Abstract
This introductory chapter formulates the book’s motivating puzzle and research question: Why has there been such great variation in the outcomes of European integration crises? While conventional wisdom suggests that crises lead to “more” integration and eventually an ever-closer Union, the empirical record shows much greater variation. Moreover, European integration theories are unable to explain this variation. Against this background, this chapter introduces the book’s theoretical framework including three explanatory factors and the way they are expected to interact. The book also explicates its main contributions: (1) a systematic and comprehensive assessment of major crises over the entire European integration process; (2) the introduction and testing of a novel theoretical framework to explain variation in crisis outcomes; (3) the combination of within-case analysis and cross-case comparisons to demonstrate differences as well as similarities between the various crises and their outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
Speech by President Jean-Claude Juncker at the Annual General Meeting of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), 21 June 2016. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_16_2293.
- 2.
Such were the words, for instance, of the German Chancellor at that time. “Angela Merkel: Coronavirus ‘biggest test’ yet for EU.” Politico, 6 April 2020. https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-coronavirus-biggest-test-yet-eu/
- 3.
I mostly use the term “EU” throughout the book for better readability and do not refer to its various predecessor organizations, namely the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), which were often summarized as European Communities or just the European Community. Formally, the EU was only established in 1993.
- 4.
Such an interpretation comes close to the popular notion of “never wast[ing] a good crisis”, which is attributed alternatively to the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, or the Chief of Staff of former US President Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel. See the discussion at https://www.quora.com/When-where-and-why-did-Winston-Churchill-say-%E2%80%9CNever-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste-%E2%80%9D.
- 5.
Few European integration crises affected the number of member states. Therefore, with regards to crises and their outcomes, most accounts focus on the first two forms of European integration, that is deepening and broadening.
- 6.
In the conclusions, the book will look at four more recent crises with constitutional implications, namely Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, the energy (gas) emergency following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the rule of law crisis.
- 7.
More on the reasoning behind case selection in Chapter 2.
- 8.
Note that “cause” relates to endogenous crises because they are consciously provoked by specific member states and national policymakers. By contrast, “trigger” refers to exogenous crises because they are the consequence of events external to the EU system.
- 9.
Demand and supply-side conditions to explain an outcome of interest feature prominently in the political science literature. For demand and supply conditions in regulatory policymaking, see Majone (1996: 61–79) and Genschel and Jachtenfuchs (2013). For demand and supply conditions in regional (European) integration, see Mattli (1999: 41–57), Tallberg (2006: 19–39), Schoeller (2019: 30–33), and Stone Sweet and Sandholtz (1998).
- 10.
For better readability, I mostly refer to only “Germany” throughout the book. Before the unification of the country in 1990, only the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was a member of the various European communities.
- 11.
On the difference between “minimalist” and “systemic” understandings of process tracing and the underlying causal mechanisms, see Beach and Pedersen (2016: 71–91).
- 12.
In general, the individual crises are well researched, although to different degrees. There is a huge amount of secondary literature notably on the empty chair crisis, the oil crisis, the end of the Cold War crisis, and already on the Euro crisis. By contrast, there is less literature on the EDC crisis, the budgetary rebate crisis, and the Constitutional Treaty crisis. Due to its recent character, there has also been relatively little secondary literature available on the migration crisis.
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Schramm, L. (2024). Crises and European Integration. In: Crises of European Integration. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54748-5_1
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