. This introductory contribution situates each of the four above-mentioned ‘crises’ in the context of these varieties and offers suggestions for how each crisis might influence the future direction of European integration by using illustrations from each of the articles in this special issue.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v12i1.1230

Editorial: Governing the EU's climate and energy transition through the 2030 Framework

The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was a founder member of the European integration process, namely the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) created in 1952. However, the circumstances were very different from the 2010s. Germany was a divided and defeated state until 1990. Integration provided important political and economic support to West Germany. From the 1970s, it strengthened the FRG’s foreign policy reach, for the new state was constrained by Cold War politics as well as other legacies, notably the Holocaust. European integration provided a framework for building trust with western neighbors, particularly France. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989 and its absorption into the FRG through unification in 1990 brought about significant change to Germany’s relationship to European integration. The unified Germany became the largest member state. Initial concerns about German power in Europe were allayed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl pursuing deeper integration to bind the unified Germany further to integration: through creating the European Union (EU) itself and setting a course toward monetary union. Specific concerns about German power only really emerged in the 2010s, as the EU was bedeviled by several crises. In seeking to offer a comprehensive understanding of Germany’s relationship with the EU, coverage is organized around four broad themes: the historical dimension of the relationship; the substance of Germany’s European policy; the sources of Germany’s European policy; and Germany’s role and power in the EU. The historical dimension of Germany’s relationship with European integration is important as a first theme. It is no exaggeration to suggest that European integration helped emancipate the FRG from the historical legacy of turbulent relations with France, Nazi tyranny, and the opprobrium of the Holocaust. European integration afforded a complementary framework for Germany’s political and economic order. The importance of embedding German unification in a context of European integration should not be underestimated. Germany’s European policy has displayed considerable consistency up to the contemporary era. Support for further integration, for enlargement, the market order, and the development of an EU “civilian power” have been key components. These policies are important contributors to understanding Germany’s role in the EU: the second theme. The political and economic system of the FRG forms an important backdrop to understanding Germany’s policy and role in the EU: the third theme. From the 1960s until the 2010s, EU membership was subject to cross-party consensus and permissive public support. These circumstances allowed the federal government autonomy in pursuing its European policy. However, the political climate of European policy has become much more contested in the 2010s. Germany’s role was placed in the spotlight by the succession of crises that have emerged within the EU and in its neighborhood in the 2010s, particularly the eurozone and migration crises. The fourth theme explores how the question of German power re-emerged. These four themes are important to understanding Germany’s role in the EU, especially given Berlin’s centrality to its development.

Using Voting Advice Application (VAA) data from the EU Profiler/euandi Trend File, we studied how parties’ positions towards European integration relate to their positions on other important issues, and how this varies across EP elections, and between European regions. We hypothesized that the association between parties’ EU-integration positions and their positions on other issues was affected by the three major crises that hit the European Union (EU) between 2009 and 2019: the economic, migration, and climate crises. Additionally, we hypothesized that the economic and migration crises asymmetrically affected the association between cultural and economic issues on the one hand and the EU dimension on the other across the EU’s three macro regions (NWE, SE, and CEE). Our results show that neither the economic crisis nor the migration crisis or the climate crisis had an EU-wide impact on how European integration relates to other issue dimensions. As we hypothesized, economic issues were particularly strongly linked to EU-integration positions in SE in 2014, but our results additionally indicated that the longstanding interpretation of EU integration as a mainly economic issue in SE diminished after the start of the migration crisis. Finally, EU integration became related to immigration issues in CEE while this is not the case in the other regions. The main takeaway is that EU integration is interpreted differently by parties across the EU, which is important to recognize for parties that seek to work together in transnational party groups, and for scholars that aim to understand EU policy making.

The European Union (EU) migration crisis has been part and parcel of a conglomerate of crises that have affected the EU since the late 2000s, as have the financial and sovereign debt crisis, “Brexit,” the Russia–Ukraine conflict, as well as tensions within transatlantic relations. Scholarship on the EU has devoted much attention in assessing what the migration crisis means for EU integration at large. In particular, EU scholars are interested why the migration crisis has led to political gridlock and a renationalization of border controls rather than a deepening of integration. While they differ in their explanations, these explanations shed light on different aspects of the crisis and are far from mutually exclusive. Scholars who are more interested in the area of EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) largely agree with EU theorists that the field suffers from an incomplete governance design, the dominance of EU member states, and weak supranational capacities. Their analysis also focuses on intra-EU dynamics but offers a more nuanced empirical assessment of relevant EU institutions and decision-making in the course of managing the migration crisis. This growing body of research produces valuable insights and largely confirms existing scholarship, including that on the growing securitization and externalization of EU asylum and migration policy. The EU’s understanding as a norm-based power is particularly challenged by the migratory movements in the wake of the crisis. A small but growing scholarship analyses how the EU is balancing its non-entrée policy with its legal obligation, and what kind of governance arrangements result from that. While this scholarship has enriched our understanding of the EU migration crisis, it has not generated a major refinement of the standard approaches of EU theorists and JHA scholars. To further enrich the literature on the migration crisis, scholars should go beyond studying the dynamics of EU decision-making and the role of EU institutions. Such an approach should engage more systematically with international actors and institutions that have the capacity to influence EU migration policy. At the same time, global phenomena such as war, poverty, or climate change should also be taken into account in assessing the EU’s room for maneuver in handling migratory pressures. Future research on the migration crisis as well as on migration challenges should thus not only connect with other subfields of political science, such as policy analysis or international relations, but also open up to other disciplines such as law, demography, or environmental studies.

Approximately one million people used the Mediterranean Sea routes to reach the European Union (EU) and seek asylum in 2015. The vast majority of these people used the eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to EU member state, Greece. They continued along the Western Balkans route to re-enter the EU, either through the Republic of Croatia (Croatia) or Hungary. In March 2016, the Western Balkans route was declared closed by EU representatives. These border closures coincided with the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement. Agreements between the EU, Turkey, and the countries of the Western Balkans ended the influx of people seeking asylum in the EU. More people lost their lives trying to reach the EU to seek asylum in 2016 than in 2015 using alternative routes to the eastern Mediterranean route, such as the central Mediterranean route, and there are increasingly more people seeking asylum being detained in Turkey and Greece. In addition, as of May 2019, there were just under 4000 people waiting in limbo in the Republic of Serbia, most of whom were in the recently opened ‘migrant reception and transit centres,’ while over 500 people are estimated to be camping close to borders with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Hungary. My hypothesis is that by strengthening the EU’s external borders for people seeking asylum, the EU has attempted to restrict access to asylum and the arrival of people in need of international protection in Europe. The ‘saving lives’ rhetoric, which is the purported aim of policies such as the EU-Turkey Statement, does not appear to capture fully the motivations of EU actors or acknowledge the impacts of EU actions on people seeking asylum. It is important to delve deeper into the consequences of the EU and individual member state responses to the 2015 influx of people seeking asylum in order to (i) analyse for whom these measures ensure security, (ii) determine why they have been implemented, and (iii) describe how these measures impact on the right to asylum. This thesis employs the theoretical framework of securitisation to analyse the reasons behind the closure of the Western Balkans route and the EU-Turkey Statement in order to identify the dominant security paradigm and how securitisation impacts access to asylum in Europe. The consequences of the EU-Turkey Statement and the closure of the Western Balkans route suggest that providing protection for people seeking asylum is not imperative in the EU and reinforces the narrative of only EU citizens deserving freedom and security from the perceived ‘threat’ of unmanaged migration. To test my hypothesis that the ‘saving lives’ rhetoric is misleading, I collected empirical data in the form of interviews from government officials along the Western Balkans route, Greece and Hungary, as well as non-governmental organisations, and intergovernmental organisations. In addition to empirical research, I conducted a doctrinal analysis of EU regulatory frameworks and provide a background analysis of EU law concerning matters of migration and asylum and its increasingly restrictive tendencies, as well as that of the countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey. I used triangulation to validate my findings. This thesis presents how European governments fuelled the 2015 ‘migration crisis’ with their mismanagement and reluctance to work together to resettle and relocate people from Turkey and out of Europe’s ‘hot spots.’ Empirical data shows that people seeking asylum are not perceived by the interviewees of this research as a real(ist) existential threat, but that their presence has been constructed as ‘burdening’ and threatening in other ways, such as to the labour market, social services and religious and cultural makeup of European society. The ‘crisis’ and threat of undocumented migration was used for electoral benefits and to reinforce the power and control of EU governments, institutions and agencies. The year 2015 brought the plight of millions of people displaced around the world to Europe’s doorstep. In order to ‘save lives,’ European governments, institutions and agencies mobilised to secure the borders to prevent people from drowning at sea. Stronger border security, however, has resulted in adverse consequences: an increase in smuggling, more dangerous alternative pathways, and has externalised the EU border, restricting access to asylum on European territory. While tragic, the majority of interviewees viewed the influx as a ‘crisis’ and ‘threat’ predominantly in terms of the numbers and irregularity (transit) – and not in the number of lives lost. Measures implemented in 2016 as a result of the 2015 influx privilege the security of EU citizens over those in need of international protection.

This article explores the integration of the European Union (EU) as an institution after the 2015–2016 migrant crisis. Qualitative data from elite interviews in Brussels and policy analysis, in the framework of a bigger project about the impact of the migrant crisis on European integration, highlight EU learning about new integration modes as a key theme following the crisis. The article focuses on this theme and argues that EU integration has been happening through intensive learning after the migrant crisis, whereby the EU has been exploring a combination of certain integration modes: shaping the relationships with candidate countries by restraining from enlargement; shaping the relationships with (prospectively) exiting Member States by considering fuzziness at the borders; and exploring differentiation among the existing Member States, possibly through promoting a two-tier EU, instead of universal deepening. A key contribution lies in applying the notion ‘learning’ to understanding EU integration modes specifically after the migrant crisis.

The causes and consequences of the Euro crisis have led comparative political economy scholars to question whether European integration can accommodate diverse models of capitalism. This special issue addresses two important questions about the compatibility of diverse growth models within the European Union (EU): Are some growth regimes better suited to European integration than others? and does the EU favour a particular constellation of domestic institutions? Contributions within this special issue provide a qualified yes to these questions, concluding that the EU favours export-led growth models whilst it penalises and discourages domestic consumption-oriented growth paths, particularly those that are financed by debt accumulation. While recent comparative capitalism literature highlights that European monetary integration has favoured export-led growth regimes, contributions in this special issue outline that the EU's prioritisation of export-led growth over domestic demand-led growth is present in other facets of integration, including EU accession, financial integration, the free movement of people, fiscal governance and the Europe 2020 growth strategy. Findings here provide important insights for both the European integration and comparative capitalism literature, highlighting that the unique economic ties being forged within the European project may be problematic for those countries outside northwestern Europe and for workers in low-wage domestic sectors.

ABSTRACTThe causes and consequences of the Euro crisis have led comparative political economy scholars to question whether European integration can accommodate diverse models of capitalism. This special issue addresses two important questions about the compatibility of diverse growth models within the European Union (EU): Are some growth regimes better suited to European integration than others? and does the EU favour a particular constellation of domestic institutions? Contributions within this special issue provide a qualified yes to these questions, concluding that the EU favours export-led growth models whilst it penalises and discourages domestic consumption-oriented growth paths, particularly those that are financed by debt accumulation. While recent comparative capitalism literature highlights that European monetary integration has favoured export-led growth regimes, contributions in this special issue outline that the EU’s prioritisation of export-led growth over domestic demand-led growth is present in other facets of integration, including EU accession, financial integration, the free movement of people, fiscal governance and the Europe 2020 growth strategy. Findings here provide important insights for both the European integration and comparative capitalism literature, highlighting that the unique economic ties being forged within the European project may be problematic for those countries outside northwestern Europe and for workers in low-wage domestic sectors.

The present paper starts by sketching the European Union (EU)’s democracy problems that have aggravated in light of the euro area crisis, the unprecedented complexity of the (re-)distributive issues involved and the role of non-majoritarian institutions. Against this backdrop, it seeks to direct attention to issues that serve as preconditions for effective decision and policy making in a community of diverse composition, namely a sense of belonging to this community. This will be referred to as the ‘culturalist’ argument throughout the paper. Concerning the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the ongoing correction of design flaws, the article will argue that the allocation of powers does not only have to meet functional criteria (which will be referred to as the ‘functional–rationalist’ argument), but is also to be supported by EU citizens in a less technical sense. It is submitted that this support can be facilitated by developing multiple identities based on multiple allegiances of citizens that combine both the acceptance of powers of their states and of the powers assigned to the EU. Both sorts of identities are functionally different and are to be distinguished on the basis of the transnational element involved. In order to shape multiple identities in a sustainable fashion which are meant to legitimize political authority, the outright recognition of diversity within the EU appears indispensable.

European Security and Defence Identity, ie the capacity of the European Union (EU) to address the urgent migrant crisis is analyzed in the light of the legal aspects of the mechanisms envisaged by the founding treaties, especially the valid EU Treaty of Lisbon (2009). At the beginning of the XXI century, the EU has been hit by several successive crises. Those are the world financial crisis of 2007, whose source was the US financial market, the debt crisis of Greece, which lasts from 2008 and which has escalated in the summer of 2015, and in particular the case of the refugees’ crisis. The mentioned events have shown that incomplete sovereignty of the EU, caused by a slowdown in building a European federal state prevents it from having adequate responses to emergencies. Because of its inter-governmental and confederal features, the EU cannot act in a fast, unified and adequate way in migrant crisis, as well as in other challenges in a globalized world. More and more there are rumours and calls for the formal, ie the official abolition of the Schengen Agreement, which is a legal symbol of the space without borders among member states, and in a situation of raising concrete and wire fences at border crossings between these same countries and in the midst of their mutual accusations of a lack of solidarity in the management of refugees. The abolition of Schengen in late 2015 happened in a factual manner (de facto), which is non-institutional way and without formal decisions at the level of the Union. The situation is even more sharpened when one takes into account the negative safety dimensions of the migrant crisis. The EU Member States by refusing solidarity announce that they do not want security problems on own territory, which the influx of refugees inevitably brings. Two decisions of the EU (2015), on an equitable distribution of asylum seekers to other Member States, in order to lessen the pressure on Italy, Greece and Hungary meant a temporary suspension of the Dublin asylum system. Dublin asylum system is the most criticized by A. Merkel, the German Chancellor, and also by other EU officials, because it allows the greatest pressure on countries that are on the front line of migrant flows. In her expose, Merkel, with a warning that such asylum system is outdated, called for the introduction of a new common EU asylum system based on a fair distribution of the burden of granting asylum and with the elimination of national egoism. Is it the “Europe - Fortress” underway or the Europe without borders, remains to be seen through the outcome of the migrant crisis in the upcoming mid-term. The absence of security and defense identity and a lack of the EU sovereignty makes the Union inefficient, especially in migrant crisis of unprecedented wealth, thus fostering the debate about the purpose of the EU existence. Famous Jean Monnet, however, said a long tome ago, that the great crisis are also great unifiers, and it remains to be seen whether this visionary idea is to be leading in overcoming the current narrowminded EU approach.

A SHIFT towards interest-driven, opportunity-based and more voluntary actions by combining bottom-up with top-down elements (Falkner, 2016).Interactive learning and experimentation at different levels of global governance have become highly important, and these complex global interactions are increasingly regarded not as obstacles but as opportunities for innovation and interactive learning (Sovacool, 2011).Global climate governance relates not only to the legal system of the climate regime but also to various public and private initiatives at different scales and across sectors.Scholars studying the complex multi-actor and multi-sector characteristics of the system have therefore begun to conceptualize global multi-level climate governance as an opportunity structure for the generation and diffusion of climate-related innovation.The topic of this special issues is climate governance within a multi-level and multi-sectoral global system.The work argues that global climate governance today aims essentially to activate the dynamic potential of each level of the global governance system, the level of world regions as well as the level of provinces and local communities.Horizontal peer-to-peer learning between countries, cities and regions, as well as vertical up-scaling of best practice, has created a dynamic of change.The cross-sectoral approach has become important as far as the mobilizing of economic interests (e.g. in the construction sector) and the use of co-benefits is concerned.This special issue intends to offer a better understanding of the nature and variety of, and linkages between, initiatives taken and governance functions delivered within the broader 'climate governance landscape ' (Betsill et al., 2015).It analyses various climate governance activities in the European Union (EU), India and China through a systemic perspective.The EU may be regarded as the strongest regional sub-system of the global system, although the BRICS countries of China and India play a comparable role, as countries both with a similar scope and with explicit multi-level climate policy activities.The systematic dimension of global climate governance is described in the introductory article 'Multi-level climate governance as a global system' by Martin Jnicke.The author analyses the potential of the global climate governance system, which is characterized by a multiplicity of access points and incentives for innovation and interactive learning.It is regarded as a 'multi-impulse-system', where the sum of even weak impulses from different parts of the system can play the role of a strong instrument.The global multi-level climate governance structure is also characterized by a specific global knowledge base and a global policy arena, allowing for climate-related agenda-setting and the mobilization of interests at each level.It is taken as an opportunity structure for ambitious innovation-based climate strategies based on interactive lesson-drawing from best practice.The lesson to be learned at all levels of the system is the potential for economic co-benefits related to the socio-technical system of clean-energy innovation and the global clean-energy market.The following article, 'The EU system of multi-level climate governance', by Martin Jnicke and Rainer Quitzow provides an overview of the regional structure of the global climate governance system.The authors understand the EU as a system where 'multi-level reinforcement' has been observed several times and which can be considered as a leader by example in global climate governance.They point to the fact that the EU has the world's highest share of green electricity and since 1990 has made the largest reduction to its greenhouse gas emissions.They attribute the EU's relatively successful performance in climate and energy governance to two main factors: (1) multi-level reinforcement and (2) the mobilization of economic interests at different levels of governance through low-carbon industrial policy.While the multi-impulse system has fostered

Essays on the political economy of European integration

THE FUTURE OF THE COMMON SECURITY DEFENCE POLICY AND A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION

Protection of constitutional identity in light of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Poland – a comparative study