Euroscepticism Within the Eu Institutions: Diverging Views of Europe by Nathalie Brack & Olivier Costa

Author:Nathalie Brack & Olivier Costa [Brack, Nathalie & Costa, Olivier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415503495
Google: qCpIXwAACAAJ
Goodreads: 13711165
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-01-15T09:05:35+00:00

European Member State Elites' Diverging Visions of the European Union: Diverging Differently since the Economic Crisis and the Libyan Intervention?

VIVIEN A. SCHMIDT*

Department of International Relations, Boston University, Boston, USA

ABSTRACT In the midst of the EU’s economic crisis and in the heat of the Libyan intervention, immediate concerns have seemingly crowded out consideration of the long-term issues that have been at the center of the major debates, such as the constitutionalization of the EU, enlargement to the east, or the EU as a global actor. But although these issues appear to be forgotten, the underlying questions about what the EU should be and do that nourished the debates remain. Although each member state naturally has its own specific answer to these questions, the answers have more generally divided into four basic discourses about the EU as a free market, a values-based community, a rights-based union, and/or a strategic global actor. Leaders’ visions of the EU have long appeared associated with particular discourses, with these continuing to inform and explain their actions. But their responses to the economic crisis of the EU as well as to the humanitarian crisis of Libya have thrown such discourses, whether understood in terms of path dependence or incremental development, into question, since some member state leaders’ discourses and/or actions marked radical shifts, and others greater drifts, from the past, at least in the heat of the moment. The question this article therefore poses is whether EU visions are not simply continuing to diverge but also whether they are diverging differently in the aftermath of the EU’s recent crises in economics and international action. It will assess this through the lens of European political lites’ discourses of European integration and international relations, with special attention to the three biggest member states, Britain, France, and Germany.

When EU member state leaders meet in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, they bring to the table at least 27 different visions of the EU (not to mention the further divisions within the countries contesting those visions). But despite these country-related differences in vision, European leaders’ discourses about the EU very generally fit into one or more of four basic discourses (the first three discourses follow Eriksen and Folsum 2004 and Sjursen 2007; the fourth, Howorth 2007; see also Schmidt 2009). The first two discourses focus on the nature of European integration. The first of these consists of a pragmatic discourse of the EU as a problem-solving entity promoting free markets and regional security. It is largely characteristic of Britain, Scandinavian countries, Central and Eastern European countries (CEECSs), and to a lesser extent Ireland. This pragmatic discourse is opposed to a normative discourse of the EU as values-based community ensuring solidarity, most identified with France and Germany but also including the other founding members. The second two discourses are much more about the purpose of the EU in the world, although they also refer back to debates about the nature and scope of the EU. These encompass a principled discourse

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