Bilateralism and European integration: a side effect of the polycrisis in the EU?

Abstract

This panel questions the relationship between this intensification of bilateralism and European integration in times of crisis. In the past decade, European capitals have sought to intensify their bilateral links, in the field of foreign policy, security and defence, but also in sectoral areas such as migration and border control, fisheries, trade, scientific cooperation. Brexit and the increased differentiation at the EU’s borders with Switzerland, Norway or Iceland, have led to a strengthening of bilateral ties between EU member states and third countries as well as between EU member states i.e. Quirinal treaty between France and Italy. So far scholarship has studied bilateralism as a strategy for EU member states to upload their preferences to Brussels (or to block those not matching their preferences), but also as a strategy to move European integration forward (Bulmer and Parkes, 2007), focusing for instance on the importance of a strong Franco-German or Franco-British relationship (Mattelaer, 2019). The Eurozone debt crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, have led to a revival of bilateralism, often with a policy-oriented objective (Mattelaer, 2019) which support further (coordinative) europeanisation (Ladi and Wolff, 2021). To what extent has the ‘polycrisis’ led to a renewal of bilateralism amongst EU member states or with non-EU MS? What is the purpose of this renewed bilateralism, and what is its relationship with politicisation and European integration? Is this trend a feature of the ‘polycrisis’ or more widely of a crisis of ‘multilateralism’ as argued by Newman (2006)? Or is it supporting further Europeanisation, or rather hindering it?

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