From EU Governance of Crisis to Crisis of EU Governance: Regulatory Failure, Redistributive Conflict and Eurosceptic Publics

Financial crisis, euro crisis, Greek crisis, Crimean crisis, Ukraine crisis, Syria crisis, migration crisis – even the greatest optimist cannot deny that Europe has been suffering through a whole series of crises ever since the Lehman Brothers bank collapsed in 2008. EU scholars and pundits agree that Europe has failed to govern the multiple crises because the European Union has been too weak to prevent the breakdown of banks, contain sovereign debt, generate economic growth, create new jobs, promote stability and democracy in its Southern and Eastern neighbourhood, stop transnational terrorism, and fight climate change. Some even argue that the EU has not only failed to provide solutions but that is actually part of the problem undermining the capacity of its Member States to effectively and democratically govern their markets and societies in the 21 st century (Majone, 2014; Scharpf, 2015). Although some Eastern European governments may have been most outspoken in claiming that not more but less Europe is the only way to get out of the various crises and avert catastrophe in the future, Dutch, Danish and British politicians, however, have voiced similar arguments supporting David Cameron’s symbolic request to exempt the UK from the goal of ‘an ever closer union’ in the preamble of the Treaties to avoid Brexit.

Relevant Posts

• Van Rompuy, Herman, Emmanouilidis, Janis A., Zulegg. Fabian, (2017), “Europe’s Reform Opportunity”, Project Syndicate, 6 April
• Hennette, Stéphanie, Sacriste, Thomas Piketty Guillaume, Vauchez, Antoine, (2017), “For A Treaty Democratizing Euro Area Governance”, Social Europe, 27 April