European Union

The push-pull factors that have shaped the dynamics of European integration have varied over time. Recent years have witnessed new challenges to the politics and the policy-making of the European Union in the shape of external shocks and internal upheavals that have unsettled the institutional dynamics and policy-making, and pose a potential existential threat to the EU. The continued economic malaise across the member states, the migration crisis, the referendum in the UK, have generated increased questioning about what European integration means for the continent’s peoples. Member state governments, too, demonstrate greater scepticism about the capacity of the Union to deal with internal matters or external challenges. Yet, these same governments remain unclear to what extent the nature of the real challenge lies with institutional dynamics, or a collective European identity crisis in the face of mismatched expectations about the division of authority between the member states and the EU-level. This Section presents Panels and Papers that reflect on how current challenges undermine or enable European integration, including the way in which the intergovernmental-supranational balance plays out, addressing how this has changed, adapted, or stagnated in the context of recent developments in various policy areas. Topics that might be covered in the Section include institutional dynamics (role of institutions, member states, non-state actors), policy areas (economic, social and external policies), identity crisis (including differing national responses and reactions to EU developments, rise of Euroscepticism, likelihood of disillusion and more proposals for ‘secession’), and future enlargement possibilities.