Different Crises, Similar Reactions: The Integration of Core State Powers in the Debt and Refugee Crises Compared

We compare the causes and political responses to the EU’s debt and refugee crises. In both cases, states were faced with intensive distributive conflicts over the integration of core state powers which made the EU brittle and vulnerable. We analyze four crisis responses: renationalization was excluded because of uncertain benefits and certain costs, ostentatious regulatory tightening and too-little-too-late capacity buidling were combined because of distributive conflict and high politicization, and orchestration of third parties was chosen as a short-term emergency solution which makes the EU dependent on others and postpones crisis resolution. We conclude by arguing that this is a structural constellation in a politically and economically heterogeneous union which makes the solution of the underlying conflict through the creation of European capacities more difficult than in the field of market integration.