The European Union and its Crises: Through the Eyes of the Brussels Elite

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 10
Part I: Introduction......Page 12
1 Trials by Fire: The EU and Its Crises......Page 14
Crises and the integration of Europe......Page 18
Sounding European elites: Analyses of the EU......Page 31
Part II:  Europeans’ Thinking about Crisis......Page 40
The golden age – 1985 and after......Page 42
The complicated consequences of success......Page 44
The real problems are economic......Page 49
Backbone problems?......Page 52
The ‘more and better social policy’ puzzle......Page 54
Preparing the fifth enlargement......Page 58
Triumphs . . .......Page 62
Trials and uncertainties . . .......Page 63
Enlargement, institutions, and politics......Page 67
4 Flight of the Member States......Page 71
‘Member states are not doing what they are supposed to do!’......Page 73
5 Institutions: Virtues, Vices, and Rebalancing......Page 85
How the institutions became the issue......Page 86
6 Bringing the People with Us......Page 104
Referendums and democratic deficits......Page 105
The ‘real’ problems . . .......Page 108
What really is wrong, then?......Page 113
Surviving the EU’s crises......Page 118
The worlds of the EU are changing......Page 121
New outlooks for a new world?......Page 123
Part III:  A Global Crisis......Page 134
Economic problems as facts of EU life......Page 136
Enlargement: An EU success with perverse consequences?......Page 139
Member states in retreat......Page 141
Shifting institutions......Page 143
Legitimacy problems......Page 145
Turning outward......Page 148
Crisis, crises......Page 150
9 The Great Recession as Reality Test......Page 152
Bailouts, stimulus plans, regulation......Page 153
Beware of Greeks bearing debts: Crisis within the Crisis......Page 159
And then came the Irish......Page 163
Reforming EMU?......Page 165
Other matters, other problems......Page 167
Legitimacy, futures, and faith......Page 171
Appendix: List of Respondents......Page 175
Notes......Page 179
Bibliography......Page 208
Index......Page 217