Is European Integration Imperialist?

A common charge of Eurosceptics is that the project of European Integration constitutes a form of imperialism. This charge surfaced during the Eurozone Crisis; it was reiterated by “Leavers” during the Brexit campaign; and it can be heard today in Hungary and Poland in the face of EU efforts to enforce the rule of law. A charge of “imperialism” is a powerful rallying cry in Western democracies. Imperialism is widely held to be an invidious ideology, which has been employed to legitimate coercion, non-democratic forms of government, and ethnocultural hierarchy. Few western intellectuals would willingly describe themselves as “imperialists.” Conversely, anti-imperialism is a powerful oppositional ideology, a street-filling cry, embraced by peoples eager to free themselves, claim self-governance, and assert their equality and particularity. Granted the normative vector that imperialism as an ideology inhabits, any description of European Integration as imperialist has a potent delegitimating force. Yet this description is not altogether eccentric. Certain dimensions of the European project are imperialist. The EU is notoriously undemocratic; the acquis communitaire imposes a body of law that disallows conflicting laws and practices; and the EU privileges a particular form of market economy. Perhaps nowhere is the charge of imperialism more warranted than in the use the EU makes of “conditionality.” To its critics, this mode of governance is cruel and exploitative (a common charge during, for example, the Greek Crisis). In short, anyone who wishes to defend the European Project must wrestle with imperialism as a political ideology. This paper considers two responses to the imperialist critique. One, rebuttal; the other, revaluation. Ultimately, the paper argues in support of revaluation. It defends the thesis that the project of European integration is best thought of as a form of liberal political incorporation: a justifiable—but doubtless still controversial—modern form of imperialism.