The European regional system: A case of unstable equilibrium?

Abstract

Most studies of European integration focus specifically on the European Union (EU). A fuller understanding of the process of integration, however, is achieved by looking at a broader group of states that comprise a ‘European regional system’. The EU ‐ or, arguably, the original six member states ‐ constitute the core of this regional system, the outer limits of which are indistinct or ‘fuzzy’. The regional system comprises, besides the EU itself, a grouping of states at its perimeter that feel the gravitational pull of its economy: they seek unimpeded access to its markets, and may rely upon it for investment funds. In order to improve market access and to encourage the inflow of investment, these states tend to adapt to, or align with, EU policies and law. In this way, the EU becomes rule‐maker for the whole of the regional system; a politically asymmetrical relationship emerges between the EU and its associate members. As this occurs, a Europe that in the late 1950s divided into the EEC and the EFTA groupings (the Six and the Seven), has coalesced again into a single fuzzy‐edged system centred on the EU, with gradations of membership in which partial adherents preserve varying degrees of autonomy. The thesis developed in this article is that the EU (a ‘compound polity’ that is highly institutionalized, with clear boundaries) and the European regional system (built up through, or at least formalized in, a series of association agreements between the EU and many of its neighbours; weakly institutionalized; with indistinct boundaries) develop together and influence each other. While the EU shapes the regional system, states at its perimeter also affect the development of the EU as a compound polity, especially through the enlargement process. It is not easy for the EU to put the brakes on the process through which weaker forms of association are transformed into stronger ones, and through which associate members gain eligibility for full membership. Continued expansion, however, risks overburdening the EU economically and paralyzing it politically. The prospect exists, therefore, of a compound polity that is unwieldy by virtue of its size and diversity, overbuilt institutionally relative to the degree of public support it has, but underbuilt institutionally relative to the policy challenges it faces.