What Future for the EU? The Contours of a New Narrative for European Integration

The European Union has reached a crossroads. Its further development—even its very survival—faces fundamental challenges. Crises, as Jean Monnet foresaw with remarkable vision, have always driven the integration process and its deepening. However, the EU is currently facing an exceptionally severe set of problems. On the one hand, it faces simultaneous, fundamental challenges, as captured by the frequently used notion of a polycrisis. Moreover, for more than a decade and a half, it has been repeatedly confronted with crises—sometimes changing in nature but often of brutal intensity—a situation aptly described by the concept of permacrisis. Reviewing and systematising these developments is therefore exceptionally important and timely. This volume addresses some of the primary challenges that European integration faces at the present juncture. This chapter provides a framework for the subsequent contributions by offering an overview of the challenges and outlining a new narrative for European integration. European nations formed the European Union (EU) to secure peace and prosperity across the continent. It was a growing, widening and deepening Union that made Europe a continuously integrating continent and brought about transformative changes. The reintegration of Central and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century positioned European firms well to reap the full benefits of globalisation. However, following the Great Financial Crisis, several underlying problems that had gradually accumulated in European integration began to surface. An unbalanced integration without corresponding institutional improvements has failed to produce fair and sustainable development. Brexit and a rapid decoupling from Russia turned the EU into a shrinking Union on a disintegrating continent. These developments do not position the EU well for an emerging new geopolitical and geo-economic order characterised by the rapid rise of China, the growing potential for a conflict between the US and China, and the marginalisation of multilateralism. The new narrative contoured in this chapter presents an opportunity to turn the tables and reverse these negative trends, securing fair and sustainable development in Europe. However, a precondition for the successful implementation of the reforms involved is to agree on institutional structures that can guarantee unified and effective decision-making and operations.